Drug trade booming in Britain's prisons

[23 June 2008]

Drug trade in Britain's prisons has become a multi-million pound industry, with jail staff making a record 15,000 seizures of cannabis, heroin and cocaine in the past three years.

According to new statistics released under Freedom of Information laws, there has been a 12 per cent rise in drug seizures since 2005. Drug barons easily operate in jails because overcrowding allows them to slip by busy officers. Some break in to the prisons to deliver the drugs while others do business with insiders via mobiles. Prison officers' leader Brian Caton said: “If we can't deal with drugs in prison, we face more trouble dealing with it on the outside.”

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