Criminals Getting Employed as Prison Officers to Help Jail Smuggling, Claims Union

Two people walk alongside the curtain wall of HMP Liverpool, northwest England, on Nov. 15, 2016 Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images

The Prison Officers’ Association (PAO) claims organised crime groups are taking advantage of the shortage of staff and getting their associates hired as prison officers with the “sole purpose” of smuggling drugs and mobile phones into jail.

The POA, the trade union which represents 30,000 prison officers, said online interviews—which were introduced during the pandemic but have been retained—were contributing to a situation where the “wrong people” were being hired.

A POA spokesperson told The Guardian: “Organised crime groups realise that there’s a lot of money to be made by smuggling contraband into prisons. People can be recruited as a prison officer and go into [the jail] with the sole purpose of bringing contraband in, to make a lot of money. They can do it by themselves or for an organised crime group.”

He added: “You get paid to train and you do whatever you want after that. If you have a good run, you don’t get caught and get out after five or six months having made a few bucks. It sounds a bit surreal. But that’s actually happening.”

“In the vast majority of prisons, a lot of young staff could be conditioned into bringing stuff in, and other staff come to us with the sole intended purpose of taking stuff in,” the spokesperson added.

The Prison Service has taken a number of steps to increase the pool of new recruits as it struggles to fill places, especially in London where the starting salary of £35,000 is barely enough to live on.

Recruitment age Limit Reduced

The age limit has been reduced, from 25 to 20 years old in 1987, and then again to 18 years old in 1999.

The POA wants to put the age limit up to 21 and is also calling for an end to online interviews and a return to in-person interviews, including governors.

“We are hiring the wrong people and people who can’t even look you in the eye,” said the spokesperson.

Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons, said: “There are always two types of corruption. You’ve got the very sophisticated type of corruption, where someone linked with organised crime almost goes in as a sort of sleeper. But most corruption isn’t that. Most corruption is that someone naive gets into a relationship, sexual or otherwise, with a prisoner which is inappropriate. And of course, once you’ve been pulled in, it’s very hard to stop.”

A man prepares to smoke Spice, a synthetic marijuana drug, along a New York City street on Aug. 5, 2015. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Smuggling of drugs and phones into prisons has been going on for many years.

Earlier this month a trial at Southwark Crown Court heard an inmate, Alex Mullings, had cooked up a number of schemes, including smuggling in packages of drugs and dozens of tiny Zanco mobile phones into Swaleside prison in Kent by drone in the middle of the night and smuggling in the drug spice by dissolving it and impregnating legal correspondence with it. Six other people deny the charges.

Aside from corruption concerns, there are also worries about the reliability of some prison officers.

Shortage of Staff at Wandsworth

Earlier this month justice minister Damian Hinds confirmed 80 prison officers at Wandsworth had not attended their shifts on the day Daniel Khalife allegedly escaped from the prison.

But Mr. Hinds said an initial investigation, “did not find the staffing level to be a contributing factor.”

The Prison Service is not alone in struggling to recruit enough staff of the right standard.

Earlier this week the recorder of London, Judge Mark Lucraft, KC, complained to the Ministry of Justice about the shortage of dock officers at the Old Bailey, the country’s premier court, which was delaying murder trials and costing the public purse hundreds of thousands of pounds.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson told The Guardian: “We have bolstered the counter-corruption unit that works round the clock to clamp down on the minority who undermine our exemplary service with their dangerous behaviour and we will not hesitate to punish those who break the rules.”

“On top of this, we have invested £100 million in prison security such as enhanced gate security with X-ray body scanners, which has driven up the finds of drugs, weapons and other contraband,” he added.