Prisoner and Staff Safety

Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Justice – in the House of Commons at 11:30 am on 17 March 2015.

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Photo of Chris Grayling Chris Grayling The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice 11:30, 17 March 2015

I hope that it will make a big difference to our staff. I pay tribute to prison staff, who do a difficult job. It is particularly difficult at the moment, with an upsurge in violence. A lot of that is due to the prevalence of so-called legal highs—new psychoactive substances—in our prisons. We have taken a number of steps to try to restrict access to those drugs, which are absolutely unacceptable in our prisons. When serious assaults previously took place, prosecutions might not have happened because those people were in jail. Now, they will, and I hope that will be a deterrent.