Wardens are photocopying legal documents being delivered to prisoners due to the fear drugs have soaked into them.
The most recent method of drug smuggling into prisons involve prisoners getting people on the outside to spray drugs on their letters.
In order to crack down on this new method, prison officers are now opening mail and making photocopies to pass along.
An Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) report shows that Spice, a previous legal high, is being sprayed on fake legal letters.
The paper absorbs the drug and is later used when smoking.
The category C prison, HMP Wealstun located in West Yorkshire with over 800 male inmates has a report on it by the IMB which uncovered that the healthcare staff at the prison, attended to inmates showing the impact of psychoactive drugs like Spice around 10 times daily.
Presumptive Drug Test Kits for Prisons
Psychoactive drugs are still a serious issue in the prison, escalating the amount of physical violence within the prison and causing the hospitalisation of prisoners and officials. Many prisons use drug identification tests for spice, enabling the to identify if prisoners are in possession of the drug. Drug identification tests for cannabis are also utilised as well as general screening tests for drugs which can identify up to 10 substances at once.
Drug identification tests are also known as Presumptive Drug Test Kits.
Over The Wall
A lot of the illegal drugs are thrown over the fences; this can be a challenging issue to solve because of the long perimeter.
If an incoming letter is suspected of being soaked in drugs, they get photocopied.
There was a significant surge in attacks on prisoners as well as staff members over the year versus the reporting the previous year, which the Board believes is a result of the rise in drug use along with the irritation prisoners experience when routines are restricted because of staff shortages.
The primary causes of attacks are arguments, difficulties with employees, retaliation and unpaid debt.
Public Health England warned last week that twice the numbers of prisoners are leaving prison with Spice in their system as when they went in.
Spice is infamous for transforming many high streets into “zombie zones”. It is also incredibly cheap for prisoners.
At present, it is the male adult prisons, which have to deal with huge difficulties as a result of Spice. It is usually more powerful compared to high potency cannabis.
There is the deadly mixture of wide impact, high, fluctuating and erratic potency. In a confined setting such as a prison, it’s especially difficult.
Photo Credit: “Wormwood Scrubs” (CC BY-SA 2.0) by amandabhslater