Criminology Report: Drug Problems and Prison Conditions in the UK

This report examines the significant issue of drug misuse within UK prisons, highlighting its detrimental effects on prisoner health, safety, and the overall criminal justice system. It explores the various pathways through which drugs enter prisons, including visitors, staff corruption, and smuggling, and discusses the resulting health problems, violence, and financial burdens on healthcare. The report emphasizes the government's responsibility to provide basic needs and ensure the health rights of prisoners, while also analyzing the failure of the 'rehabilitation revolution' and the application of Restorative Justice. It concludes by addressing the importance of improved prison conditions and the need for effective strategies to combat drug misuse and protect the well-being of both prisoners and staff. The report references key studies and reports, including those from the Justice Committee and the Office of National Audit, to support its findings and recommendations.

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The Criminal Law and Poor Condition in Prison
For my college excursion, I had to visit the central jail in HM Berwyn last year. This Jail
has been oprated by the Prison Service of Her Majesty. In the structure of criminal justice, the
misuse of any drug in the prison cell is the biggest challenge in the UK now a day (Wheatley
2016). The jail authorities have reported a medical problem in prisons other than virus fever or
cold. Persistent concerns regarding the health of imprisoners have been elevated from the last
decades on unsafe, overcrowded, as well as unsanitary conditions in the prisons of this territory.
The Justice Committee in the UK in the year 2015, and yet again in the year 2016, has cautioned
that accessible pointers pointed in a speedy deterioration of the safety of prisoners in the UK.
(King 2019) The drug misuse has been contributed and prevalent to crime, violence, as well as a
vulnerability within the sphere of prison in the UK. It has threatened the ability and safety of
such hardworking staffs in prison for delivering effective regimes. Physical health and mental
health condition are also associated with such intimate misconduct in such populations in prison.
In recent years, this becomes significant, as well as more challenging to reduce such drug misuse
in prison (Pierce et al. 2015). The government of the UK has possessed special care towards the
detention places or prisons, which should be covered with basic needs, safety, as well as an

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appreciation of human rights, especially the health right of a prisoner (Jefferson and Gaborit
2015). The proportion of affirmative random assessments for ‘traditional’ drugs in such prisons
has been increased by almost fifty percent to 10.6% from 7%, and the usage of the drug in
prisons is become widespread, predominantly in C category prisons and male local (Shiner
2015). In the evidence, it has shown that the prisons of the UK in such a higher rate of a random
drug investigation in the prisons, which are stable in the smallest amount. My paper aims to
discuss drug issues in the prisons, which has affected physical condition, availability of the drug
in prison.
I have perceived that there are various distinctive factors relating to persons imprisoned
in custody through a judicial power or deprived of their freedom in conviction (Bennett 2016).
Firstly, such detaining authority should assume such duty of care towards the prisoners, such as
they have possessed an obligation for meeting at least the basic needs of the prisoners. Secondly,
the dependence of the prisoners on the prison’s staffs, as well as detaining center in an aspect of
their life, as well as safety and protection of it. It is the right of a prison that his health condition
should not be diminished for their detention in the imprisonment. Declining standards of the
health condition of the prisons within the UK’s prisons followed such substantial diminutions in
public disbursements, which has resulted in such staffing levels of falling considerably. Drugs in
imprisonment can be entered into various paths, and it has differed from one prison to another.
They often necessitate a sophisticated preparation and training, to bypass systems, which have
been put in domicile for preventing drug smuggling into the prisons. There are several ways,
which can be used as a via of drug smuggling such as visitors, prison walls, returning or new
prisoners, posts, any corrupt staff of that prison and many others. This drug has created several

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severe health problems of the prisoners in prison and a large expenditure for health care of them
as it may affect the mental health of those prisoners (Forrester et al. 2018.).
Drugs in imprisonment have become one of the central themes, which is a dominating
factor or influence in such a relationship with the staff of the prison and the prisoners (Seddon
2014). The health of a prisoner is very important in prison, as he has sent there for correction his
fault. According to Peter Clarke, in an annual report regarding the dangerousness of prisons in
the territory of the UK, that the prisons in this territory have been overwhelmed by violence,
drugs, terrible living environments and a lack of admittance to such meaningful activities of
rehabilitations (Harvey 2018). There are two reasons to provide protection and better health
facilities in prions. The population in Prison has contained a high pervasiveness of people who
are related to serious, as well as in a life-threatening condition. Thus, there should be a keen
interest in society, where one type of group of persons receive such health protection and get
conduct or treatment of any lousy health condition. The next reason for the importance of health
care of the prisoners in an aspect of the commitment of society in accordance with social justice.
In the criminology system of the UK, this drug supply or smuggling is a punishable offense, and
the offender will be held responsible for such activity (Mjåland 2016). At the commencement of
the Parliament, such government of the UK has announced the ‘revolution rehabilitation’ for
recognition of that fact that such a system has been failing for spiraling around the ruined lives of
the prisoners who are addicted to the drug (Byrne, Pattavina, and Taxman 2015).
I have experienced that the government of the UK has been failing to the efforts of
improving the condition of prison, with a great record of breach of safety, as well as the health of
the prisoners. The theory of the Restorative Justice Process has been applied for the offenders in
a belief to do right of the wrong or the crime of an offender. The Office of National Audit in the

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UK has assumed that the plans regarding maintaining and providing secure, safe, and cleaned
prisons have not been carried out by the prisons. From the last decades, almost 1,730 cells have
been taken permanently by the Prison and Probation Service, which are out of use (Deering
2016). This Service has also expected that the government will be losing almost 500 prisons
every year for such poor conditions in the remaining property. It has expected that almost 41% of
such prisons have been needed for a primary replacement or repair to working in a better way
(Jacobson, Heard, and Fair 2017). Therefore, I can be concluded that issues regarding drugs are a
burning issue for the healthcare system and safety of the prisoners, which the government of the
UK is trying to resolve.

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References
Bennett, J., 2016. The working lives of prison managers: Global change, local culture and
individual agency in the late modern prison. Springer.
Byrne, J.M., Pattavina, A. and Taxman, F.S., 2015. International trends in prison upsizing and
downsizing: in search of evidence of a global rehabilitation revolution. Victims &
Offenders, 10(4), pp.420-451.
Deering, J., 2016. Probation practice and the new penology: Practitioner reflections. Routledge.
Forrester, A., Till, A., Simpson, A. and Shaw, J., 2018. Mental illness and the provision of
mental health services in prisons. British Medical Bulletin.
Harvey, M., 2018. Living conditions of life in prisons. Probation Journal, 65(1), pp.101-102.
Jacobson, J., Heard, C. and Fair, H., 2017. Prison: Evidence of its use and over-use from around
the world.
Jefferson, A. and Gaborit, L., 2015. Human rights in prisons: Comparing institutional
encounters in Kosovo, Sierra Leone and the Philippines. Springer.
King, L.A., 2019. Forensic chemistry of substance misuse: a guide to drug control. Royal
Society of Chemistry.
Mjåland, K., 2016. Exploring prison drug use in the context of prison-based drug
rehabilitation. Drugs: education, prevention and policy, 23(2), pp.154-162.
Pierce, M., Bird, S.M., Hickman, M. and Millar, T., 2015. National record linkage study of
mortality for a large cohort of opioid users ascertained by drug treatment or criminal justice
sources in England, 2005–2009. Drug and alcohol dependence, 146, pp.17-23.

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Seddon, T., 2014. Drug policy and global regulatory capitalism: The case of new psychoactive
substances (NPS). International Journal of Drug Policy, 25(5), pp.1019-1024.
Shiner, M., 2015. Drug policy reform and the reclassification of cannabis in England and Wales:
A cautionary tale. International Journal of Drug Policy, 26(7), pp.696-704.
Wheatley, M., 2016. Drug misuse in prison. In Handbook on prisons (pp. 205-223). Routledge.