Prison drugs trade worth £100million

[10th April 2008]

An ex-prison service worker has claimed that approximately £100million worth of drugs are being traded in prisons every year.

Huseyin Djemil, previously the Head of National Offender Management Service drug treatment, estimated that 20kg of drugs, mostly heroin, is being smuggled into prisons every week.

This backs up figures from Wandsworth prison, England's largest jail, who estimate that £1million worth of drugs were trafficked in the prison per year.

Although the government's figures for the number of prisoners testing positive drugs show a decrease from 25% to 9% since 1997, they also estimate that half of the prison population are regular drug users, which equates to about 40,000 individuals.

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