Corrupt prison officers face purge as investigations of dishonesty mount

A purge of corruption among prison officers has been ordered in England and Wales with the number of investigations into allegations including bribery, fraud and violence now at more than 700.

Martin Narey, director general of the Prison Service, launched the crackdown because of concern that wealthy drug dealers were exploiting officers to mastermind escapes and gain transfers. He also expressed concern about the dangers that rich prisoners were bribing or compromising staff to smuggle drugs into prisons.

Mr Narey said his clean-up would also tackle allegations that rogue staff members were carrying out assaults on inmates, subjecting prisoners to racist or sexist treatment or harassing other Prison Service employees.

The jails head spoke out as he revealed that he had set up an anti-corruption unit that is conducting 720 investigations into allegations of staff misbehaviour.

The cases include seven escapes from prisons and seven more from escort, 15 of fraud, 14 of inappropriate relationships between staff and inmates, 13 unauthorised disclosures of information, four of alleged trafficking, and 35 in which keys or locks had to be changed.

Mr Narey's Professional Standards Unit is also co-ordinating investigations into 53 cases of staff harassing other staff, 80 allegations of assaults on prisoners and 56 cases of racism. Prison Service sources indicated that around 100 members of staff were currently suspended.

Mr Narey told The Independent: "The prison population has changed quite a lot. We now have many, many more extremely sophisticated, extremely rich prisoners who have the capacity to compromise and corrupt staff."

He said some inmates had accumulated "very large resources" from drug enterprises and were able to use their associates to put pressure on officers. Mr Narey has recruited former police officers with backgrounds in intelligence work to take part in the investigations, often working with Customs and Excise officers.