A prisons charity has called for the ‘radical transformation’ of the role of prison officers in the face of systemic staffing issues and increased numbers of prisoners serving long sentences.
The Prison Reform Trust (PRT) have called for a new approach to staffing prisons, including a system that would see the ‘registration’ of prison officers, much like Registered Nurses in healthcare settings. They say the role of officer ‘which carries life and death important and for which regularly updated knowledge and skills are essential’ is ‘closely comparable’ to that of a nurse.
They’ve urged the prison service to ‘radically enhance’ the training, development and supervision of officers in order to avoid continued staffing crises.
The charity attributes the ‘spectacular decline’ in prison safety over the last decade to a ‘drastic reduction’ in officer numbers, with officers cut by 25% between 2010 and 2017, before a partial reversal in the years that followed.
While the number of prison officers increased by 1,250 in the last year, prisoner numbers have increased by 1,900. PRT says a ‘boom or bust’ approach to officer recruitment has characterised the last decade, ‘stripping out experience’ from the ranks. This has led to four in 10 prison officers currently having less than three years experience.
The charity’s latest report on the problems facing prisons in England and Wales says: ‘No one involved in the prison system in England and Wales in 2024 could fail to see the impact of the staffing problems caused by the drastic cuts made from 2012 onwards and the wholly predictable consequences of then having to recruit quickly and in high volume to deal with the equally predictable effects of reckless changes in sentencing policy. The prison service has no choice but to be preoccupied with how it staggers through from one crisis to the next.’
Based on contributions from serving prisoners, the report cited a vicious cycle whereby a lack of prisoner and staff interaction feeds the very shortage that exists in staffing: ‘A lack of activity creates boredom and frustration, which in turn generates a resort to both prescribed and illicit drugs. A failure to operate systems to deliver basic everyday necessities, from showers through to visits, mail delivery and getting a newspaper on time produces complaints, which then devour resource to investigate and resolve.’
This reduced contact between prisoners and staff then reduces availability of intelligence that could pre-empt and reduce violence, which means prisoners suffering distress are not spotted early enough to prevent self-harm, or even prisoners taking their own lives. This leads to staff being fearful of letting prisoners out of their cells, education and work resources ‘sit idle’, and those who want to improve the prison ‘become disillusioned or have to leave because they cannot deliver their contracted activity.’
The last full year of data from prisons across the country showed just one out of 37 received a positive inspection rating for ‘purposeful activity’.
Pia Sinha, chief executive of the Prison Reform Trust, said: ‘Any attempts to resolve the crisis within prisons need to be in lock step with measures to reform the workforce. Without an engaged, trained and supported workforce, the government will struggle to enact any measures to bring about ordered, safe and purposeful prisons.’
The author of the report, former PRT Director Peter Dawson, concluded the publication with a warning for the government: ‘There has to be some prospect of the emergency coming to an end so that the prison service’s leadership can move from crisis management to crisis prevention. Providing that opportunity lies in the gift of ministers and parliament, and it is time they faced up to their responsibility to do so.’
