Drugs, cell-brewed booze and contraband phones in Haverigg prison

Prison dealers can reportedly make thousands a week from exploiting the addictions and yearnings of their fellow inmates.

And Haverigg’s black market has contributed to prisoners being caught with prohibited items more than 1,000 times in five years.

Behind bars, banned items sell for eye-watering prices, with inmates paying as much as £2,000 for an ancient phone – or £50 to make a ten-minute call to loved ones on the outside.

Drugs worth £2.50 a tablet on the street are worth ten times as much inside, according to one prisoner who has served time in a number of jails.

He said inmates across the country are employing brazen methods to make, smuggle in and distribute banned items, with some hardened criminals making up to £10,000 a week as a result.

At Haverigg, enhanced security, prison lockdowns and significant changes in the way the facility is run are likely to have contributed to a significant drop in ‘prison finds’ in recent years.

But since 2017-18, officers at the jail have uncovered alcohol on more than 90 occasions; phones, chargers and SIM cards around 350 times and weapons 98 times.

The most significant proportion of finds at the prison relate to drugs, with substances found 265 times and drug equipment discovered on 125 occasions.

Our analysis of MoJ figures reveals more than half of the drugs found were psychoactive substances, with notorious synthetic drug Spice likely to be among the items seized.

Where there’s drugs, experts say, violence follows.

Over the course of a decade, more than 700 attacks on inmates and staff were recorded at Haverigg.

Robert Preece, communications manager at the Howard League for Penal Reform, said the number of recorded confiscations do not “tell the full story” of the extent of drug abuse behind bars.

He added: “Drugs are a scourge in prisons – where there is drug abuse, there is also debt and violence.

“Ministers have spent millions on tightening security, but the best way to reduce the supply of drugs and mobile phones into prisons is to reduce the demand for them in the first place.”

He said staff time should be spent making sure people get out of their cells and are occupied with work, education, training and exercise.

Before the pandemic, Haverigg officers seized contraband several times a week, with 300 occasions logged in 2019-20.

That’s around eight times as many as were recorded last year, when prohibited items were discovered just 41 times.

A spokeswoman for the Prison Service said £100 million had been invested in airport-style security systems in jails across the country.

She said more than 20,000 attempts to smuggle contraband into prison had been foiled as a result.