Organised crime groups are sending associates to train as prison officers with the “sole purpose” of smuggling drugs and phones into jail, the Prison Officers’ Association has warned.
The POA, the union representing prison workers, blamed low pay and said online interviews were also contributing to the prison service “hiring the wrong people”.
Drugs remain a huge problem in prisons despite an increase in testing facilities. Woodhill high security prison in Milton Keynes was put into special measures recently after inspectors declared it unsafe, with 38% of prisoners testing positive for drugs.
A POA spokesperson said: “Organised crime groups realise that there’s a lot of money to be made by smuggling contraband into prisons. People can be recruited as a prison officer and go into [the jail] with that sole purpose of bringing contraband in, to make a lot of money. They can do it by themselves or for an organised crime group.”
The spokesperson added: “You get paid to train and you do whatever you want after that. If you have a good run, you don’t get caught and get out after five or six months having made a few bucks. It sounds a bit surreal. But that’s actually happening.”
Asked about the scale of the problem, they said: “In the vast majority of prisons, a lot of young staff could be conditioned into bringing stuff in, and other staff come to us with the sole intended purpose of taking stuff in.”
The age limit to become a prison officer has been reduced substantially over the past 40 years. In 1987, it was lowered from 25 to 20, and then to 18 in 1999 to boost recruitment in London and the south-east in particular. The starting salary increased recently to £30,702, or £35,931 in inner London.
The POA said staff shortages across the prison estate had prompted a cut in the training time from 10 to seven weeks. The Ministry of Justice disputes this, with a source saying that the 10-week course now included elements of “home learning”.
Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons, said it would be reasonable to assume younger officers could be more susceptible to corruption. “The age of officers who are coming through is younger, they used to be 21 minimum and that’s now gone. So you [have] got some very young people coming in. And that’s fine, as many of them are outstanding, but they’re going to need a bit more looking after,” Taylor said.
He added: “There are always two types of corruption [in prisons]. You’ve got the very sophisticated type of corruption, where someone linked with organised crime almost goes in as a sort of sleeper. But most corruption isn’t that – most corruption is that someone naive gets into a relationship, sexual or otherwise, with a prisoner which is inappropriate. And of course, once you’ve been pulled in, it’s very hard to stop.”
Taylor pointed to a case earlier this year at HMP Berwyn in north Wales, where 18 female guards were fired and three were jailed for having relationships with prisoners. “In those cases, you have to ask, were they recruiting the right people? Or were they training these people properly in order to understand the risks of potential corruption?”
The Ministry of Justice says it has made a £100m investment in airport-style security in prisons, buying 97 X-ray body scanners that as of October 2022 had foiled more than 28,000 attempts to smuggle contraband into jails.
But the POA claims these scanners are often not staffed because of a shortage of officers. “They are not manned every day, as mad as it sounds. At certain times of the day they might not be manned. So if you are working with another corrupt officer, he might say to you: ‘There’s no one on the portal today so come through with all the stuff.’”
The POA wants an end to online interviews and a return to in-person panels, including governors. “We are hiring the wrong people and people who can’t even look you in the eye,” said the spokesperson.
The union also wants an increase in the minimum age of prison officers to 21 and better gate security to stop contraband arriving with corrupt officers.
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “We have bolstered the counter-corruption unit that works round the clock to clamp down on the minority who undermine our exemplary service with their dangerous behaviour and we will not hesitate to punish those who break the rules.
“On top of this, we have invested £100m in prison security such as enhanced gate security with X-ray body scanners, which has driven up the finds of drugs, weapons and other contraband.”
