Minister calls for drugs in prisons to be treated as public health issue
It comes after the deaths of 17 inmates at Parc prison in South Wales
Prisons minister Lord Timpson has called for the problem of drugs in the UK's jails to be treated as a public health issue, as MPs heard of the deaths of 17 inmates at Parc prison in South Wales.
Four members of staff at the prison in Bridgend were arrested on suspicion of assault and misconduct in September following reports of the deaths.
MPs were told that eight of the deaths at HMP Parc were the result of natural causes, three were "self-inflicted" and five were linked to drugs.
Contraband is brought in to prisons in "children's nappies" and through the use of "drone drops" by organised criminal gangs, MPs heard.
Lord Timpson told the Welsh Affairs Committee that the UK has a "long, long way to go" on the issue of drugs in prisons.
Director of HMP Parc Will Styles said there had been "an awful lot of work this year to improve safety and security" for inmates at Parc prison, adding: "Since June we haven't had an apparent non-natural causes death, so in terms of outcomes there's been improvement."
Gordon Brockington, managing director at G4S Care and Rehabilitation Services which runs Parc prison, said: "I think it's important to note that in 2024 indeed we did have 17 and that was made up of eight natural causes deaths - predominantly of elderly gentlemen, which (MPs) saw on the wings, because we have palliative care at Parc - three self-inflicted deaths, and five we believe to be drugs-related."
Mr Styles also told MPs that contraband is brought in by visitors in "bodily orifices or in children's nappies".
He added: "Staff corruption is an issue in many prisons and one of the key... routes certainly experienced at Parc, kind of industrial specification drone drops being organised by organised crime gangs."
Lord Timpson said: "We have got a long way to go on drugs, a long, long way. I think we need to see it as a public health problem and I think we need to ensure that when people come in with significant drug problems, there are opportunities for them to turn their lives around.
"Substance-free wings I think are a really good way of supporting people. But it's also about getting them into purposeful activity, educating them, getting them in the library, and helping them build meaningful relationships with officers and the experts who are there to help them.
"So I think it's a really big issue, but I also think it's a big opportunity for us because if we can help people leave prison when they're not addicted to drugs or alcohol or all the other issues that they have, it's going to make a massive difference in the amount of reoffending that happens, and the amount of victims we have."