To think it can’t be that a hard to keep drugs out of prisons

[Stoveding]

it Shocks me every time I hear about how ride it is with known dealers inside.
Surely, if there was a proper will, it could easily be all but eradicated?

ParkheadParadise
I am so sorry that your daughter was murdered.

I don't think the softly softly approach is working. Look at the incidents of knife crime in the London area.

I don't know much about prison, so feel free to disregard anything I write, but when I did my first teaching placement, an experienced teacher and former prison officer, told a year 8 class that from their behaviour in one class, he could predict which would serve time.

Intervention doesn't intervene early enough. Damien Hind's comments today that 1 in 4 children arrive in nursery or reception lacking communication skills and vocabulary (which can realistically only be a deficit laid at the parents' feet) and they never catch up would map onto the criminals in the making in Y8 and the population of Parkhurst in a decade.

However, I am not bold enough to suggest any intervention which might head off the formation of juvenile criminality that would not have half of MN suggesting that I was advocating fascism. So I won't.

Nobody wants to keep drugs out of prisons (except the OP). How would anyone make any money? How would one keep the inmates quiet (a relative term)?

Have you ever actually been in a prison? I’m sure your ideas would be gratefully received.

Go google spice. The biggest problem in prisons at the moment. Do you not think governers would love to irradiate that?

Spice is new as I say and yes they want to get rid of it. But it’s not possible he way things are.

@BarbaraofSevillle
Yeah because there are no drugs at all in American prisons!!

I was being mostly sarcastic. Do you really think they have the resources and the inclination to carry out hundreds of cavity searches on officers and visitors every day at every prison and x-ray all the supplies that enter?

It's only the highest security prisons that use x-ray scanners. Well over half of UK prisons don't.

Personal intimate searches are comparatively rare.

The Government slashed funding repeatedly and dramatically. If you don't have well trained, experienced staff and enough of them - then you can't run a prison.

You can't have a successful society where the majority of the inmates are there because they're ill, have a neurodevelopmental disorder, a head injury, were in care, were abused in childhood...

Inmates are dying. Inmates and staff are being exposed to extreme mental illness, violence and trauma every day. It won't be long till an officer is murdered.

But everyone carry on thinking it's a holiday camp or whatever..

Oh forget it then, it seems a bit too hard. Let’s not bother.

If anyone is watching the current documentary on Durham prison, it's a real eye opener. They're hugely hugely understaffed in terms of guards on a wing and outside agencies. After a drug related incident in ep 2 they were left waiting days just to get sniffer dogs in. The staff are constantly on the back foot because they're so outnumbered.

They also seem to be dealing with huge swathes of mentally ill people using drugs to self medicate. I take my hat off to the people working in that prison. It was very sobering viewing but also I think a really important documentary.

Access to drugs keeps them calm. Blind eye is turned often for that reason.

If they were serious, there would be screens and nets.

Seems to me that drugs are accepted to keep the peace in jails now.

How about lobbying for better conditions eh? If it wasn't such fucking hell inside, maybe they wouldn't risk taking a drug that might kill them, make them have a heart attack or a seizure or become psychotic and cut their own cock off because of the chance of escape (mentally) for just a few minutes.

Zero patience for people this oblivious. You cannot be serious?? You only have to turn on the news to see what a massive problem drugs in prison are and how easily they get in.

Incidentally, Spice cannot be detected by drug dogs, usually the most successful method of finding drugs.

If you think you can do it better OP, please write to HMP. It'd make my DHs job a lot easier if you could eradicate drugs from prisons.

I just don’t think it is beyond the wit of man.

@ParkheadParadise and I love yours! I’ll be there on Saturday

There was a solicitor a few years ago who got done for bringing in drugs for her client(s).

Obviously she is no longer working as a solicitor.

Incidentally, Spice cannot be detected by drug dogs, usually the most successful method of finding drugs

It's up for debate if any drugs can be detected effectively by sniffer dogs.

Also does this Spice stuff remind anybody else of 1960s hysteria about pot and LSD?

Spice is a liquid. We don't know what psychoactive substances spice are, we don't know the chemical makeup.

But we do know it is a liquid. So it can be sprayed on plant matter so it looks like cannabis or it can be sprayed on anything - paper for example. So you'd have to stop all paper going into the prison for one.

Could you not at least read an article or something before spouting nonsense?

Stop all paper going to prisioners. Ok, I don’t have a problem with that.

Where I am (youth estate) we’ve had kids drawings soaked in liquid drugs. It’s very hard to stop, prisons are hugely underfunded and understaffed.

Btw, Most of the kids where I work have a history of being in care, other family members in prison, extreme poverty and abuse. Society has failed them again and again. They prefer to be in in prison because they feel safer than at home. It’s heartbreaking.

not all u.s prisons have dividers between visitor and inmate.
some it just depends on when they are built.others because they house minimum or medium security inmates.(bad check writers, for example,or ones who have earned the position by behaving)
have had no smoking for about 20 yrs tho/
just increased the non weed type drugs..altho some eat it.
spice ???i really dont get that one its easier to grow the real thing and not be killed by it.
op so how do you propose all this.first you have to seperate the ones following the rules from the ones doing long term dont give a fuck sentences.
then get rid of alllllll corrupt admin/guards/kitchen workers/repair people,visitors/medical staffattorneys,even knew of a preacher who was bringing in contraband.
all this has been discussed since the begining of prisons.
overcrowding isnt helping the situation.building new prisons isnt the solution.
and realistically they (uk or us)dont have enough time or money to deal with it all

Have you ever been to a prison? Stood in line, waiting to visit?
It's bloody chaos with mums, babies, prams, baby bottles etc
Even the dogs a bit overwhelmed tbh
Also, prisoners lower in pecking order - less bright/ less well connected - mercilessly misused, bullied into bringing in drugs, hiding drugs
It's nightmarish
I've had experience of borderline learning disability prisoners being forced to swallow drugs for others to hide them
I've also known people truly happy to be put on secure no drugs wings

i agree to a certain extent, having just watched Prison on channel 4. the prisoners are free to roam about (with drawstring bags..?) asking each other for skins, talking about bullying other prisoners for their drugs.

they had 6 prison staff for 150+ prisoners, so not much they could do.

its usually the low level criminals who take and sell the drugs, and they arent really doing anything different to what they do outside of jail.

i think not having physical contact with outside visitors would help, ie have a screen between them. photocopying mail would help with the spice problem too. but from what i saw on Prison most of the drugs are coming in with new prisoners who basically swallow them in bulk and hide them up their bum.

If any of the sarky comments were directed at my last post, please allow me to say, in my ignorance, that the fault lies elsewhere, mostly.

My nephew (and uncle) have both been in prison but one has come out the other side, and the other is likely to re-offend as soon as life gets tough. I do not know how prisons are turned around other than shedloads of money and educational opportunities that might open doors back into normal life (and that probably won't happen given the demands on health and social care and school).

I think there has to be a serious debate about decriminalising drugs, so there's no big money for dealers, no scope for pimps to addict women, and it's so squeaky clean that it lacks appeal for anyone with an anti attitude. License, tax (as or more heavily than tobacco or alcohol) and fund the clean up and detox programmes. But surely the sheer boredom of prison life must drive anyone incarcerated to look for diversion. Boredom is not going to cure a young person of anything, unless there's something to distract.

American prisons have loads of drugs and contraband in them too. It ain't all like you see on telly.