Prisoners who abstain from drugs and alcohol will be offered rewards such as access to TVs and games consoles as part of government plans to root out drugs from jails.
A prisons strategy paper published yesterday revealed plans to expand the rewards scheme that allows prison governors to offer extra facilities for good behaviour.
Types of behaviour that will qualify for the rewards will be expanded to abstinence from drugs and alcohol. Rewards include in-cell televisions, games consoles and access to private cash.
Strict rules on the use of games consoles ban devices that can connect to the internet, bar games that have an 18 rating and say they must not be provided at public expense.
The move is part of a wider strategy to break the cycle of drugs and crime.
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The new prisons white paper, published by the Ministry of Justice, set out plans to expand “incentivised substance free living units” where prisoners live drug-free and are offered extra support with their recovery from addiction. New treatments will be offered including abstinence therapy in order to “get prisoners out of the debilitating addictions known to fuel crime”.
The government wants to gradually phase out opiate substitutes like methadone which can be highly addictive.
The strategy paper also revealed plans to introduce drugs testing of staff for the first time, as well as body scanners to root out drug smuggling. Prisons will be set targets for the first time to rehabilitate inmates and results will be published in new league tables.
Yesterday Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab promoted the new strategy on a visit to HMP Isis in Thamesmead, southeast London, but were heckled by some inmates from their cells. One yelled “f*** Boris”, prompting the prime minister to turn around.
Speaking afterwards, Johnson said: “When young people, and it’s almost invariably young men, end up in prison, that cannot be a dead end for them. And we want to stop the drugs coming in, so we’re putting in a lot of money for scanners, but we also want them to come out with more qualifications and more self-esteem about their chances in the future.”
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He later added: “We can’t be recycling young men endlessly in and out of the criminal justice system.”
