Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has made an estimate of the number of (a) prison officers and (b) other prison staff who have been (i) investigated, (ii) arrested and (iii) charged in relation to the supply of drugs in prisons in (A) 2018, (B) 2019, (C) 2020, (D) 2021, (E) 2022 and (F) 2023.

The vast majority of prison staff are hardworking and dedicated. A minority of staff engage in corrupt activity which is often as a result of conditioning and manipulation by prisoners.

HM Prison & Probation Service (HMPPS) has a zero-tolerance policy on staff who convey drugs into prisons, and take appropriate action to a small number of prison staff who break the rules. Our £100 million Security Investment Programme, aimed at reducing crime in prisons, including reducing the number of staff being manipulated and conditioned by prisoners, is ongoing. This includes increased resource to pursue corruption, as well as established a new ‘Prevent’ function, aimed at building staff resilience against corruption. The increased numbers detailed in the tables below may reflect this increased investment in monitoring and reporting of drug conveyance and corruption, as well as increasing staff numbers across the prison estate.

Prior to April 2019, corruption in HMPPS was managed by the Corruption Prevention Unit (CPU). The CPU was a largely centralised unit focused on sanitising and disseminating all corruption related intelligence to the Police, with an individual Regional Corruption Prevention Manager (RCPM) in each geographical region offering advice and support to prisons in managing corruption, hence data prior to April 2019 is not available.

a) Below is a table showing the breakdown of Prison Officers and Prison staff who have been investigated in relation to the supply of drugs in prison between Dec 2020 to Dec 2023.

Table 1

Source: Linkspace Case Management System.

b) Below is a table showing the breakdown of total Prison Officers and Prison staff who have been Arrested in relation to the supply of drugs in prison between Dec 2020 to Dec 2023.

Source: Linkspace Case Management System.

Note: numbers for arrests cannot be separated by job, so are grouped for prison officers and non-prison officers.

c) Below is a table showing the breakdown of conveyance charges between Dec 2020 to Dec 2023.

Source: Linkspace Case Management System.