Gavin Williamson, MP for South Staffordshire, has urged the Ministry of Justice to get tougher on contraband in prisons.
Gavin recently raised the question in Parliament of whether the Ministry Justice would ‘look at having a mandatory increase in sentence for prisoners who are found with contraband items in their cells’.
This was not the first time that Gavin had raised this issue in Parliament. In March 2013, during Justice Questions, Gavin asked the Minister for Prisons and Rehabilitation what powers there were to confiscate unauthorised property found in prisoners’ possession.
Mr. Jeremy Wright MP responded: “Prison governors or directors have the power under prison rules to confiscate any unauthorised item found in the possession of a prisoner or elsewhere within a prison. In addition, following the excellent stewardship of my hon. Friend Stuart Andrew, the Prisons (Property) Act 2013, which received Royal Assent on 28 February, will, when commenced, provide prison governors and directors with a statutory power to destroy or otherwise dispose of unauthorised property confiscated from a prisoner.”
A report on HMP Oakwood, published in August 2013, showed contraband – such as drugs, mobile phones and ropes - was rife in the prison.
The contraband would be thrown over the wire fencing, running along one side of the prison, and retrieved by prisoners ‘fishing’ from house block windows on the upper floors of the institution.
The Scottish Prison Service is currently trialling mobile phone signal blocking technology, which should enable prison authorities to detect and prevent prisoners' use of contraband phones. Many of these – such as the BMW fob and new watch/mobiles – are difficult to detect through traditional methods, due to their tiny size.