Prison officers are disproportionately resorting to force to control black inmates at a London jail blighted by rising violence and weapons being flown in by drone, a watchdog warned on Tuesday.
The Independent Monitoring Board report on Wormwood Scrubs said it was “concerning” that black prisoners were on the receiving end of 47 per cent of incidents in which staff used force, despite only accounting for 29 per cent of inmates.
By contrast, the number of incidents in which force was deployed against white prisoners almost exactly matched their representation in the prison. Asian prisoners were subjected to physical intervention at a rate significantly below their numbers inside.
The board said that prisoners had indicated that a lack of black managers — which the prison has since sought to address — lay behind the problem. The warning about disproportionate use of force is among a number of concerns highlighted in today’s report on the prison, which houses 1,100 inmates.
Other problems include a “spike in prisoner-on-prisoner” violence, which was up by more than 10 per cent with an average of about 83 attacks a month, and three self-inflicted deaths of inmates on remand.
Gang and “drug-related issues” are cited as among the causes of the violence along with “intakes of particularly disturbed and challenging prisoners”, including some transferred in from other prisons “after serious incidents of violence elsewhere”.
The monitoring board added that “preventing illicit items entering the prison or being manufactured by prisoners remains a serious challenge”. It also warns of a rise in mental health issues. It says this is fuelled by many prisoners being locked up for 23 hours a day.
Wormwood Scrubs was among the jails included in a “10 prisons” project initiated by the then prisons minister Rory Stewart in 2018. It aimed to reduce drugs and violence inside to create a better environment for reforming prisoners.
Today’s findings will raise concerns that serious problems continue to affect the prison and those held there.
The Ministry of Justice said it “recognised the issues raised” and was using “new focus groups between staff and prisoners to better understand the complex reasons for these outcomes and provide closer scrutiny of all incidents where force is used”.
It added: “We are investing £125 million to make our prisons safer, including scanners to stop the weapons, drugs and phones that fuel violence and self-harm in the first place.”
