Occupational Hazard, by Bill Hartley
There has been a great deal of press coverage of late concerning the Justice Department’s attempt to reduce the prison population. This has tended to shift focus away from the level of violence in the prisons of England and Wales. Usually it takes a particularly serious incident to catch the attention of the media, such as the assault earlier this year on three officers at HMP Frankland in Durham. A useful move towards violence reduction might be to deny prisoners access to cooking oil and perhaps question the competence of the individual who thought providing this means to do serious harm was a good idea. That though is the crux of the problem. On the one hand there are people in prison who present a clear and present danger; on the other there are those in management who wish to take the ‘pain’ out of imprisonment. The fact is than one cannot normalise institutional life and giving dangerous prisoners access to kitchen facilities will not make them better people. Instead, having been imprisoned to maintain public safety, they are being given the opportunity to find new victims.
A few generations ago, should an individual come into custody serving more than say, five years, then an alert would go round the prison warning staff. Such was the rarity of what was then a long-term sentence. The increase in serious crime and terrorism has meant that courts are now handing down terms like cricket scores. There is little alternative and when a prisoner is not in a position to be making any plans this century, then high security prisons in particular are having to cope with people who have nothing to lose. As a psychologist at HMP Wakefield (the clearing house for lifers) once put it: ‘my job is to persuade people that there’s hope, when in fact there isn’t any’.
Prisoners serving this type of sentence present a particular kind of threat and some are not likely to be the type who might respond to efforts at rehabilitation. Go in illiterate and come out with an Open University degree as the joke used to be. How then can prison officers be protected from such people? The simple answer is they can’t, at least not whilst maintaining the kind of staff- prisoner relationships which have always been the basis for keeping order. The statistics bear this out. In the twelve months to September 2024 there were 974 serious assaults on staff, the highest recorded in ten years.
Management have no idea how to improve the situation and neither does the Prison Officer’s Association. The best the latter can do is to mount a ridiculous poster campaign entitled ‘Do not allow violence in the workplace to continue’. They suggest staff report it. Judging by the rather detailed statistics available regarding assaults on staff, reporting is one thing the Service does extremely well. Predictably, since the Frankland assaults, the POA seems to think gadgets are the answer. They are calling for police style ‘stab vests’ and the issue of taser guns to officers. Both are available to police and it’s easy to see why. Police called to an incident are likely to be entering the unknown, where a situation can easily escalate. They don’t know whether a suspect is armed and clearly a stab vest provides useful protection. Given the likelihood of a violent confrontation running out of control, the ability of a police officer to even threaten to deploy a taser may have the potential to reduce risk.
Prison conditions are quite different. Admittedly a stab vest may offer some protection (and not just against a blade) but unlike the police it is not a case of entering the unknown. Prisons always have the potential for violence and carrying a taser will offer no protection. Prisoners tend to be ambush predators. If they are intent on doing violence they are likely to act without warning and least risk to themselves. A taser wouldn’t provide a deterrent. Indeed possession of a taser might put an officer at further risk, should prisoners attempt to get hold of one. The alternative, storing a taser in a secure location, is unlikely to be helpful. Violent incidents in prison tend to begin and end quite quickly. Locating a taser (and an officer trained in its use) probably wouldn’t affect the outcome.
Prison staff are trained in something called Control and Restraint (C&R). It is a system which has been developed over the years for use in a variety of organisations, each setting its own standards according to the perceived need. Apart from the actual restraint training (use of force involving wristlocks and the like) emphasis is also placed on de-escalation. Clearly an organisation where staff are dealing with potentially violent people needs to provide training of some sort, for health and safety reasons. However, if one looks at the basic idea behind such training, it is all about ‘last resort’ and preventing a prisoner hurting himself or others. Also it requires a team of three staff to use it effectively. As a means of self defence it has little or no use. A proper system of self defence training, which increases staff confidence and survivability in a confrontation, is long overdue.
The idea behind Control and Restraint is hopelessly outdated. In a Parliamentary Answer given ten years ago it was noted that the number of violent offenders in our prisons had risen by 40%. It is hardly likely to have reduced since. What the Service needs is a show of effective leadership and instead of parroting the usual clichés about staff safety being a primary concern and that violence against them will not be tolerated, some change must come about. Either that or senior managers in the service ought to have the honesty to admit that if they are going to maintain their current approach to running prisons (access to cooking oil included) then a certain number of staff casualties is the price they are prepared to pay.
William Hartley is a former senior official in the prison service
