James Treadwell is professor of criminology at Staffordshire University. His research, commissioned by the Staffordshire Police, Fire & Crime Commissioner, Matthew Ellis, has inspired a groundbreaking multi-agency approach to addressing rising levels of crime within the prison system.
Alongside colleagues from the University of Leicester, Treadwell spent six months speaking to prisoners, prison staff and law enforcement agencies in Staffordshire to better understand criminality in custody and the ability of prisoners to manage organised crime from behind bars.
It has been common, according to Treadwell, for the police to consider their job done once a criminal is behind bars. “Actually, if you put very serious criminals into prison without recognising that they continue to present an ongoing threat, it’s not ‘job done’ at all,” he says. “It’s merely a short stay of adjustment before they’re back to their old ways.”
In Staffordshire – which has more prisons than any other area in the country – Treadwell’s research has led to new recognition that the police and the prison services have a shared mission. As a result, the two agencies have begun working together in new ways.
“There’s a much better understanding of how the police and prison services can cooperate together to get good results,” says Treadwell. “And that’s led to the police commissioners in the Midlands being very much the ones who are feeding into the national government strategy to reduce drug-fuelled violence in prisons.”
At the heart of the research is a drive to understand how crime in prison is changing and the factors that cause it. The researchers spoke to prisoners who’ve been involved in violence against other prisoners, or who’ve been victims of violence in prison. “We looked at what drives that – and it’s not just men living cheek by jowl in complex and difficult environments,” says Treadwell. “A lot of the violence is linked to the illicit economy in prisons and, in particular, the drug market moving inside.”
The fact that prisons are profitable marketplaces is “a story of technological shift and transformation” in itself. New psychoactive drugs, such as spice and black mamba, can be sprayed on to clothing to be smoked, making them hard to detect but easy to transport inside prisons. These substances can also be flown over the wall of a prison using drone technology, while social media and mobile phones enable individuals to coordinate that trade. Consequently, drug use in prisons has become much more prevalent.
“Linked to the growth of drug taking in prisons is the fact that some prisoners – particularly those engaged in organised criminality – wish to try to control that market,” says Treadwell. “Those involved include former prisoners, prisoners, and sometimes the contacts of the prisoners on the outside as well. Essentially, crime in prison, particularly drug crime, has become very, very big business.”
As the organised crime market has moved inside, there has been a decline in prison safety and an explosion of prison-based violence, often tied to the drug economy. The question at the heart of his research is how to police prisons when they’re essentially “a massive market for drug distribution”, and many of the key players aren’t fearful of criminal sanction, since they’re already behind bars.
Part of the answer lies in the prison service better recognising the threats and problems that it faces. “The prison service can often be quite a reactive organisation, so if someone is causing trouble in a prison they can be seen as the problematic prisoner,” Treadwell explains.
“But it’s often the prisoner who’s compliant and seemingly nice to staff who is supplying all the drugs into that wing and running an empire of sorts that intimidates, exploits, threatens, and undermines the good order and discipline of the prison.”
While the system has got better at detecting organised crime, Treadwell says those prisoners create a challenge for a prison service formed in the Victorian period. “There can still be a tendency to think of organised crime as looking like the Krays when, in fact, the world, including organised crime, has moved on considerably.”
Ellis describes the research as a detailed examination of “the very practical challenges” prisons in the West Midlands face daily and says it underpins the importance of all agencies involved with criminal justice working together to achieve their goals. “Doing that would result in a step change in the effectiveness of the whole criminal justice system for our society,” Ellis says. “That work is ongoing and the report serves as a stimulant to do more, understand more and, importantly, understand more about the priorities and challenges in other parts of the same criminal justice system.”
The work fits into a broader picture of groundbreaking academic research at Staffordshire University, which is working to cement its position as a civic university. Treadwell says his work (which includes co-hosting a podcast, Crime Tapes) is driven by the desire to “be curious and daring” and by the recognition that the world is constantly changing.
“The criminal use of drones to supply drugs to prisons was actually very foreseeable, and we can already see how cryptocurrencies will be involved in the drug trade in future, but you’ve got to prepare students to ask the right questions,” he says. “For a long time, those in academia were not looking at the right things, they were patting themselves on the back and congratulating themselves on falling crime, whereas in reality crime had just shifted.”
Ultimately, Treadwell says his research is about making the world a better place. “I want to have prisons where people can be rehabilitated because they’re safe environments,” he says. “Prisons where prisoners aren’t preyed on by drug dealers and violent criminals, and where the state actually runs the prison, and not the mafia.”
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