The harsh reality of working in UK's most notorious prisons

ITV News Social Affairs Correspondent Sarah Corker has this exclusive report on a scheme to fast-track new staff at Belmarsh

With overcrowding, understaffing and rising levels of violence, why would anyone want to work in a prison?

ITV News was given rare and exclusive access to new recruits working on the frontline in the country’s most notorious prisons.

Officer Brown, 23, is on an early shift at HMP Belmarsh, a maximum-security male prison in South East London with a fearsome reputation, housing 700 inmates from terrorists to sex offenders.

Ian Huntley, Julian Assange and Ronnie Biggs are all current or recent guests.

Office Brown has had a ‘radical career change’ from anthropology graduate to prison guard

This is her first full time job and she’s 3 months in.

“I've responded to two violent incidents so far with prisoners lashing out, one member of staff was punched. You don't know what you're running into, and that unknown is really scary.”

“It’s nerve-racking just in terms of like it's actually happening now, like this isn't the training anymore, this is real life, but it’s really rewarding too,” she said.

'My friends didn't think I could do it': Officer Withers had been working in finance before switching to a career at HMP Manchester

Across the prison service serious violence is on the increase - on average 20 prison officers are assaulted every day. 

When Officer Withers, 24, told his family he was going into the service they were ‘shocked’ and some friends ‘didn’t think I could do it.’

An economics graduate, he’s swapped a career in finance to work at HMP Manchester.

“I found working in the city a bit dull and boring. When lockdown hit, I ended up working with young offenders in care homes and I found that was much more suited to me and my personality,” he said.

“When I came first came in to prison I thought, it was crazy, then you just get used to it. Situations can be very stressful, you have limited resources, but it’s all part of the job. It's incredibly exciting at times,” he added.

The officers are all part of the government-backed Unlocked Graduates scheme where high-flying graduates who could have pursued a career in law or medicine, are instead recruited to become prison officers.

Natasha Porter, Unlocked Graduates founder believes the scheme can help rubbish negative preconceptions surrounding prison work 

Recruiting and retaining staff remains a major problem across the service as there’s been an exodus of experience in recent years.

One in seven prison officers left last year, nearly half of them (47%) had been in the role for less than three years, more than a quarter (27%) left after less than a year. 

Prison work is often seen as a low status job, something the scheme’s founder Natasha Porter says must change.

“We think the prison officer should be seen as the brain surgeon and the highest status job because you are working with people who have the biggest vulnerabilities. If people come out of prison and they re-offend, they make our society less safe,” she said.

The programme is modelled on Teach First, where top graduates are parachuted in to struggling schools in deprived areas.

Since 2017, Unlocked has placed 600 graduates in prisons across England and Wales and is currently recruiting for the 2023 intake. It’s a small scheme with big ambitions but there’s a long way to go.

'Violence is not an issue at Belmarsh Prison': Governor of Belmarsh Prison Jenny Louis spoke to exclusively to ITV News' Sarah Corker about overcrowding and community

New figures show there are too many prisoners and too few staff.

The Ministry of Justice said last month that it was commandeering police cells for emergency use after running out of space in men’s prisons in England and Wales blaming the backlog of remand cases and acute overcrowding.

To address overcrowding, the government said it is creating 20,000 more modern prison places.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “We are recruiting more prison officers, including Unlocked graduates, boosting their pay significantly and our £125 million security investment is keeping them safer at work.”

In an exclusive interview with ITV News, the Governor of Belmarsh Prison Jenny Louis said prisoners on remand are waiting for years for their day in court with some cases not listed until 2024 and those delays are clogging up jails.

“There are a number of individuals who have been waiting for a sustained period of time to go to court, so trying to get people move through the system is really difficult. So as soon as I've got somebody who's convicted, we try and move them on so that we can make space for the remand population to enable us not to use police cells,” she said.

The latest inspection of Belmarsh Prison found too many prisoners still spent very long periods locked behind their doors with little to do and adding to the volatile atmosphere.

One former prison officer told ITV News that prisons are at crisis point and have never been so dangerous.

For 11 years Neil Samworth worked in Strangeways, now HMP Manchester, before an attack by a prisoner left him injured and suffering from PTSD.

“There’s no experience amongst staff, those in the job for a long time are on the edge, really stressed. I think we’ve got to the point where it’s just bums on seats and not necessarily the right people for the job,” he said.

“We are starting to treat people like animals again, keeping them locked up all day, and then they behave like animals.”

“The hot water thing used to terrify me, boiling hot water, sugar in it, thrown in peoples face, that is terrifying,” he said.

Retaining staff remains a massive problem as officers leave to earn more doing less dangerous jobs.

Starting salaries for Unlocked Graduates are up to £34,000 and 75% of participants stay on the frontline beyond the two years of the programme.

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