Drugs epidemic making jails 'impossible to run' as seizures by prison officers reach record levels
6 July 2025, 20:12 | Updated: 6 July 2025, 20:14
The prevalence of illegal drugs in UK jails is making it “almost impossible” to run prisons positively, experts have warned.
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Ministers have been told that an unacceptable level of criminality is carrying on unchecked across many prisons. The latest figures reveal that drug seizures by prison officers have hit record levels, surpassing 21,000 incidents annually.
New analysis from The Independent shows the ongoing crisis dates back to austerity-era budget cuts, when the prison service was wracked by cuts and staff layoffs.
The average number of annual drug seizures in prisons stood at 3,813 during the eight years leading up to 2014. However, over the next decade, that figure surged to an average of 15,350 per year. Starting in 2014, the number of confiscations rose sharply, from under 4,500 to over 21,000 within just six years.
The warning comes as prison staff numbers remain critically low at some prisons while the government plans the most significant overhaul of the prison system in decades, aimed at easing overcrowding and focusing more on offender rehabilitation.
Mike Trace, chief executive of the Forward Trust, a charity delivering drug treatment in 20 prisons, told The Independent: "We generally feel there is a bigger and more diverse and profitable drug market in prisons than there’s ever been."
He said this "makes prisons almost impossible to run positively” and expressed concern that an influx of new drugs, including fatally potent synthetic opioids, pose a risk to safety.
He said: "A lot of the market in prisons now is liquids and powders that people receiving and taking them are not really sure what’s in them. That means the risk of overdose or adverse reaction is heightened because people aren’t in a good position to manage dose and potency.”
Mr Trace added: “There are prisoners who need medical attention on a daily/weekly basis.”
In a major report released last month, the Independent Monitoring Board reported "Excessively high levels of violence and substance misuse" across prisons.
It said "drug use was endemic across the prison estate" and reported that "Many Boards described a seemingly unstoppable flow of drugs into prisons, despite efforts to stem supply."
In a separate annual report released last month about a prison in Nottinghamshire, an Independent Monitoring Board said prisoners reported that drugs were "readily available" and that "prisoners were frequently found unresponsive after using powerful psychoactive substances, commonly called Spice."
According to official data, there were a total of 21,145 drug seizures in the year leading up to March 2024. This is a 35% increase compared to the previous year, and nearing the all-time peak of 21,575 reported four years earlier.
Of those seizures, over 7,200 involved substances that could not be identified, while nearly 5,000 were classified as “psychoactive substances,” a category that includes synthetic cannabinoids like Spice. More than 3,000 additional cases were recorded under the “other” classification.
Two prisoners died at HMP Lewes in June 2022 after overdosing on isotonitazene, a synthetic opioid 250 times stronger than heroin, according to The Independent.
HM chief inspector of prisons, Charlie Taylor, told The Independent the effects of drugs, often brought in on drones, “is the biggest challenge currently facing many of our prisons”.
He said: “Inspectors regularly smell drugs as they walk around the wings and random drug tests in some jails are regularly coming back more than 30 per cent positive. Where there are drugs, there is debt, which is one of the causes of increasing violence."
“It is simply not acceptable that these levels of criminality are going on, unchecked, in so many English and Welsh prisons.”
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “This government inherited a prison system in crisis – close to collapse, with drugs and violence rife.“
"We take a zero-tolerance approach to drugs and are cracking down on illicit items using X-ray body scanners and drone-restricted fly zones – measures that are making a clear impact.”
