High-security jails come with sky-high cost of keeping prisoners
The cost of keeping the UKs most dangerous criminals in custody is rocketing.
Nov 15, 2016
By Nick Hudson
The cost of keeping the UKs most dangerous criminals in custody is rocketing.
Holding an inmate at top-security HM Prison Whitemoor is £212 a night the same as a Hilton hotel in London.
The new yearly `price tag` for a category A prisoner at the Cambridgeshire jail is £77,600, according to the National Offender Management Services annual report.
It shows a 72 per cent rise on the last known cost of category A prisoner, which was £45,000 a year.
Whitemoor holds the largest proportion of Muslim inmates of any British jail including Bluewater bomb plot ringleader Omar Khyam and gang murderer Lee Amos.
Its cost dwarfs that of the countrys other seven high-security mens prisons, largely due to heightened security measures.
The annual cost at HMP Bronzefield in Ashford, Middlesex the only female category A facility is £64,833, or £177 per night.
Glyn Travis, of the Prison Officers Association said: These averages mask the real cost of the worst of the worst, who require far more resources.
Explaining the higher costs, a Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: Specialist units are in place to ensure the safety of staff and other prisoners.
The report findings come in the wake of Justice Secretary Liz Truss unveiling radical new powers earlier this month for the state to take over the running of jails mired by violence as she admitted prisons are at breaking point.
She announced plans to spend £100 million to recruit 2,500 more prison officers. And she said that a toxic cocktail of drugs and violence flooding our prisons is threatening to delay reforms promised by former Justice Secretary Michael Gove.
She revealed a long-awaited White Paper on reform to return safety to a system being imperilled by the chaos behind prison walls.
As part of a series of proposals, Ms Truss has promised to intervene and sack governors when prisons fail.
New league tables measuring everything from violence to an offenders progress at English and Maths will rank jails across England and Wales.
All prisoners will also be treated for drugs on their way into custodial sentence and when they leave to see which governors are helping them kick their addiction.
Ms Truss told MPs: Prisons need to be more than places of containment they must be places of discipline, hard work and self-improvement.
Last month shock figures revealed assaults on prison staff soared 43 per cent last year to 5,954.