Hundreds of inmates were moved from Birmingham prison on Saturday as the government announced an urgent investigation into conditions and safety inside the privately run jail following a major disturbance.
Up to 240 prisoners were taken from HMP Birmingham as it emerged that a recent independent report into the jail found that staff feared for their personal safety and the security of inmates owing to the proliferation of the notorious psychoactive drug, mamba.
The report by the prison’s independent monitoring board, published two months ago, said more staff were needed, serious violence was increasing and an “urgent” solution was needed to tackle the use of the synthetic cannabis, which can make inmates extremely violent.
As the authorities confirmed that order had been restored, justice secretary Liz Truss promised a “through investigation” that is certain to examine whether drugs inflamed or even caused the violence that began on Friday morning. The 12-hour riot, during which trouble spread across four wings, was described by the Prison Officers Association (POA) as the worst since the Strangeways prison riot in 1990.
An immediate response was to start removing inmates from the prison – one of the UK’s largest, with a capacity of 1,450 – on Saturday. Truss said that the rioters would “face the full force of the law”.
The violence also raised questions over the management of the prison by private firm G4S, which was forced to hand over control to the state prison service on Friday to keep the situation under control. Rodger Lawrence, chairman of the Birmingham prison independent monitoring board, admitted that the violence did not “come as a complete shock”.
The board’s latest assessment of the prison, published in October, states: “Many staff are concerned for their personal safety as well as for the safety of prisoners and how to deal with the next ‘mamba attack’. A solution is required urgently,” it said, adding that “serious incidents of violence” had increased over the past year.
More staff were also desperately needed, highlighting that the jail had “insufficient staff numbers to deal with many day-to-day situations”. It called for a review of the current contract with G4S with regard to staffing levels.
“The board would therefore welcome a review of the level of staffing considered appropriate in the contract, which recognises recent changes in prisoner behaviour and that the prison is not able to guarantee provision of all facilities to all prisoners,” it said.
Friday’s disturbance is the third in English prisons in less than two months amid growing concern over levels of violence in them.
On 6 November, up to 200 inmates of category B Bedford prison went on the rampage, plunging the jail’s gangways into chaotic scenes. Days earlier, on 29 October, a national response unit had to be brought in to control prisoners during an incident at HMP Lewes in East Sussex.
During the violence in Birmingham, windows were reported to have been broken and walls damaged, although sources said the harm had been “superficial”. Mike Rolfe, national chairman of the POA, who last month protested over safety concerns, said more than 30 staff had left the jail in recent weeks and compared the trouble to the notorious Strangeways riot 26 years ago.
“This prison is a tough place to work, it serves a very big area, it serves a large, dangerous population of prisoners, but it’s not unlike many other prisons up and down the country that have very similar inmates,” said Rolfe.
