Criminal gangs sending aides as prison guard recruits in UK, warns officers’ union

Members of organised criminal groups get hired as prison guards with the “sole purpose” of smuggling contraband into the prisons in UK, the Prison Officers’ Association (POA) has warned.

The POA, the union representing prison workers, has said that online interviews were the prime contributor of “hiring the wrong people”.

“Organised crime groups realise that there’s a lot of money to be made by smuggling contraband into prisons. People can be recruited as a prison officer and go into [the jail] with that sole purpose of bringing contraband in, to make a lot of money. They can do it by themselves or for an organised crime group,” a POA spokesperson said, according to the Guardian.

“You get paid to train and you do whatever you want after that. If you have a good run, you don’t get caught and get out after five or six months having made good bucks. It sounds a bit surreal. But that’s actually happening.”

The union said that a vast majority of prisons are facing this problem, and added that fail-safety measures are needed to curb this practice.

“In the vast majority of prisons, a lot of young staff could be conditioned into bringing stuff in, and other staff come to us with the sole intended purpose of taking stuff in.”

Low and inexperience major risk factors

Apart from that, inexperience and low pay are also contributing to young prison guards being lured by the gangsters.

“There are always two types of corruption [in prisons]. You’ve got the very sophisticated type of corruption, where someone linked with organised crime almost goes in as a sort of sleeper. But most corruption isn’t that – most corruption is that someone naive gets into a relationship, sexual or otherwise, with a prisoner which is inappropriate. And of course, once you’ve been pulled in, it’s very hard to stop,” Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons, told the Guardian.

The police officer recalled a case where 18 female guards were firedand three were jailed for having relationships with prisoners at HMP Berwyn in north Wales.

“In those cases, you have to ask, were they recruiting the right people? Or were they training these people properly in order to understand the risks of potential corruption?”

The union has urged the government to increase the minimum age of prison officers to 21 and better gate security to stop contraband arriving with corrupt officers.

(With inputs from agencies)

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