Prisons facing 'violence risk'

1:35pm Tuesday 7th October 2008

A prison governors' leader warned of a "serious risk" of disturbances in jails in England and Wales because of a shortage of funding.

Paul Tidball, president of the Prison Governors Association (PGA), spoke of the danger that jails could become "less stable" if further cut backs are forced through to finance new prisons.

"A miracle would be the wrong term, but it is an incredible achievement for the prison service to have kept the lid on the prison estate in conditions where there are constant and ever present over crowding crises," he said.

He added: "We are concerned that the existing prisons are being starved of resources to help pay for the new ones. As we all know over the last few weeks there is not much money to go around."

Mr Tidball said he was concerned about plans to reduce the number of managers, many of whom are involved in face-to-face dealings with prisoners.

He said cut backs this financial year had meant that prisoners have been locked into their cells more and have had fewer opportunities to take part in activities such as measures to reduce re-offending.

He said recent figures had shown "substantial" improvements in re-offending rates and there had also been a reduction in the number of security incidents.

"This is a tribute to the hard work and professionalism of staff. There is a danger of that being thrown out of the window by cutting the budgets even further and to do so by reducing the number of managers is a risk," he said.

He added: "There is a danger that by reducing the regimes and indeed the number of managers to the extent that is proposed, that prisons will become less stable."

Mr Tidball, a former governor of Cardiff Prison, will voice his concerns in a speech to be delivered at the annual conference of the PGA in Buxton, Derbyshire. The PGA represents almost 1,300 prison governor grade posts and has members across the UK.

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