A surge in attacks linked to Friday prayers and continuing gang conflict are blighting a London prison at the centre of a flagship scheme for cutting violence, a watchdog has warned.
The Independent Monitoring Board for Wormwood Scrubs says there have been “significant improvements” at the jail since its inclusion last year on the Government’s “Ten Prisons Project” for reducing drug use and violence.
The advances include a body scanner to detect illicit items coming into the prison, new perimeter netting, funding for drug dogs, extra CCTV and a machine to scan incoming mail.
But the monitoring board’s annual report states that the jail has not “become a less violent place”, with a two thirds rise in assaults over the past year.
The board highlighted “a sustained increase in violence linked to Friday prayers” as one problem, saying it began “with an incident in which Muslim prisoners had been able to take weapons to a fight which had been arranged to take place at Eid celebrations”.
The watchdog also warns that young inmates and gang members are “disproportionately involved in violence” and are “drain on resources” as a result.
Education classes are under-attended, the report says, and one painting and decorating training session only had one prisoner in attendance because others had failed a security test.
However, it found “17 prisoners working enthusiastically on textiles” on another occasion, and said that “cleaning, wood recycling and a Bible study group” were of “considerable benefit”.
Wormwood Scrubs has a capacity of 1,279 inmates. About a third of its prisoners are Muslim.
