HC Deb 11 May 1973 vol 856 cc215-6W
Mr. Hayhoe

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is yet in a position to announce the outcome of his review of ways and means of improving techniques and facilities in prisons for containing violent and dangerous men.

Mr. R. Carr

I have completed the review of the operation of dispersal policy. In this I have taken account of the views expressed to me by the Prison Officers' Association and by prison governors. I have concluded that while it would be undesirable and unsafe to concentrate in a single prison those prisoners who are most likely to cause trouble or who are in the highest security category, there is a need substantially to modify and strengthen the present system under which these prisoners are located in a limited number of special prisons.

I have decided to take the following steps:

  1. (1)Two control units will be set up within the existing dispersal prisons. The purpose of these will be to provide a strict regime for the control of intractable trouble makers whose behaviour has been found seriously and per sistently to disrupt prisons which have to contain them. The object will be not to keep such prisoners in these units permanently but to return them as soon as can be justified to normal prison life. Placement in these units and discharge from them will be a central responsibility. When these two units are in operation I shall consider whether there is need for a third.
  2. (2)Secure accommodation will also be made available in a number of selected local prisons to which trouble makers may be removed at short notice and for limited periods of time.
  3. (3)The buildings and perimeters of a number of the present dispersal prisons will be strengthened to give added security and better control.
  4. (4)To improve control a tighter limit will be placed on the number of prisoners permitted to congregate together at any one time.
  5. (5)Management at dispersal prisons will be strengthened and staff levels will be reviewed to take account of the implications of all these new measures. Staff training to deal with the special problems of dispersal prisons will also be stepped up.

Underlying all these new measures is the fundamental need to increase the number of dispersal prisons from the six which we have at the moment to at least nine, and to make sure that each of them has its own adequate segregation unit. The fulfilment of these needs has a high priority in the prison building programme.