The Prison Service is “beefing up” a cadre of officers dedicated to smashing gangs in prisons in the face of escalating drone use and drug-related violence, the prisons minister has said.
James Timpson said the work of the department’s serious organised crime unit is being expanded, and expressed concern that a minority of prison officers have been corrupted by “very manipulative people”.
He also agreed with the prison watchdog’s claim that drone use by gangs is “a national security threat” after weapons and drugs were flown into high security prisons.
The disclosures follow deepening concern that criminal gangs are taking control of prisons across England and Wales.
Asked how the government was going to stop gangs from infiltrating prisons, Timpson said: “We have a serious organised crime unit which we are beefing up and we are going to really focus on this.
“I personally recognise what a toxic culture it can bring on to the wings when serious organised criminals really start to take advantage of vulnerable people.”
The unit monitors and disrupts organised crime gangs across England and Wales’s 123 prisons alongside the National Crime
Agency and regional police forces.
Of more than 87,000 prisoners in December 2023, His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) estimated that more than one in 10 (10.6%)
were involved in organised crime.
The chief inspector of prisons, Charlie Taylor, accused the police and prison service this month of ceding control of the airspace above two category A jails: HMP Manchester and HMP Long Lartin in Worcestershire.
Asked if he agreed with Taylor’s claim that drones are “a threat to national security”, Timpson said: “Yes. It has been a serious problem for some time. It is very connected with serious organised crime. That means it is very connected with drugs. That means it is very connected with debt. That means it is very connected with violence.”
Work is under way to introduce new measures to tackle drones, Timpson said, but he declined to go into details for security reasons.
A freedom of information request found there were 1,296 drone incidents at prisons in England and Wales in the 10 months to the end of October 2024, a tenfold increase since 2020.
Timpson said he was “shocked” to discover that gangs are imposing debts upon “very vulnerable” new inmates if a previous cell occupant owed drug money.
“If you and I are sent to prison today and we are put [in] a cell together, that cell may have a debt on it that wasn’t paid, and we both have to pay off that debt. There are some people who are taking advantage of very vulnerable people at the lowest point in their lives,” he said.
A record 165 prison staff were sacked for misconduct in the year to June 2024, according to HMPPS.
Some of the reasons for these dismissals include sex acts and other inappropriate behaviour with inmates, as well as selling drugs and phones. Timpson also acknowledged that there was a “small minority” of prison officers who had become involved with criminal gangs.
He said “99.9%” of prison staff “turn up to do a fantastic job every day but like any organisation there are a few people that really let the side down”.
“I don’t think people join the service to do bad things. I think some get corrupted by very manipulative people and then that is when it really undermines what we are trying to achieve in prisons.”
An internal HMPPS counter-corruption unit has been employed to “deter, detect and disrupt” prison staff who work with organised crime groups.
In October 2023, Amy Hatfield, a mental health nursing assistant at HMP Lindholme in South Yorkshire, was jailed for 10 years after a court heard she had “flooded” the jail with drugs by passing packages to prisoners.
She was recruited to the conspiracy by her inmate lover Joseph Whittingham, who was jailed for more than 11 years.
Three former governors warned on Monday that UK prisons could become like Latin American jails where criminal gangs are in control. They told the Times that many prisons had “been ceded to a hierarchy of organised crime”, given the amount of drugs and violence on wings.
