UK prison chief calls for US-style 'supermax jails' to protect guards
It is only a matter of time before a prison officer is murdered by an inmate, the chairman of the Prison Officers' Association (POA) has warned.
A prison officer was airlifted to hospital yesterday after being stabbed while on duty at the high security HMP Long Lartin in Worcestershire.
That attack came days after three prison officers were targeted – including one with boiling water and another left with a bleed on the brain – in 48 hours at HMP Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire.
The number of assaults on staff in adult prisons in England and Wales per year has reached its highest level in a decade, new data shows.
The figures come after several incidents in prisons have raised concerns over staff safety and the standard of protective equipment at work.
Four officers were attacked with hot oil and homemade weapons by Manchester Arena bomb plotter Hashem Abedi at HMP Frankland in County Durham on April 12.
Mark Fairhurst, chairman of the POA, has now called for those inmates posing the most risk to his staff to be 'totally locked down'.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast, he said jails are 'awash' with 'all kinds of illicit items' – including drugs, phones and weapons – but 'we very rarely lock them down'.
Mr Fairhurst said 'now is the time to introduce supermax facilities' like those in the US, 'so people who pose the most risk to staff are totally locked down'.
'It is only a matter of time before one of my colleagues is murdered on duty,' he added.
Some 10,605 assaults on staff in male and female jails were recorded in 2024, up from 9,204 in 2023 and nearly three times the 3,640 in 2014.
The rate of assaults on staff stood at 122 per 1,000 prisoners last year, up from 108 in 2023 and 43 a decade earlier.
Mr Fairhurst linked the violence inside prisons to the amount of contraband being smuggled in from the outside using drones.
'We need to secure the airspace above our prisons,' he said.
'Why are our airspaces not tightened? Why do we have ingress of drones in our prisons? Surely there must be technology out there that prevents drones entering airspaces.' More Trending
Metro has contacted the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) for comment.
A spokesperson told the BBC that attacks on prison staff are 'unacceptable' and will not be tolerated.
They said the MoJ was 'gripping the situation by investing in prison maintenance and security, working with the police and others to tackle serious organised crime'.
A spokesman said earlier this month they are 'also bolstering security to stop more contraband entering jails'.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
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