Photo: The Canadian Jewish News
One of the only 3 high-security prisons in England and Wales, HMP Belmarsh, is using technology to fight the wave of crime and drug use among inmates – specifically, an airport-style scanner.
That drugs, weapons and mobile phones find their way to inmates despite the prison staff’s hardest attempts to keep them on the other side of the wall is not something new, as neither is it limited to the UK. That’s why the decision was made to install a body scanner at the reception, thus making the traditional pat-down and the more intrusive strip-search, obsolete, it is highlighted in a new report published on the HM Inspectorate of Prisons.
The body scanner is described as airport-style, used to detect hidden objects on a person or inside the body. Peter Clarke, Chief Inspector of Prisons, says it definitely contributed to a decrease in the number of incidents of inmate violence using objects from the outside, be they drugs or weapons.
However, he stresses, the situation as Belmarsh wasn’t as bad as he expected it to be, at least regarding illegal drug use. The last report of the kind was issued in 2015, and Clarke admits that there was a need to step up the game in terms of preventing crime among inmates.
“Technology was being used to support efforts to manage violence and drug use at the prison, for example through the body scanner being piloted in reception,” he says in the report.
“Staff were trialing a new body scanner in reception, which used low-level X-rays to identify prisoners concealing unauthorized articles. It had resulted in some finds of mobile phones, weapons and drugs, which would not have been identified during a strip-search,” Clarke adds. “The initiative was encouraging and promoted respect and decency – the dedicated search team had decided to use the body scanner instead of requiring prisoners to squat routinely during strip-searches.”
Belmarsh is dealing with other problems as well, Clarke notes: it’s understaffed and overcrowded, and both these issues can’t be solved by turning to technology.
Other prisons in the UK are also considering using body scanners as a means to prevent drugs, weapons and mobile phones from reaching inmates, thus fueling even more crime.
The body scanner is described as airport-style, used to detect hidden objects on a person or inside the body. Peter Clarke, Chief Inspector of Prisons, says it definitely contributed to a decrease in the number of incidents of inmate violence using objects from the outside, be they drugs or weapons.
However, he stresses, the situation as Belmarsh wasn’t as bad as he expected it to be, at least regarding illegal drug use. The last report of the kind was issued in 2015, and Clarke admits that there was a need to step up the game in terms of preventing crime among inmates.
“Technology was being used to support efforts to manage violence and drug use at the prison, for example through the body scanner being piloted in reception,” he says in the report.
“Staff were trialing a new body scanner in reception, which used low-level X-rays to identify prisoners concealing unauthorized articles. It had resulted in some finds of mobile phones, weapons and drugs, which would not have been identified during a strip-search,” Clarke adds. “The initiative was encouraging and promoted respect and decency – the dedicated search team had decided to use the body scanner instead of requiring prisoners to squat routinely during strip-searches.”
Belmarsh is dealing with other problems as well, Clarke notes: it’s understaffed and overcrowded, and both these issues can’t be solved by turning to technology.
Other prisons in the UK are also considering using body scanners as a means to prevent drugs, weapons and mobile phones from reaching inmates, thus fueling even more crime.
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