For years, difficult prisoners have been shunted between jails. But a report this week could conclude that staff at two major prisons have used the practice to improve behaviour during visits by independent assessors. The fallout will have far-reaching consequences for the whole penal service Several high-ranking employees at Wandsworth and Pentonville prisons may face disciplinary proceedings following an investigation into allegations that they tried to dupe inspectors Two of Britain's biggest jails are at the centre of an investigation that threatens the careers of senior prison service staff. The Observer has learned that several high-ranking employees at Wandsworth and Pentonville prisons in London may face disciplinary proceedings following an investigation into allegations that they tried to dupe inspectors to help gain their jails favourable assessments. The Prison Service launched an investigation after the chief inspector of prisons, Dame Anne Owers, said she had received information the two jails were transferring difficult prisoners before her inspections in an attempt to ensure they received positive reports. The prisons and probation ombudsman, Stephen Shaw, has also expressed concerns about the alleged transfers. A Prison Service meeting to discuss bringing charges of gross professional misconduct against several staff was held last Tuesday and further developments are expected imminently. Owers is this week expected to make scathing criticisms of the regimes at the two prisons. The Ministry of Justice yesterday declined to say whether any Prison Service staff had been charged. But in a statement given to theObserver, Jack Straw, the justice secretary, declared it is "neither policy nor acceptable practice temporarily to move prisoners during inspections". There is speculation that he could be forced to make a statement to the House of Commons about the affair later this month. Owers first submitted her allegations of suspicious prisoner transfers to the director general of the Prison Service, Phil Wheatley, who launched the investigation. Straw has stipulated that it must examine "who proposed and authorised the transfers; the rationale for the transfers; and the circumstances of the actual transfers themselves and whether those transfers took place in line with policy requirements relating to the well-being of prisoners". The inquiry is focusing on claims that a small number of the most difficult prisoners were swapped between the two category-B men's jails in May and June of this year. It is alleged that log books suggest prisoners were removed from one prison shortly before inspectors arrived and were then returned almost immediately after they left. If true, the claims threaten to have seismic implications for the Prison Service and the way it is independently monitored. They are also likely to trigger a toxic row between prison staff and the Ministry of Justice over the best way to run the country's jails. Many close observers of the penal system have expressed shock at the allegations. The two prisons – both built in the mid-19th century – have won plaudits for attempting to shake off their Victorian pasts, but overcrowding and tightened budgets have led to concerns about their ability to improve further. With a capacity of more than 1,500, Wandsworth is the country's largest prison. Pentonville can hold more than 1,100 prisoners. On Tuesday, Owers will publish two separate reports into conditions and practices at the two prisons that are likely to trigger a debate about the way the country's jails respond to inspections and the support given the watchdog by the Prison Service. They are also expected to address allegations that the prisoners were swapped, or "ghosted" as it is known by seasoned inmates. Some prison personnel argue "ghosting" is an effective way of managing disruptive prisoners and helps others make fresh starts. The "dispersal" technique – also known as "the magic roundabout" – was widely used for decades, but has fallen out of favour in recent years. By constantly moving the most obstinate, often dangerous, prisoners around the system, they have less time to cause havoc and spread their web of influence, runs the thinking. "We don't let their arses stay long enough in one place to cause disruption," was the succinct analysis of one senior prison officer. Gary Nelson, described at one of his many trials as one of "the most violent and dangerous men to walk the streets of Britain", is believed to hold the dubious record for being the country's most ghosted prisoner, having been moved to 33 jails over just one four-year period. Recently, however, ghosting has become something of a dirty word. An official report into disturbances at Harmondsworth immigration detention centre declared that the practice "unsettles the individual detainee" and warned it could disrupt medical treatment and the legal process. Academics have slated it as an "intimidation tactic". What really did for ghosting was its expense. With swingeing budget cuts and chronic overcrowding, prisons can no longer afford to keep cells empty, sometimes for several weeks at a time, on the off-chance they will be called on to take problem inmates. But claims the practice has allegedly been employed to remove problem prisoners before inspections is a new and serious development that threatens to plunge the Prison Service into crisis, especially if it triggers further suggestions that the practice is widespread. Such is the sensitivity over what is involved, there is a complete news blackout on the inquiry's progress. Straw simply says: "The investigation is due to report in October, at which time I will make a further statement." Adding a further, troubling dimension to the situation is the tragic story of Christopher Wardally. During the time of the alleged transfers, Wardally was a suicidal 25-year-old prisoner serving four years for robbery. Although he was not considered a difficult prisoner – and was not one of those allegedly transferred to evade the scrutiny of the inspectors – he still ended up being shuttled between Wandsworth and Pentonville, for reasons that are unclear. After being transferred back to Pentonville, a prison where he had previously attempted to take his life, he was returned to Wandsworth, where a day later he was found dead, hanging in his cell. An inquest has yet to determine the cause of death. It is no surprise, then, that some in the Prison Service predict the eventual outcome from the mounting number of inquiries, inquests, investigations, disciplinary hearings and official reports into what happened at Pentonville and Wandsworth will be "akin to another Strangeways", a reference to the Manchester prison's riots of 1990 that triggered the Woolf inquiry and ushered in sweeping changes to the prison regime. Woolf's inquiry addressed prison overcrowding, stretched resources and prisoners' living conditions – all issues that penal experts agree remain extremely pertinent today. But the latest row to engulf the prison service has also raised questions about the pressures public-sector staff feel under to meet exacting government targets. In private, prison governors are highly critical of the number of inspections and audits they must undergo on an annual basis. One governor of a large London prison said his institution had been subject to 15 audits or inspections during the past three and a half years. Much is at stake: a negative inspection can lead to the removal of a governor and their jail being demoted in the Prison Service performance league tables. At a time of low morale in the Prison Service, this can have a further debilitating effect on staff. Unions complain the massive apparatus charged with running the country's jails – the National Offender Management Service, staffed by 4,000 civil servants – drowns the service's employees in bureaucracy, with the result that they are continuously focused on hitting targets at the expense of everything else. There are unsubstantiated claims that mandatory drug-testing figures are being doctored and that regime activities are being exaggerated, in order to obtain positive inspection results. This, some argue, is what inevitably happens in a "target culture". "The alleged transfer out of prisoners before an inspection is clearly regrettable but is understandable given the pressure that prisons are under to produce excellent results, inspection after inspection after audit," said Harry Fletcher, assistant general secretary of the probation officers' union, Napo. Fletcher called for an independent review into the use of targets by the Prison Service, claiming it has "far too much centralised, repetitive, bureaucracy". Questions will inevitably be asked about whether other prisons may have been swapping inmates to achieve better inspection results. Prisoner support groups point out that Wandsworth is considered one of the country's best-run jails. They say if it could happen there, where else? The annual report of the prison's independent monitoring board (IMB), published this month, pays tribute to the hard work of its former governor, Ian Mulholland, who has recently been promoted within the Prison Service. The IMB declared Wandsworth had "moved from being a hard-nosed repository to an institution where staff have pride in coming to work and treating prisoners fairly and with respect". Mulholland's opposite number at Pentonville, Nick Leader, who has also just been promoted, is considered a progressive, highly popular governor, too, despite taking over an institution that was described by its IMB report in 2007 as suffering "endemic squalor and poverty of regime which ought to be a matter of deep shame to government in 21st-century Britain". Both men will inevitably now face questions as to what they knew about the recent transfer of prisoners between their jails. The imminent publication of Owers's reports and the inquiry's findings come at a tense time for the Prison Service. A record prison population has led to chronic overcrowding within the UK's jails while budget constraints have resulted in prisoners being locked up in their cells for longer. Unions warn such actions will lead to a rise in disturbances within prisons. Paul Tidball, chairman of the Prison Governors Association, recently observed: "For prisons to become less effective in reducing offending is tragic enough, and against the interests of our society and the taxpayer, but the potential catastrophe of widespread disorder resulting from foolhardy cuts takes the debate to another level." His warning comes amid heightened concerns about security at some of the country's seemingly most secure jails. This year alone, a prisoner escaped from Pentonville by concealing himself under a van while two inmates swapped identities at Brixton, allowing one to flee. Another prisoner disappeared in Holloway for a whole weekend by hiding in a cupboard, while a convicted offender was sprung by accomplices from a prison van leaving Feltham, having arranged for his escape on a mobile phone. In addition, a visitor was shot dead in the car park outside Wandsworth prison during the summer. Security inside the prisons is also being questioned. The widespread trade in drugs and mobile phones behind bars is said to be endemic, while the Serious and Organised Crime Agency has warned that criminal gang bosses are running their empires from behind bars. Corrupt practices by a small number of prison staff raise repeated concerns about the service's ability to investigate its employees. Islamist prisoners sympathetic to al-Qaeda have been the target, and the cause, of major prison disturbances. Given such pressures, adequate scrutiny of Britain's jails is paramount, say experts. "The integrity of the prison service and the independence of our prisons inspectorate are respected worldwide, so any action that could lead to prisoners being used as pawns in a game to undermine these institutions must be thoroughly investigated," said Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust. Straw's statement to the Observer said: "The chief inspector will make her own judgments in her inspection reports on the prisons, due for release shortly, but it is neither policy nor acceptable practice temporarily to move prisoners during inspections." Some observers believe the widely respected Owers has become frustrated by the amount of attention the prison service pays to her reports. This is unlikely to be a concern come Tuesday.Crisis over claim that jails 'duped' inspectors by moving inmates
Sunday 18 October 2009
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