The purpose of this group of amendments relating to prison premises is to make supplying or offering to supply new psychoactive substances on prison premises an aggravating feature affecting the seriousness of the offence. It was the Secretary of State for Justice who said in the Commons just three weeks ago that,
“there is an unacceptable level of drug use, both of illegal drugs and so-called legal highs, in our prisons”.
In the same exchange, the chairman of the Home Affairs Committee in the other place said:
“Thirty-five per cent. of prisoners have a drug addiction and 6% acquire that addiction while in prison”.—[Official Report, Commons, 23/6/15; col. 737.]
A succession of inspection reports produced by the prisons inspectorate, covering Highpoint, Bristol, Liverpool and Deerbolt prisons among others, has shown high levels of use of synthetic cannabis.
There is a market in drugs in at least some prisons, and it can lead as well to incidents of bullying, harassment and debt. The taking of psychoactive substances can undermine safety in our prisons. It may exacerbate unpredictable behaviour and the threat of violence and, in certain instances, increase the risk of suicide and self-harm. In a bulletin this month, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman wrote:
“The use of New Psychoactive Substances … is a source of increasing concern, not least in prison. As these substances are not allowed in prison, and also because they are difficult to test for, it is possible that in addition to the cases in this bulletin there were other prisoners who had used such drugs before their death”.
The bulletin goes on to look at 19 deaths in prison between April 2012 and September 2014 where the prisoner was known or strongly suspected to have been using NPS-type drugs before their death. Continuing, the ombudsman wrote:
“NPS cover a range of substances, and the precise health risks are difficult to establish. However, there is emerging evidence that there are dangers to both physical and mental health, and there may in some cases be links to suicide or self-harm. Staff and other prisoners may be at risk from users reacting violently to the effects of NPS … Trading of these substances in prison can also lead to debt, violence and intimidation. Once again, this creates the potential to increase self-harm or suicide among the vulnerable, as well as adding to the security and control problems facing staff”.
Drug addiction is a key factor that leads to individuals committing crimes, and if some end up in prison as a result of the crimes that they have committed, they ought at the very least to be in a safe and constructive environment where action can be taken to wean them off drugs and be one part of the process of reducing the prospect of them reoffending when they are released from prison. However, that is not always the case. The prison environment is potentially profitable for a dealer because of the vulnerability of many of the people inside and the fact that it is literally a captive market.
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The Government have rightly made it an aggravating feature of the offence of supplying psychoactive substances if it is carried out within the vicinity of a school where young people are present at the time of the offence. Young people can be vulnerable; so, too, are many in prisons. People who have already committed offences in part or in whole because of drugs may be vulnerable again when they finish their sentence, particularly if they have continued to take such substances in prison. It is the height of irresponsibility, callousness and indifference to vulnerable people, as well as the height of greed, to be willingly involved in the supply of psychoactive substances on prison premises and in the financial rewards that result, whether through doing it during a visit to the prison as a visitor, or as a rogue member of the prison staff, or as a contractor, subcontractor or supplier working at or in the prison, or as the sender of parcels or letters to the prison containing such substances, or through being a prisoner directly involved in the supply chain of such substances, or by whatever other means. For such people, the penalties for the offence need normally to be greater,
because they know, and we know, that they are deliberately targeting with drugs very vulnerable people in a captive location to make money for themselves, and in so doing defeating the objectives of trying to get such vulnerable people off drugs and thus reducing the likelihood of their reoffending once they have served their sentence, to the benefit of society as a whole. There may of course be some involved who have been coerced against their wishes into playing a minor and unwilling role in the supply chain, but if that is shown to be the case, this would need to be taken into account.
In some cases, the prison authorities may feel that such an offence should be dealt with through internal prison disciplinary procedures; but particularly for those who are not prisoners, playing a very minor role, the courts should be the place for such an offence of supply or offering supply to be heard and dealt with, with the statutory requirement to regard supplying psychoactive substances on prison premises as an aggravating factor when determining the seriousness of the offence.
Obviously, court proceedings are not the whole answer or even the main answer to the problem of new psychoactive substances in our prisons. The ombudsman’s report to which I have already referred called for more training and education about the substances for both prisoners and prison staff. This is an issue that I understand the National Offender Management Service has been and is seeking to address.
The level of seriousness of the offence and the likely associated sentence send a message about how a particular kind of offence is regarded and will be dealt with both now and in the future. I hope that the Government will feel able to accept the amendment, which does not weaken but strengthens the Bill and identifies a further area of particularly serious concern where psychoactive substances are supplied in addition to the vicinity of a school already covered in the Bill; namely, on prison premises. I beg to move.