Prisons: Security

(asked on 23rd April 2019) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 3 April 2019 to Question 237103 on Prisons: Security, what selection criteria was used by his Department when deciding which prisons would be the first to be funded to install X-ray body scanners.


Answered by
 Portrait
Rory Stewart
This question was answered on 1st May 2019

The X-ray body scanner installation programme for the remaining establishments, including the 10 Prisons Project and High Security Estate, is underway, having commenced in early April 2019. All of the prisons included in the programme will have their scanners installed by the end of June 2019.

The prisons included in this programme have specifically been selected as having an identified need for the detection technology to help address their current threats to prison safety and security. Following an operational trial in HMP Belmarsh, the decision was taken to provide the remaining prisons within the High Security Estate with a scanner to help mitigate the risk of contraband being trafficked into the prisons, by prisoners, via internal secretion. HMP Holme House has also been allocated a scanner given their status as drug-recovery prison and their role in exploring new technologies which may benefit prison safety and security more widely.

The 10 prisons in the 10 Prisons Project were selected across three regions in the prison estate as some of our most challenging establishments, particularly in respect of drugs and violence. We are working closely with them to understand how adaptable different approaches, including x-ray scanners, are to types of different prison environment so that we can share best practice and seek to replicate elsewhere what works.

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