The use of – and trade in – illicit drugs is now at ‘endemic levels’ in the prison estate, according to a report from the House of Commons Justice Committee, with a ‘dangerous culture of acceptance that must be broken’.
Urgent reform is needed to tackle the huge demand for drugs in prisons and the ‘poor condition’ of the prison estate, the document warns, otherwise this ‘failing and unstable system will continue at unacceptable human cost’. The ability of the prison service to maintain safety and control and offer effective rehabilitation is being ‘critically undermined’ by the sheer scale of the crisis, it says.
Almost 40 per cent of prisoners reported finding it easy to get hold of drugs, with 11 per cent of men and 19 per cent of women saying they’d developed a problem with drugs, alcohol or non-prescribed medication since arriving in prison. ‘We heard that, once a prisoner is exposed to the “menu of drugs” available to them, the pressure from the established drug-using subculture makes it exceptionally difficult to resist drug use,’ the report says, with the prison drug market fuelling violence and debt at the same time as ‘exacerbating existing mental health conditions and trauma’.
The lack of purposeful activity means prisoners – many of whom are ‘routinely locked in their cells for up to 22 hours a day’ – are turning to drugs to allay the boredom, with prices for substances vastly in excess of their street value in a market dominated by organised crime gangs. According to the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, 16 per cent of more than 830 deaths investigated between December 2022 and December 2024 were drug-related, with nitazenes already linked to deaths in HMP Parc.
‘Concerningly, the chief inspector of prisons said the police and prison service have “ceded the airspace” above two high-security prisons’, the report continues, with a 770 per cent increase in drone sightings around prisons between 2019 and 2023. The emergence of sophisticated drones to convey drugs represents a ‘paradigm shift’, it says, offering the ‘unique advantage of bypassing traditional perimeter security to deliver packages. Alarmingly we heard about drones that could lift “a moderate-sized person”.’
The MoJ and DHSC should mandate an overhaul of the ‘complex and fragmented’ commissioning model for prison-based substance misuse treatment, the report urges, which is ‘compromising the efficacy of treatment outcomes and continuity of care’. Official statistics on drug use are also likely to be an underestimate, it adds, as testing technology has ‘not kept pace with the constant evolution of psychoactive substances’.
The committee is calling for mandatory drug testing to be increased to ‘at least pre-pandemic levels’, along with the introduction of wastewater-based surveillance across the prison estate, although Collective Voice warned of the ‘unintended consequences’ of this approach. ‘Synthetic cannabinoids were created and took hold in prisons largely because they could not be picked up by drug tests, and the prevalence of new psychoactive substances in prison, as the report notes, is driven by their ability to evade detection’, it said.
‘The committee’s findings during this inquiry were sobering,’ said Justice Committee chair MP Andy Slaughter MP. ‘Fuelled by inflated profits, the supply of drugs by organised criminal gangs into prisons is a constant pressure. This is compounded by failure to address and reduce the underlying demand for drugs and combat the alarming rise in the use of sophisticated drone technology.
‘Highly potent new psychoactive substances are driving increases in violence, debt, and fatal overdoses, with the current testing regime failing to keep pace,’ he continued. ‘Without urgent reform and investment that tackles the profitable supply networks, the discrepancies in treatment provision and purposeful activity, plus the poor physical condition of the estate, prisons will remain unstable, unsafe and incapable of gaining control over the drugs crisis.’
‘The dealing and consumption of drugs has become the predominant activity in some of our prisons,’ added Forward Trust CEO Mike Trace. ‘However hard we try to reduce the supply of drugs in prisons, we will not find a solution until we manage to suppress demand. As long as most prisoners want to get high most days, the market and all the associated intimidation, debts, violence and overdoses will continue. But there is some good news – we do have a proven model from the transformational recovery and rehabilitation work we undertake in prison, such as those highlighted by the committee [HMP Cardiff and HMP The Mount] that reduces demand for drugs in prison and also helps prisoners to overcome addiction and avoid a return to crime on release.
‘If we do not provide meaningful treatment, harm reduction and recovery then we are handing over drug market in prisons to those who do not care for the consequences drugs can bring to individuals, prison life, families and staff.’
Tackling the drugs crisis in our prisons: Sixth report of session 2024–26 available here: