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I am a substance misuse social worker in a community drug and alcohol
team. Previously I worked as a Probation Officer for six years, from 1993
-1999. My post was as a throughcare Probation Officer with persons
serving between four years and life. I therefore have considerable
experience of visiting prisons across the country, of all categories.
A question one should ask when considering the extent of the
availability of drugs in prison is what purpose it serves the institution.
Whilst the deterrent of searching visitors and drug screening might seem
to indicate a will to prevent drugs getting into prisons, the reality is,
in my experience, that having drugs such as cannabis and heroin being used
by a significant minority of the prison population is in fact a way of
keeping inmates 'subdued' and acts as a form of helping to control what
might otherwise be a more volatile populace.
A more controversial observation should be made by first
acknowledging the difficult job that prison officers do, the majority of
whom are honest individuals, many wanting to work in a more rehabilitative
environment than is the case, given significant cutbacks to educational
and therapeutic units in recent years. But a major route of drugs
entering prison, I had been told anecdotally on many occasions by serving
inmates and those I supervised on parole license, is via a minority of
prison officers.
Regards
Gary Seaton
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests:
No competing interests
08 April 2005
Gary Seaton
social worker with substance misuse
Redbridge Drug and Alcohol Service, Ilford Chambers, 11 Chapel Road, Ilford, Essex IG1 2DR
Another Agenda?
I am a substance misuse social worker in a community drug and alcohol
team. Previously I worked as a Probation Officer for six years, from 1993
-1999. My post was as a throughcare Probation Officer with persons
serving between four years and life. I therefore have considerable
experience of visiting prisons across the country, of all categories.
A question one should ask when considering the extent of the
availability of drugs in prison is what purpose it serves the institution.
Whilst the deterrent of searching visitors and drug screening might seem
to indicate a will to prevent drugs getting into prisons, the reality is,
in my experience, that having drugs such as cannabis and heroin being used
by a significant minority of the prison population is in fact a way of
keeping inmates 'subdued' and acts as a form of helping to control what
might otherwise be a more volatile populace.
A more controversial observation should be made by first
acknowledging the difficult job that prison officers do, the majority of
whom are honest individuals, many wanting to work in a more rehabilitative
environment than is the case, given significant cutbacks to educational
and therapeutic units in recent years. But a major route of drugs
entering prison, I had been told anecdotally on many occasions by serving
inmates and those I supervised on parole license, is via a minority of
prison officers.
Regards
Gary Seaton
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests