Prisons 'a riot waiting to happen' - Howard League

Frances Crook, chief executive of the Howard League, said a 42 per cent drop in officers had left prisons unsafe and warned: “Just wait for something to happen.

“I don’t know which prison it will be, but at the moment prison is not a happy place.

“I’m not sure whether it will be a riot, a fire or a murder.”

Talking to The Northern Echo ahead of a speech in Durham City, Ms Crook said the number of attacks on prison staff was increasing, prisoner-on-prisoner violence was on the rise and more inmates were committing suicide but Justice Secretary Chris Grayling had his “fingers in his ears”.

“I’ve never seen a public service deteriorate so quickly as has happened with the prison service in the last two years,” she said.

“Chris Grayling has closed prisons, tolerated overcrowding and cut staff.”

On this region’s prisons, she said Frankland had problems and Durham’s last inspection report was “not brilliant”.

Ahead of addressing the annual general meeting of the prisoners’ charity Nepacs, she urged jail governors to speak out over a system that was “becoming unmanageable”.

Helen Attewell, Nepacs’ chief executive, echoed Ms Crooks’ concerns, saying budget cuts had left the prison service “under strain”.

She said this region had no failing prisons, but there were “real issues for concern”.

Jenny Chapman, Darlington MP and Labour’s shadow prisons minister, said Ms Crooks was right to draw attention to problems of prison safety.

“They’re not safe for inmates or staff. There is a crisis in our prisons,” she said.

Mrs Chapman criticised the closure of Northallerton prison in North Yorkshire as dreadful and called for more prison places to be created as quickly as possible.

The Ministry of Justice did not respond to The Northern Echo’s request for comment.

Mr Grayling previously admitted prisons were facing problems with violence, suicides and staff shortages but insisted there was not a crisis and prison violence was at a lower level than five years ago.