the interception can then be made available to the police and probation service so
that they can take any action which may be necessary when the prisoner re-enters
the community.
4.12 The inspections have also revealed that an alarming number of Category
B local prisons appear to have a very limited capacity to monitor prisoners who
pose a real threat to good order and security and this is a cause for concern. The
smuggling of drugs and illicit mobile telephones are serious problems for most
prisons, irrespective of their security status, and if a serious incident were to occur,
which could have been prevented through the gathering of intercept intelligence,
then prison managers and staff could find themselves in an indefensible position.
Regrettably on occasions my Inspectors still have to emphasise this point in a
number their reports.
4.13 The Category B local prisons, which were inspected during the reporting
period, were asked to provide details of the numbers of illicit mobile telephones
and associated equipment that had been seized in a six month period. Statistics
from 25 prisons were collated and these revealed that 1,456 mobile telephones
and 797 SIM cards were seized. Under the Offender Management Act 2007 and
Prison Order 1100 dated 26 March, 2008 it is now a criminal offence to convey
a mobile telephone or a component part of this equipment into a prison without
the authorisation of the Governor and 11 of the prisons were making use of this
legislation. However, the availability of such a large number of illicit telephones
in the prison system is a serious cause for concern because prisoners can also use
them to access the Internet.
4.14 Following the publication of the Blakey report in 2008 the Chief Operating
Officer issued the Mobile Phones Good Practice Guide which was designed to
help prisons minimise the number of mobile phones entering prisons and disrupt
the number of mobile telephones that they were unable to find. Intelligence from
the Pin-phones does help to prevent and detect attempts to smuggle them into the
prison and this was part of the strategy. Clearly quite a number of the establishments
are unable to implement the strategy fully because the resources and equipment
are weighted far too heavily in favour of the offence related monitoring and this is
a continuing problem. It is crucially important that prisoners are prevented from
using mobile telephones to conduct criminal or illicit activity inside and outside
the prison. Better use of the Interception Risk Assessments will eventually reduce
the amount of offence related monitoring which needs to be conducted and this
will in turn increase the capability to conduct more intelligence-led monitoring.
4.15 The Inspectorate has an excellent working relationship with the Prison
Service National Intelligence Unit (NIU) and regular meetings are held to review
the outcomes of the inspections. All the inspection reports are copied to the NIU
and the Directors of Offender Management in the regions. My Chief Inspector also
attends high level meetings of the Audit and Inspection Group chaired by NOMS
Audit and Corporate Assurance, where representatives from the National Audit
Office, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons and others meet to discuss issues
of common interest. In previous inspection reports I mentioned that the Prison
Service intended to trial a new pilot scheme which will test the effectiveness of
the systems and processes for conducting the interception of communications. I
understand this is scheduled to commence in May 2010 and hopefully the results
will be available for the Secretary of State and Director General to consider later
in the year.
Section 5: Other Matters
Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Northern
Ireland Office warrants
5.1 In paragraphs 31 – 33 of my Annual Report for 2006, I set out the reasons
for not disclosing the number of warrants issued by the Foreign Secretary and the
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