Behind Bars: Prison Undercover Panorama

Tonight, I'm undercover in one of our crisis-hit prisons.

I see some prisoners out of it on drugs.

Prison officers say they've lost control...

..that inmates run the jail.

The threat of violence is constant.

Security, compromised.

And prison officers struck down, exposed to drug fumes.

I ask what will it take to turn our prisons around?

Her Majesty's Prison, Northumberland

is one of the biggest in the country.

I've just started working here as a prison custody officer.

Hello. NU, this is November two.

Request permission to move from House Block Nine

to House Block Eight, over.

It's my first week and already I'm responsible

for escorting 70 prisoners.

I just follow the crowd of prisoners

and unlock the gates for them.

There are more than 1,300 men behind bars here.

Anything from driving offences to violent crime and drug smuggling.

The demands are endless.

My standard shift is ten hours.

Straight out of training, I do nine days in a row.

It appears chaotic to me.

These two prisoners are drunk at mealtime

and aren't trying to hide it.

Some are high on drugs.

Others are struggling to cope.

It doesn't stop from the moment you get there

to the moment you leave.

You can't work five days or six days solid there.

It...

It ruins you. You don't...

You're not a person any more, you just exist.

Three years ago, the prison was privatised.

French company Sodexo won the 15-year contract,

promising the Government it could save £130 million.

When the initial shock of the privatisation came out...

the staff were shocked that it had happened

but then we thought, well, maybe...

it could be a good thing.

We might see a big change.

You train as part of a team, so you and the dog are a team.

Jim Reid was a dog handler and prison officer

with more than 20 years' experience.

His optimism didn't last long.

They got rid of 96 uniform staff, over 200 in total.

I myself was part of a dog team.

Erm, and we were told, "You're gone."

Since 2011, around half a billion pounds has been taken

from the prison budget in England and Wales.

As the prisoner population was rising,

more than 6,000 officers were lost.

Jim Reid took redundancy

but colleagues who stayed at Northumberland

say they're overwhelmed.

I've seen experienced staff crying in the main street.

And they've said, "I cannae take it, I cannae take it any more."

It's horrendous up there for staff.

When they open doors, they're pulling knives on them, fights,

and the drugs, so there's a lot to deal with,

even for experienced staff.

Last year, Sodexo took on 23 new officers.

I'm one of them.

During our nine-week training course, we were told

that we'd been taken on to help turn the prison around.

It's a big ask.

Not all of the smoke is from cigarettes.

In the evenings, prisoners usually get a couple of hours to socialise

before they're locked in their cells.

Sodexo says we should always be on the lookout for drugs,

weapons and mobile phones.

But it's not that easy.

Even with the new staff like me,

I'm the only officer on this landing right now.

And there's nearly 30 of them.

We're supposed to be in charge.

I can't safely challenge them when I'm by myself.

And the prisoners know that.

The prisoner lying on the floor has smoked a drug called Spice.

His forearm's moving around uncontrollably.

His eyes completely vacant, doesn't know what he's seeing

and face completely expressionless.

Spice is now one of the most popular drugs in prison.

It's a cheap, chemical alternative to cannabis -

only many times stronger.

Spice is a potent, terrible drug.

Hallucinating, becoming violent.

They're walking around zombiefied.

Off their face, completely off their face.

The effects of the drug start to wear off.

The prison nurse arrives and an ambulance is on its way.

Officers tell me they don't always call the nurse

when prisoners react badly to Spice.

It happens too frequently.

It's not just here.

Prisoners regularly film themselves on mobile phones smoking Spice.

Spice in the jail house.

58 prison deaths in England and Wales have been linked to the drug.

He's gone. He's gone.

HMP Northumberland is a training prison.

It holds medium to low-security prisoners in its 15 house blocks.

They're supposed to study or work,

preparing for life on the outside.

Nearly a quarter of new prisoners in England

can't read or write to the level expected of an 11-year old.

The education and training they receive here

is provided by outside contractors.

Teachers try their best.

But some of what I see is not impressive.

This is an employability skills class.

I see three prisoners colouring in a picture

of the children's cartoon character Peppa Pig.

Prisoners colouring in Peppa Pig

or anything similar is inexcusable.

Sir Martin, who used to run the Prison Service,

hasn't seen any of my secret footage.

He's now advising the Government.

The art of reducing reoffending is not complicated.

If you get somebody employable and get them into a job,

the probability of them not going back to serious crime

is hugely increased.

These classes are provided by a company called Novus.

They told us they've investigated my concerns

and sent a report to the Government.

Prisons are supposed to be among the most secure institutions

in the country.

But small amounts of drugs have always come in during prison visits.

This prisoner has tried to swallow packages of heroin

passed to him by a visitor.

I find this package of drugs hidden in the sock of another

and hand it in.

But there's far more Spice in the prison

than can ever get in during visits.

On the very same day I started work at HMP Northumberland,

staff made a massive find.

Just on one house block, they found 2.5 kilos of Spice.

It was laid out over a table.

It would have filled up two backpacks' worth.

It's incredible.

It has a prison value of a quarter of a million pounds,

much more than it would be worth on the outside.

Some of the Spice was barely hidden in a prisoner's wardrobe.

There could have been more.

Officers don't know how much had already been sold.

How they've been allowed to have that quantity of drugs in a cell,

is unbelievable.

It's a major breach of security.

All the officers I've spoken to

think every inch of the block should have been searched.

They say, in the past, it would have been.

Officers tell me they think there was no lock down

because it would have cost Sodexo money.

They say if they're deployed to a search,

they can't also get prisoners to education, work and training.

And Sodexo gets paid partly based on how many inmates attend.

This prisoner burgled to fund his cocaine habit.

On the inside he's still on drugs.

Now it's Spice.

Prison isn't helping him change his ways.

HMP Northumberland's perimeter fence.

Jim Reid used to regularly patrol inside the fence with a dog,

intercepting drugs which had been thrown over.

Sodexo scrapped all that

and told him to drive around outside the perimeter on his own.

It was supposed to deter people from throwing items over the fence.

It was a joke.

Every member of staff knew security was a joke.

On patrol one afternoon, Jim ran into trouble.

So I was driving up, coming up the road here.

We had intelligence there was going to be a package dropped off.

One or two bodies, I don't know, were hiding behind this hedge.

And as I came up this way, they threw a boulder or brick

or whatever they threw. It just went bang.

It was a huge bang and it shattered the windscreen.

I veered off to the right and ended up in this ditch over here.

Jim escaped serious injury.

Other staff doing the same job have been threatened or attacked too.

Sodexo told us they work closely with the police,

"to deliver significant successes in the constant battle to disrupt

"drug supply and illegal activity."

There used to be regular, dedicated search teams

across HMP Northumberland.

Officers have told us now there are none.

This officer is supposed to be thoroughly checking the locks,

bolts and bars in these cells.

He does three cells in just 20 seconds.

This prisoner is in for burglary.

We're calling him John.

He seems disorientated and scared.

He's being kept in his cell until the Spice wears off.

HE BABBLES

As he starts to come round,

I can make out what he's been trying to tell me.

Later I find out why.

He says he's being bullied.

When I see him again, he's totally out of it on Spice.

Other inmates think it's hilarious.

LAUGHTER

I think they're "spiking" him,

giving him cigarettes laced with Spice.

Straight away, throws up on his bed, over his pillow...

..and rolls straight over on his face into it.

He's got no idea that there's sick everywhere.

He's got no idea he's got his face in it.

He's got no idea he's in a prison.

He's just not functioning at all.

I told a more experienced officer that he's being bullied.

It seems to me John's vulnerable

and being failed by the prison system.

Right across the Prison Service,

the plain truth is that there are too few prison officers.

The great danger is some officers

have retreated from interaction with prisoners,

to the ends of wings where they are perhaps observing prisoners.

That's very, very dangerous.

You have to have good order,

you have to have a place which is safe and secure.

ALARM BLARES

There aren't enough officers to deal with the violence here either.

A fight's broken out.

By the time officers get there, it's all over.

So they check the CCTV.

-Ooh! Oh...

-BLEEP.

I see one prisoner stomping on another.

I see the result of an attack on another prisoner.

And there are weapons in this prison.

This knife was photographed inside, I'm told, in the last few weeks.

Last year,

305 ambulances were called to the prison in just seven months.

That's nine a week.

And it's not a safe environment for officers, either.

35 were attacked at HMP Northumberland in 2015.

I'm told about a recent assault.

After this prisoner was told his TV would be confiscated

for beating up another inmate,

he refuses to go back in his cell.

Then he threatens me.

Others officers tell me they don't confront prisoners,

because they're not confident backup will arrive to protect them

if they're attacked.

There were 6,430 assaults on prison staff

in England and Wales last year.

That's 17 a day - the highest ever recorded.

Prison officers staged a series of walk-outs.

They said they didn't feel safe and had lost confidence.

At HMP Northumberland, officers feel their authority has gone too.

MUSIC PLAYING

Yes!

Just over a year ago, prisoners at HMP Northumberland

filmed themselves having a party and apparently taking drugs.

THEY LAUGH

The party happened here on House Block Six.

While I was there, staff made an astonishing find.

Officers think prisoners were wearing the black clothing

to sneak out at night and avoid being seen by CCTV cameras.

Tin snips - wire-cutting tools.

Staff soon find out what they've been used for.

The hole in an internal security fence

meant prisoners could collect drug deliveries

thrown over the outer perimeter.

That's a major breach of security.

Any tampering with any fencing

should have been picked up earlier.

It should have been inspected.

But how were they able to sneak out of their block in the first place?

House Block Six is supposed to be for well-behaved inmates

about to transfer to open prisons.

They aren't locked in their cells at night.

Doors to the outside are supposed to be alarmed.

I'm sent to check them after the discovery of the wire cutting tools

and make my own astonishing find.

An alarm should go off.

It doesn't.

I was told problems with the alarms were reported three weeks earlier.

I get a chance to speak to the governor, Tony Simpson.

Even he admits he's let the wrong sort of prisoners

onto the block.

The governor also told me House Block Six - a pre-fab building -

is ten years past its sell-by date.

We estimate that if Sodexo closed it, with the loss of 40 beds,

they would lose £16,000 per week.

Sodexo say they've invested at least £3 million

in safety and security

which are their top priority,

and recruited an additional 37 staff.

They say, "After viewing the programme, we will of course

"investigate where necessary and take appropriate action."

The Government say they're determined to make our prisons

places of safety and reform and have promised to spend an extra

£100 million a year on 2,500 new officers in England and Wales.

The staff already there whose confidence has been eroded,

we need to concentrate on recovering their confidence.

I think some of that will come as they see additional colleagues

arriving to work alongside them.

I'm not being glib, it will take some time.

Back at HMP Northumberland, despite my new intake,

it still feels chaotic.

I'm becoming used to the stress and the threat of violence.

But I'm not prepared for what I see next.

It's an officer he's talking about.

There have been reports officers' health is being put at risk

by Spice smoke in prison.

Until now, there's been little evidence.

It's not the first time officers here have been felled

by inhaling Spice smoke.

I've been told at least three members of staff have also

needed hospital treatment in the last seven months.

He's taken to hospital and later recovers.

I spent two months undercover at HMP Northumberland.

I saw prison officers unable to maintain control,

much less help rehabilitate prisoners.

If we take people and lock them up

and don't use that period when they are literally captive,

to try to do something which makes it less likely

that they'll go and burgle someone's house when they get out,

then we're just losing a golden opportunity.

Few of us will experience life inside.

But all of us have a stake

in stopping prisoners returning to crime.