Tories demand prison officers be armed with 'lethal weapons' to crack down on Islamist terrorists
31 May 2025, 21:17 | Updated: 1 June 2025, 05:05
Prison officers should armed with tasers, stun grenades and baton rounds in order to tackle dangerous criminals in high-security jails, the shadow justice secretary has said.
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Robert Jenrick has said prison officers should be armed with lethal weapons to crack down on Islamist terrorists in jail.
He added that highly trained teams should also be equipped with tasers, stun grenades and baton rounds to tackle dangerous criminals in high-security jails.
Mr Jenrick has formed the plan based on a series of recommendations by counter-extremism expert and former prison officer Ian Acheson.
The news follows a prison officer being stabbed at a high-security prison at Long Lartin High Security Prison in Worcestershire on Friday, with the weapon believed to have been smuggled in from outside the premises.
It also follows several attacks on prison officers in jails, including Southport killer Axel Rudakubana allegedly throwing boiling water on prison staff.
Mr Jenrick said: "Islamist gangs and violent prisoners in our jails are out of control.
"It's a national security emergency, but the government is dithering. If they don't act soon, there is a very real risk that a prison officer is kidnapped or murdered in the line of duty, or that a terrorist attack is directed from inside prison."
Mr Jenrick commissioned Mr Acheson to conduct a rapid review into measures the government could adopt.
The measures include removing all radical Islamist imams working in prisons, immediately rolling out high-collar stab vests to frontline officers, and mandating the quarterly release of data on religious conversions in prison and faith-based incidents.
Mr Jenrick added "pussy-footing" around "Islamist extremists and violent offenders" in jails must be stopped.
"That means arming specialist prison officer teams with tasers and stun grenades, as well as giving them access to lethal weapons in exceptional circumstances," he said.
"If prison governors can't easily keep terrorist influencers and radicalising inmates apart from the mainstream prisoners they target, then we don't control our prisons - they do. We must take back control and restore order by giving officers the powers and protection they need."
Mr Acheson said: "Robert Jenrick is right - the threat to officer safety is now intolerable and must be met decisively by the government.
"The balance inside too many of our prisons has shifted away from control by the state to mere containment. Broken officers can't protect the public from violent extremism."
A Ministry of Justice source contested the suggestion, stating the introduction of lethal weapons into prisons "would put prison officers at greater risk".
They added: "The last government added just 500 cells to our prison estate, and left our jails in total crisis. In 14 years, they closed 1,600 cells in the high-security estate, staff assaults soared, and experienced officers left in droves. Now the arsonists are pretending to be firefighters. We are building new prisons, with 2,400 new cells opened since we took office. And we take a zero-tolerance approach to violence and extremism inside."
