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GOVERNMENT cuts are leaving prison officers unable to deal with violent young offenders wrongly put in adult institutions, delegates to guards’ union POA heard yesterday.
Disruptive young offenders are placed in adult prisons under current policy but the influx has led to an increase in violence in adult prisons — which the POA said were ill-equipped to deal with the new arrivals.
At London’s Wormwood Scrubs an officer was stabbed by a young offender with hypodermic needle filled with floor stripper.
“Luckily the floor stripper didn’t enter his blood stream and he’s OK physically, but obviously not psychologically — it was very damaging,” said Wormwood Scrubs delegate Alan Gourley.
“The prison has become a more volatile place since the young offenders’ arrival.”
Young offenders institutions are much more violent than adult prisons — Feltham YOI saw 733 assaults in 2013, compared to 82 in high-security prison Belmarsh.
But moving young men into adult prisons to alleviate the problem is not the answer, said Mr Gourley.
“I know there have been problems in Feltham, and this does need to be addressed but this is a knee-jerk reaction.
“It is ill-thought-out and potentially very damaging and should be reversed,” he said.
“There is only so much pressure that can be applied to a damn before it bursts.”
Representatives from YOIs said they have no choice but to move violent offenders to adult prisons to protect themselves and the children in their charge.
Aylesbury YOI delegate Al Miller said: “The young offenders system is slowly in decline. We’ve got nowhere to put these young men who are severely disruptive. We can’t disperse them anywhere except by moving them into the adult system.”
But POA delegates voted to challenge the National Offender Management Service policy and fight for a better method of dealing with violent young offenders.
National executive committee member John Hancock told delegates: “These inmates should be held in their own special establishments with appropriate staffing levels and not housed on the cheap.”
