Letters – Our Prison Service is in need of immediate reform
Dear Editor,
Recent figures have shown that the number of serious assaults by inmates
upon prison guards has skyrocketed.
The Ministry of Justice said there were 595 serious assaults against
guards in the year to September 2015 – up 33 per cent on 2014. Total assaults
are up 30% to 4,568.
The government must immediately act to address the serious problems of
overcrowded and understaffed prisons. It is utterly unacceptable that the
British Prison system has gotten out of control. It is vital that the
government takes this matter seriously, it should not take a prison guard
tragically losing their life (and the media outcry that would follow this) to
deliver long overdue reforms.
The government has recently found funding to expand the London
bureaucracy (paying some of these staff thousands of pounds per day); if they
can find money for yet more be bureaucrats, then they can find money for
additional prisons and guards.
Regards,
Jonathan Arnott MEP
UKIP, North East
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