By IRNA
London : The British government is considering to introduce more rigorous searches for illicit drugs in prisons after revealing that up to four in five people sentenced to some jails have abuse problems.
“It is of significant concern that on average 55 percent of people entering prison have a serious drug misuse problem, with this figure rising to 80 percent in some instances. Many have offended to fund their need for drugs,” Justice Minister David Hanson said.
“Inevitably, their desire for illicit drugs does not simply disappear when they enter prison. As a result, the Prison Service faces major challenges in trying to respond to prisoners’ attempts to secure access to illicit drugs,” Hanson said.
Announcing a review of measures to tackle the problem, he said that had been success already with a number of initiatives including mandatory drug testing, better detox, better treatment, CCTV surveillance of visits, and improved searching and intelligence.
“The level of drug positives detected by the random mandatory drug testing programme in prisons has fallen by nearly two thirds since its introduction in 1996-97 from 24.4 percent to 8.8 percent in 2006-07,” the minister said in a parliamentary statement Tuesday.
He announced that the review of the prison service’s measures to disrupt the supply of illicit drugs into prisons would be lead by former Inspector of Constabulary David Blakey and would report back by the end of May.