A new report published on the second of December by the BBC shows evidence of a prison system in crisis, with alarming numbers of staff left with no choice but to take mental health leave.
With evidence procured by an FOI request to HMPPS workforce, alongside statistics pulled from their quarterly reports, the BBC has found that England’s prisons have missed out on almost 150,000 working days due to workers taking mental health leave – a 44% increase from 2019. Across both England and Wales, 41% of sick days taken over the last 12 months by workers in the probation and prison services were because of mental health.
This noticeable increase in mental health leave was also found to be reflected in the number of violent assaults on staff, which has now risen to surpass pre-pandemic levels. The daily stress of working in a high-intensity environment, like a prison, is enough to test anyone’s mental resilience, and the increasing threat of bodily harm seems to be a contributing factor pushing many to breaking point.
More than this, officers have said that the lack of workplace support is the biggest failure, leaving many workers’ mental health in tatters. With both violence and other traumatic incidents on the rise, officers are repeatedly facing impossible situations, like suicide, bullying, and self-harm, as a part of their daily workplace routine. Trauma goes hand in hand with the job – increasingly so – and prisons, like any other workplace, need to look after its workers.
In this area, however, it appears they are failing. Without the necessary support, many officers are finding themselves unable to continue in a career they previously loved. Indeed, a Ministry for Justice spokesperson told the BBC that the government had “inherited a prison system in crisis”. It is the individual officers that are facing this crisis head on, and they are the ones suffering the very personal consequences.
But they are not the only ones suffering. If prison officers are being left unable to do their jobs, then what is the impact of this on the prisoners themselves? Prisons are supposed to punish, but a key part of their role is rehabilitation to help people rejoin society as productive, law-abiding members. Without the necessary staff, this cannot be fully carried out, adding extra strain to the remaining officers. The mental health crisis amongst the system’s employees is evidently a symptom of a much wider problem, and one that will be impacting the opportunities and support available to inmates.
The prison and probation system is not only hurting its employees but also the many lives that it is in charge of, failing people on both sides of the bars.