Overdoses double at prison where inmates say it’s ‘easy’ to get drugs

Drug overdoses nearly doubled at a privately run prison where inmates said it was “easy” to get hold of illegal substances, The Independent can reveal.

HMP Forest Bank, a category B jail in Salford, recorded 149 overdoses between January and December last year – up from 76 over the same period in 2021, new figures show.

This was almost twice as high as the jail that saw the second-highest number of incidents, HMP Holme House in Stockton-on-Tees, where 80 overdoses were logged.

It comes as Rishi Sunak is facing pressure over the growing crisis in prisons, with some crippled by understaffing and overcrowding. This month, it emerged ministers are considering releasing inmates early in a scramble for ways to avoid running out of prison spaces.

Labour said drugs were “rife” in jails, making it more difficult for inmates to turn their lives around and avoid reoffending upon release.

Campaigners claimed “very little” is currently done for inmate rehabilitation.

Forest Bank is run by Sodexo, the prison and justice management company that says it aims to “change lives” by operating “safe, decent and secure prisons”.

HM Inspectorate of Prisons (HMI Prisons) has, in the past two years, published damning reports about the jail, highlighting areas of “key concern” – including narcotics.

Its 2022 report found that 40 per cent of prisoners there said it was “easy to obtain illicit drugs”, which was higher than at similar jails (26 per cent) but lower than when it had been inspected in the previous year (61 per cent).

Illicit items such as mobile phones and drugs had “fuelled debt and associated violence”, the report added.

Sian Williams, CEO of Switchback, a London-based prison rehabilitation charity, said: “It should not take something as serious as this to draw attention to the current state of the prison system in Britain. UK prisons currently do very little for rehabilitation leading to reoffending rates of prison leavers at almost 50 per cent.

“People must take notice of the chronic staff shortages and overcrowding and the impact that is having on the safety of everyone. There are currently 88,225 people in prison and each person is owed immediate support to live life differently, this conversation needs to remain an urgent one.”

HMI Prisons, an independent body that reports on the state of jails and the treatment of prisoners across England and Wales, said in its 2023 report that steps had been taken to address Forest Bank’s drug problem but illegal substances remained “easily available”.

Incidents linked to drugs and other illicit items remained a significant problem at the jail, where violence levels were “among the highest” when compared to similar prisons.

Drugs remain a huge problem across the estate, with testing targets missed despite an increase in facilities and costs ballooning by tens of millions.

Last month The Independent revealed that, between June 2022 and June this year, 41,308 random drug tests were carried out – 12,830 short of the government’s target of 54,138. Testing was down 30 per cent compared with 2019, official figures show.

Woodhill high-security prison in Milton Keynes was recently put into special measures after inspectors declared it unsafe, with 38 per cent of prisoners testing positive for drugs.

The Ministry of Justice overdose figures were published in response to a parliamentary question tabled by the Labour Party.

Sodexo, which runs Forest Bank, said the company was committed to providing a safe environment to those who “live and work in the prison”.

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A spokesperson said: “We fully acknowledge that some areas require improvement, however we have increased levels of management for self-harm incidents (including drug overdoses) with a comprehensive improvement programme to assess and support prisoner safety.”

Shabana Mahmood, the shadow justice secretary and Labour MP for Birmingham Ladywood, said: “Under the Tories, prisons have spiralled out of control with some prisons’ rates of drug overdoses skyrocketing.

“With drug use rife, there’s a significant risk that prisoners come out of jail with a higher potential to re-offend than when they went in. It’s time the Conservatives focused on keeping the public safe.

“Labour is the party of law and order. In government, we will get on and deliver the modern prison places we need to ensure that dangerous criminals are locked up and rehabilitated, and the public is protected.”

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “We have a zero-tolerance approach to drugs in prison and are helping the highest-ever proportion of offenders overcome their addiction through our new drug-free living units.

“At the same time we are hiring specialists who will be supplying life-saving medication to treat those who overdose on opiates, and our £100m investment in tough security measures – including X-ray body scanners – is stopping the smuggling of illicit drugs behind bars.”