Organised crime gangs in prisons ‘keep me up at night', says minister
The prisons minister has admitted that the scale of organised crime gangs operating within Britain's jails keeps him up at night.
Lord Timpson said 'very, very wealthy' crime bosses were corrupting staff to bring in drugs or flying them in with hi-tech drones so they could profit from bored inmates in overcrowded jails.
In an interview with The Telegraph, he said it was a 'cat and mouse' game to try to detect and stop the drones being used to bring in drugs, which are sold for three or four times their street value and generate huge profits.
Lord Timpson said the Government was determined to reduce overcrowding and reform the prison and probation system, so that offenders could benefit from education, training and work. It would mean they left jail with a 'one-way ticket, not a return', he added.
His comments come ahead of this month's independent sentencing review by David Gauke, the former justice secretary. It is expected to recommend greater use of community punishments – where criminals serve sentences at home under house arrest, are electronically tagged and subject to curfews – to reduce overcrowding.
Lord Timpson also revealed that 37 prison staff were prosecuted in 2024 after the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) 'beefed up' its counter-corruption unit. It worked with the National Crime Agency to target organised crime gangs and funded 20 specialist police investigators to root out criminal behaviour.
Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons, has disclosed that up to three-quarters of inmates at the worst jails had tested positive for drugs. He said one high-security prison, HMP Garth in Lancashire, had become an 'airport' because so many drugs were being delivered to its inmates by drones.
Lord Timpson, the former chief executive of Timpson, a shoe repair and key-cutting business, said: 'Serious organised crime is a big problem, a huge problem, and it's one of the things that keeps me awake at night, because of the impact it has on a prison environment, from drugs, debt, violence and everything that goes with that.
'A lot of these serious organised criminals in their cell at night are actually very, very wealthy people connected with very big illegal businesses, and they use that as bad actors.'
He said serious organised crime's influence in prison was 'toxic'.
'Creates fear and intimidation'
Lord Timpson said: 'It's not just in corrupting officers. It's the way they create fear and intimidation on the wings amongst prisoners, as well as staff.'
He said he was not aware of organised crime deliberately placing staff in prison or targeting women officers, despite a series of cases where female staff have been sacked and prosecuted for relationships with criminals.
The prisons minister said: 'I don't think anybody joins the service to really do bad things. I think they really genuinely joined to provide a great service, to keep the public safe and to help people turn their lives around.
'But like in all organisations, you have a few bad apples but in a prison, more than in probation, the knock-on effect of those bad apples is huge.'
MoJ data show that the number of staff in prisons dismissed for misconduct increased from 99 in the year to March 2019, to 165 in the year to the end of June 2024. That was double the 81 dismissed a decade ago in the year to March 2014.
According to prison service data, 29 female officers have been dismissed over the past three years for forming relationships with male prisoners in England and Wales. This compares with only nine during the three-year period from 2017-18 to 2019-20.
'I don't have any evidence [organised crime] is targeting women specifically, but what I do know is that to conduct their business, it makes it a lot easier for them to corrupt staff. That's why the figure now is 37 prosecutions. So the Corruption Unit has been beefed up, and it needs to be because it's an increasing problem,' said Lord Timpson.
'Cat and mouse game'
He admitted that drones bringing drugs and contraband were a 'serious problem'. He said: 'The technology of drones has increased rapidly as has our ability to detect them and stop them, but it is a cat and mouse game.'
Lord Timpson said the Government had to deal with the 'other side of the equation', namely addiction and overcrowding.
He said: 'When there aren't enough opportunities for education, workshops, all the things that keep people focused in a prison, then that's one of the problems.
'But it comes back to serious, organised criminals. This is a market, this is an opportunity, and that's why they want to bring the drugs in because [of] how much more expensive drugs are in prison.'
Every morning at 6am, Lord Timpson receives an email on the overcrowding crisis, which has seen the number of spare places drop below 1,000. The level of overcrowding is similar to that of last year when Labour was forced to introduce its early release scheme, which freed offenders 40 per cent of the way through their sentences rather than halfway.
He admitted that it was 'tight', a 'very difficult situation' and 'not where you want to be'. However, he added that with extra places from a new 1,500-man jail HMP Millsike near York and the refurbishment of house blocks, he was 'confident' that they were in a 'good place' and maintained that the Government would not introduce another early release scheme.
Internal MoJ forecasts indicate that prisons will run out of space again by early 2026, which means any legislative changes flowing from the independent sentencing review are likely to have to be introduced by autumn to solve the overcrowding crisis.
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