Prison staffing crisis laid bare as complaints about officer behaviour surge to worst levels in at least a decade

Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. And figures obtained by this publication show a particular surge in complaints about staff behaviour over the past financial year – which were 30 per cent higher than the average over the nine years prior. He added: “Where there’s a gap between the skills, capability, knowledge and number of staff – and the risk and experience of prisoners – that gap can often be filled by instability in the jail and a sense of a lack of control.” Warning that the training for British prison officers “isn’t enough for the complexity of the job”, Mr Taylor also said that the lack of a face-to-face interview and “real testing of people’s values” during the recruitment process creates the danger that the wrong people are hired. “So either they leave very quickly after all this investment, or you’ve got someone who’s just a sub-standard officer, who hasn’t been trained properly, is not helping with the day-to-day running of the jail and becomes a bit of a dead weight on the prison and other staff – because they’re having to look out for that person all the time.” HM chief inspector of Prisons Charlie Taylor warned that a loss of institutional memory among officers can hamper their ability to manage risk in prisons Staff dismissals for misconduct have also surged to their highest level in at least 15 years, official data shows. Stressing that prison officers have a profoundly complex job, former governor Ian Acheson said: “The increase in complaints about staff behaviour can be down to many things, from a lack of respect to vexatious intimidation.