The Commons justice committee determined that psychoactive substances could be sprayed onto letters
UK members of parliament are calling for a method of securely verifying legal correspondence after the Commons justice committee revealed that illicit psychoactive drugs could be sprayed onto paper, reported the Law Society Gazette.
In the “Tackling the drugs crisis in our prisons” report, the committee said the drug trade and use in prisons was “endemic,” per a statement published by the Gazette. Letters, including fake legal letters, were a common delivery route.
The HM Prison Wandsworth follows the Send Legal Mail barcode policy, where prison staff confirm a letter’s authenticity by scanning a barcode. His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service photocopies mail to limit drug smuggling, but this method has not been applied in all prisons for lack of funds and staff, the committee indicated in the report.
The report also highlighted the “serious workplace safety violation” of staff being exposed to drugs in this way.
“The MoJ and HMPPS have a duty of care to protect their employees, but the prevalence of drugs in prison is risking their ability to uphold it,” the committee wrote in the report, a snippet of which was published by the Gazette. “The high prevalence of drugs in prisons, particularly NPS, poses an unacceptable and direct threat to the safety and well-being of prison staff. The current reality of staff becoming ‘desensitised’ to daily suffering is a sign of a failed system and a dangerous culture of acceptance that must be broken.”’
Committee chair Andy Slaughter called for urgent reform to and investment in the prison system that addresses profitable drug supply networks, discrepancies in treatment provision and purposeful activity, and poor estate conditions.
Per a snippet published by the Gazette, the committee recommended that the service “rapidly develop and enforce a national, secure protocol for verifying legal correspondence,” such as mandatory secure digital portals or standardized, verifiable barcode systems to prevent privileged mail from being exploited. It also suggested that purposeful activities like education, vocational training, and accredited work programmes be expanded.
A third recommendation was for all frontline staff to be consistently trained in medical emergency response.
