Prisoner complaints over the behaviour of officers and substandard living conditions surged to a record level in at least a decade as the crisis behind bars has boiled over, The Independent can reveal.
Complaints to the ombudsman in the year ending March 2024 - a period during which the Tories freed thousands of inmates early to avoid running out of space—hit 4,575, the highest number since before the pandemic.
And figures obtained by this publication show a particular surge in complaints about staff behaviour over the past financial year – which were 30 per cent higher than the average over the nine years prior.
In addition to 452 grievances lodged over staff behaviour – which were up from 388 the previous year, and accounted for 10 per cent of all complaints to the ombudsman – there were also 135 relating to living conditions and 71 over security procedures, each higher than any point in the past decade.
The Howard League called the figures “indicative of major problems across the prison system and speak to why an overhaul is desperately needed”, while HM chief inspector Charlie Taylor warned that the training regime for new recruits is insufficient to prepare them for the challenges of the role.
Experts have been sounding the alarm over the hollowing out of experience in the prison sector for years, with analysis by The Independent finding that 41 per cent of officers in post as of September had fewer than three years of experience – up from just 2 per cent a decade ago, and 23 per cent in 2017.
Simultaneously, the proportion of officers with 10-plus years of experience plummeted from 66 per cent in 2014 to just 24 per cent over the same period.
Mr Taylor warned that this loss of vital “institutional memory” among officers inevitably creates further risk in an already fraught environment, and can lead to a vicious cycle of staff absences and resignations, which in turn sees prisoners locked in their cells for longer, fuelling frustration and further violence.
Pointing to the example of HMP Manchester – one of four jails put into emergency measures this year – Mr Taylor said there were high levels of drugs and “an inexperienced staff team who didn’t have the wherewithal to challenge some potentially very dangerous prisoners”.
He added: “Where there’s a gap between the skills, capability, knowledge and number of staff – and the risk and experience of prisoners – that gap can often be filled by instability in the jail and a sense of a lack of control.”
Warning that the training for British prison officers “isn’t enough for the complexity of the job”, Mr Taylor also said that the lack of a face-to-face interview and “real testing of people’s values” during the recruitment process creates the danger that the wrong people are hired.
In November, the Prison Governors Association demanded that prison bosses be given a say in which officers are recruited to their jails, following complaints of central government hiring people lacking suitable English, eyesight and fitness to do the job.
Backing this call, Mr Taylor warned that governors frequently describe meeting new staff for the first time on prison wings and realising rapidly that they are not up to the job, including some applicants they themselves have rejected for low-level support roles with no direct prisoner contact just months earlier.
“So either they leave very quickly after all this investment, or you’ve got someone who’s just a sub-standard officer, who hasn’t been trained properly, is not helping with the day-to-day running of the jail and becomes a bit of a dead weight on the prison and other staff – because they’re having to look out for that person all the time.”
Staff dismissals for misconduct have also surged to their highest level in at least 15 years, official data shows. There were 164 prison staff fired for misconduct in the year to March – up 83 per cent on the average over the previous 14 years.
Meanwhile, new figures on Thursday showed the job is becoming more dangerous than ever, with assaults on staff hitting their highest in at least 10 years, with more than 10,000 assaults – including nearly 1,000 serious attacks – in the year to September.
Stressing that prison officers have a profoundly complex job, former governor Ian Acheson said: “The increase in complaints about staff behaviour can be down to many things, from a lack of respect to vexatious intimidation.
“But it is striking that this increase follows widespread concern about the vetting and training of new staff who often leave before their probation is over.
He added: “It isn’t enough to have boots on the landing in our failing prisons. We need men and women who have the emotional intelligence and the character to manage often very difficult people. But even where we have these officers, brutal and unpredictable curtailment of regimes that lock people in their cells for up to 23 hours a day will be the catalyst for much of the discontent we are seeing.”
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “The new government inherited a prison system on the point of collapse. We took immediate action to address the crisis, and have recently set out a 10-year capacity strategy to put our prisons on a sustainable footing.
“While the overwhelming majority of prison service staff are hardworking and honest, we take all allegations extremely seriously and do not hesitate to take immediate action where allegations are substantiated.”
