Since when does a criminal’s right to make a cup of tea come before the safety of prison officers? That was the question posed by Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick this week after Southport child killer Axel Rudakubana attacked a guard at HMP Belmarsh with boiling water.
This followed an incident last month at HMP Frankland in which Manchester Arena terrorist Hashem Abedi stabbed three guards and threw hot cooking oil over them, leaving them with life-threatening injuries. On Tuesday, a prison officer had their throat slashed by an inmate at HMP Woodhill.
Ministry of Justice figures reveal there were a shocking 10,000 assaults on prison staff last year – up from 3,640 a decade earlier.
No wonder Prison Officers’ Association chairman Mark Fairhurst is calling for the construction of a US-style ‘supermax’ facility to house Britain’s most dangerous criminals. Prisons minister Lord Timpson has responded by declaring, solemnly: ‘We shouldn’t rule anything out.’
Today, inspired by some of the highest-security prisons around the world, the Mail paints a forensic picture of what a supermax jail in Britain would look like.
When Robert Hood, the former warden of ADX Florence – America’s most high-security prison – was asked to describe the facility, he paused before declaring: ‘It’s a clean version of Hell.’
Opened in 1995, the ‘Alcatraz of the Rockies’ in Colorado was designed to house some of the nation’s worst offenders.
‘It breaks down the human spirit,’ recalled former inmate Garrett Linderman. ‘It breaks down the human psyche. It breaks your mind.’
If Britain is to build its own version of ADX Florence, the Ministry of Justice must first decide on a location.
The most likely spot is near a main arterial road less than an hour’s drive from a major town or city, on land that is cheap or disused. Needless to say, nobody is likely to be enthusiastic about such high-risk criminals living on their doorstep, even if there is no prospect of escape.
A strong option is East Riding, equidistant between York and Hull. The existence of nearby prisons – the category A Full Sutton and category C Millsike – will make running the new supermax more efficient.
The architecture of the prison will follow three imperatives: to physically isolate prisoners from one another; to reduce the need for contact between guards and inmates; and to ensure prisoners cannot get their hands on anything they could use to cause harm to others.
Southport child killer Axel Rudakubana attacked a guard at HMP Belmarsh with boiling water
The prison’s outer perimeter, a 12ft wall, is to stop outsiders looking in rather than prisoners getting out. The chances of an inmate reaching this outer wall are nil.
To reach it means getting through a razor-wire fence, then somehow negotiating an electric fence that carries a fatal charge, and then crossing unnoticed the 30ft-wide ‘no man’s land’ loaded with buried ‘pressure pads’ that detect movement and alert guards in the control room.
Most inmates won’t even know the fences exist – they never see the outside world beyond a small patch of sky. But more on that later. Four watchtowers are strategically placed around the octagonal perimeter, though long gone are the days of guards keeping lookout. Instead high-tech AI cameras detect motion and alert officers who can call on an on-site team of attack dogs.
Newly arrived inmates don’t get the luxury of driving in through the front gates. Instead, detainees are brought – blindfolded with a hood – via an underground tunnel. They are then brought into a room where they are tethered to metal tags on the wall, strip-searched, swabbed for their DNA and fitted with an identification bracelet around the left wrist.
Manchester Arena terrorist Hashem Abedi stabbed three guards and threw hot cooking oil over them, leaving them with life-threatening injuries
The main building is in the shape of an X, comprising four wings, each with 25 single-occupancy cells. A control room sits at the centre, providing guards with a clear line of sight down all four wings. In this maximum-security facility, inmates spend 23 hours a day locked in a 7ft by 12ft box.
Professor Yvonne Jewkes is a world-leading expert on prison design and author of An Architecture Of Hope. She told the Mail this week that supermax cells are ‘brutal, inhumane places’ and has grave reservations about Britain housing its most violent criminals in them.
Professor Jewkes provided a haunting portrait: ‘The cells are often harshly lit 24 hours a day, and there is no contact necessary between the prisoner and a single other human being, as meals are delivered through a slot and doors are unlocked remotely for inmates to take exercise alone in a small yard.’
Each cell contains a bed made from poured concrete and topped with a thin foam mattress wrapped in plastic, a thin foam pillow and a rough blanket. Steel bunks or traditional spring mattresses are out of the question as the metal could be fashioned into an improvised blade known to lags as a ‘shank’.
The concrete bed is fitted with so-called ‘strap-down loops’ through which restraints can be run, turning the bed into a straitjacket. Strapping a prisoner down is not a punitive measure but rather for their own safety should they try to self-harm.
A circular, fixed concrete stool sits in front of a desk slab attached to the wall. With good behaviour, prisoners may be given books, a large felt tip pen (less dangerous than a pencil) and paper – and in certain cases, a small black-and-white television showing a curated stream of inoffensive programmes. The electricity operates at the discretion of prison staff.
Each cell boasts a basic shower, providing a dribble of lukewarm water, though a timer fitted to the appliance ensures it runs for only two minutes each day. The toilet is made from stainless steel with the cistern buried inside the wall. The outlet is no more than two inches wide to prevent inmates trying to drown themselves.
A small sink fixed to the wall comes with a bar of soap, offered once every six weeks. A CCTV camera, housed in a metal and Perspex casing, monitors the entire cell 24/7.
A strong option for the supermax is East Riding, equidistant between York and Hull
The concrete walls are fitted with steel sheeting as well as sound proofing. The latter is both to prevent detainees from conversing with one another and also to further their sense of disorientation, loneliness and – ultimately – hopelessness. Similarly,
windows are just 4in wide and cut at an angle to prevent inmates from seeing what is happening in the rest of the prison.
A single halogen light bulb is concealed on the wall above the bed inside a tamper-proof casing known as a ‘clamshell’. The light can be operated only by officers in the control room – though they may never have cause to switch it off. Inmates are moved to a different (though identical) cell every three months as a security measure. Each cell has two doors, the first a row of formidable steel bars, encased in polycarbonate sheeting to prevent inmates hurling anything, especially the only weapon they possess – faeces, at officers.
Beyond the bars lies a 2in-thick steel-sheeted door, triple-hinged and complete with
unidirectional peep hole and a lockable ‘feeding slot’ for passing food trays without human contact. All meals are eaten in cells.
The food is basic, consisting of three meals a day to provide the calories prisoners require. Breakfast is typically cream of wheat, a cheaper alternative to porridge. Lunch is a light soup or stew with bread while dinner is more substantial consisting of protein and vegetables.
Inmates aren’t given sugar, which could make them excitable, or anything they could harm themselves or others with, such as meat bones. Drinking water is provided in paper cups while tea is served lukewarm once a day with breakfast. They are also offered multivitamins.
They are provided with disposable plastic cutlery which they must make last the day.
Prison Officers’ Association chairman Mark Fairhurst is calling for the construction of a US-style ‘supermax’ facility to house Britain’s most dangerous criminals
AXF Florence in Colorado is America’s highest-security prison, dubbed the ‘Alcatraz of the Rockies’
Inmates are allowed out of their cells for one hour a day to exercise in a 15ft by 10ft concrete yard, netted across the top and equipped with a security camera. The yard in ADX Florence is wryly known to inmates as the ‘empty swimming pool’ due to its high walls and eerie echo – prisoners can walk just 30 steps in a circle before finding themselves back where they began.
While moving between the yard and their cells, inmates are handcuffed behind their back, blindfolded and bent forwards over their knees, with the most non-compliant fitted with an anti-spit mask. Each inmate is escorted by a minimum of three guards at all times, often five.
There is no communal or recreational space. Kitchens and staff offices are located in outbuildings accessible via two monitored checkpoints.
A visitation room within the main block is the size of a cell and contains two chairs separated by a soundproof glass panel to prevent physical contact, ensuring no contraband finds its way into the facility. Verbal exchange takes place by way of a telephone, with conversations closely monitored. While visitation is a privilege not a right, for the most compliant offenders it is capped at one 30-minute visit each month. These visits are sharply reduced for bad behaviour.
Needless to say, a supermax prison would be a stark departure from the current British penitentiary model in which so many inmates appear to run amok, openly consuming drugs, having sex with female guards and running criminal operations from smartphones in their cells.
‘Basic entitlements and nothing more,’ Mr Fairhurst told the Mail, as he outlined his desire for a supermax facility. ‘As someone who chooses to attack staff, you’ve chosen to serve your sentence in this way. Put them in a cell with no possessions. Maybe a radio and a book to read. But every time they’re unlocked, they’re handcuffed and escorted by three officers wearing stab-proof vests beneath their uniforms.’
While such a set-up may appeal to a public fed up with Britain’s worsening criminality and high rate of recidivism, supermax facilities are not to be deployed lightly.
ADX Florence has been compared to a torture facility, with inmates developing delusions, paranoia, depression and suicidal thoughts. Bank robber Jack Powers saw his mental health deteriorate to such an extent after being transferred there in 2001 that he used a pen to slice open his scrotum and remove a testicle, cut through his Achilles tendon, chewed off one of his fingers, and tried to kill himself on multiple occasions.
Back in 1966, the idea of building a British supermax prison was rejected, not least after Earl Mountbatten, appointed by the Home Secretary to chair an inquiry into prison escapes and security, raised concerns that such a facility would worsen the behaviour of those left truly hopeless.
Sixty years on, however, and attitudes have hardened. The heinous behaviour of Rudakubana and those like him have whet the public appetite for a supermax facility.
But when a prisoner becomes little more than an animal in a cage, society will inevitably ask: why keep them alive at all?
