Prison Officers (Hansard, 1 November 1994)

§ Mr. Michael Forsyth

Responsibility for this matter has been delegated to the Director General of the Prison Service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.

Letter from Derek Lewis to Mr. Tom Cox, dated 1 November 1994: The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about the action taken to support prison officers with their day-to-day duties, particularly with the searching of prison inmates and prisoners' cells. Prison Officers duties are varied and include maintenance of security and control; provision of regime activities such as offending behaviour programmes; and other work with prisoners. The Prison Service has made significant progress in all of these areas during 1062W the last 18 months, due to the energy and commitment of prison officers and other staff. Particular measures to support prison officers in their security role include: the use of x-ray machines and metal detector portals and metal detectors to help search people, property and vehicles entering or leaving prisons specially trained dog handlers and dogs are available to search and detect items such as drugs or explosives in prisons CCTV has been installed in some visits areas prison officers receive training in searching procedures and techniques as part of their initial training the security manual, issued to all establishments giving advice on searching procedures, is being revised and simplified Governors have to draw up local searching strategies based on the nature of the prison and the type of prisoners held major refurbishment schemes include significant security improvements, in particular to prisoners' cells monthly security bulletins are issued to draw attention to lessons from recent incidents and to provide information to Governors on special security topics drug testing is due to be introduced under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill perimeter security is being improved in many establishments court escorts have been made more security by the use of double cuffing for category B prisoners and the increased use of secure vehicles Control measures include: the strengthening of Governors' disciplinary powers about half of establishments have introduced differential regimes and local incentive schemes to improve behaviour more cellular accommodation is being provided for category C prisoners new allocation procedures have been introduced for category C prisoners, designed to ensure that the mix of prisoners in establishments is monitored and controlled to minimise the risk of disturbances a project is researching violence in prisons with a view to developing guidance on best practice Improvements concerned with regimes include: prisoners are expected to engage actively in work, training, education and other purposeful activities. The target for increasing levels of purposeful activity is being exceeded offending behaviour programmes are being expanded, with more training for officers involved in these programmes more than 700 NVQ schemes for prisoners are being implemented through prison workshops and other facilities Prison officers will have more time to concentrate on these activities as the disruptive court escort work is contracted out and work not requiring a prison officer's expertise is transferred to other grades.