DRUG GANGS TURN TO JAILS FOR A NEW SALES PUSH

Prisons Offer Bigger Profits After Fall In Street Prices

DRUG barons are targeting jails in England and Wales to offload a flood of
cheap, hard drugs. The increasing sophistication of gangs outside jails is
now being matched by greater organisation among drug dealers feeding a
growing market inside the jails.

Gangs have focused on prisons in the North West, particularly Liverpool,
Manchester and Forest Bank in Salford, where they know that they can gain
greater profits than on the streets.

The plentiful supply of Class A drugs has resulted in a fall in street
prices. Heroin now costs an average UKP61 a gram compared with UKP74 in
1997. In Manchester it is as little as UKP40 a gram and in Birmingham UKP30.

Similarly, the price of a gram of cocaine has fallen from UKP71 in 1997 to
UKP55 last September. Crack cocaine sells at between UKP5 and UKP25 a rock
in Manchester and between UKP5 and UKP10 in Birmingham.

Phil Wheatley, Director- General of the Prison Service, told the annual
prison service conference this month that the 138 jails were facing
signficant operational challenges in the next year.

"These centre particularly around drug dealing in prisons, which appears to
be becoming much more organised," he said. "We will have to find ways of
responding to this increased determination and sophistication on the part
of drug dealers in prison."

Further evidence of the extent of drug misuse in jails will be disclosed
this week in a report on Wealstun jail at Wetherby in West Yorkshire. Anne
Owers, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, found that some dormitory doors had
notices saying "no salesmen" in order to discourage dealers.

A separate report by the Independent Monitoring Board at High Down jail in
Sutton, Surrey, said that "incidences of smuggling illegal drugs into the
prison are still high". It is the activities of organised drug gangs in the
North West that is, however, causing most alarm within the Prison Service.
Findings from mandatory drug tests among prisoners have found a "marked
rise" in those testing positive for the use of opiates, mainly heroin.

Prison sources said that the fall in street prices for heroin and cocaine
had resulted in dealers being willing to accept that two out of three
packages of drugs thrown over perimeter walls will be found by staff.

The problem is so serious that the Prison Service fears drug barons in the
community now have networks of dealers operating inside the big prisons,
particularly those holding convicted drug suppliers.

The main methods through which drugs enter jails are by packages being
thrown over the fence, sometimes hidden in tennis balls; being smuggled
inside body cavities during visits; with newly convicted inmates; and by
corrupting prison staff and contractors.

Once inside, convicted dealers are assessing demand on the wings, then
contacting associates on the outside to arrange supplies to be delivered to
the jail, where they are sold for more than street value.

Visitors to prisoners are intimidated into smuggling drugs inside by
warnings about what will happen to them or the prisoner they are visiting
if they refuse.

Enver Solomon, policy director of the Prison Reform Trust, said as many as
eight out of ten new arrivals in some urban jails are found to have Class A
drugs in their system.

"The Prison Service has to take up the slack for the lack of treatment in
the community and not surprisingly it is unable to cope. Community drug
treatment programmes would tackle the cause of offending for thousands of
prisoners who have committed non-violent crimes to fuel drug habits far
more effectively than locking them up in overcrowded jails."

A Prison Service spokeswoman said the service was working with the police
and other organisations to tackle the problem of drugs in jails. "We do not
want to go into any details as this will alert people to what we are doing."