Shock Scottish Prison Service figures obtained through Freedom of Information Act show drugs, weapon and mobile phone seizures from Her Majesty's Inverness Porterfield prison rose dramatically during the Covid-19 crisis
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
Seizures of drugs, weapons and mobile phones from Inverness prisoners soared during the pandemic.
An investigation has uncovered a dramatic rise in illicit items confiscated at Her Majesty’s Prison Inverness during staff searches from December 2020 to November last year.
The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) defended the shock figures as indicative of success in a drive to detect more illegal or misused items and substances.
But opposition MSPs laid part of the blame on the Scottish Government’s lengthy delay in replacing the Victorian-era Porterfield facility with a modern prison.
Potentially deadly forms of mind-altering psychoactive street drugs known as ‘spice’ – mixing potent herbs and laboratory-made chemicals – featured prominently among illegal substances recovered.
Exposed razor blades, sharpened items and home made coshes were among the improvised weaponry found in inmates’ possession.
During lockdown in 2020, prison visits were restricted in Scotland with the Scottish Government spending £3 million to give 7,600 inmates ‘unhackable’ mobile phones.
The scheme was later criticised for helping facilitate an influx of banned items after many phones were tampered with.
The Freedom of Information (FOI) request queried SPS for numbers on three illicit categories for each of five years from late 2016 to late 2021.
Drugs finds, which also included class A substances and misused painkillers and antidepressants, soared from just 67 in 2015/16 to 370 in 2020/21 – a rise of over 500 per cent.
Comparable figures for the three years in between were 94, 92 and 136.
For weaponry, the rise in captures from 2019/20 to 2020/21 tripled to 33. The previous three years brought 17, 44 and 19 finds.
Our investigation showed that from 2016 to 2020 no more than three or four phones were confiscated at Inverness prison.
The figure for 2020/21 was 68.
An SPS spokesman said: “The findings are a reflection of the amount of time devoted to addressing these issues during lockdown.
“People have been spending longer in cells and staff have been increasing the frequency of searches.
“We have been facing an increasing problem of what’s being called new psychoactive substances. These are very difficult to detect. They are extremely lethal and very easy to obtain in the community.
“We’ve seen a very major increase in attempts to traffic these materials into all Scottish prisons, not just Inverness.
“We’ve worked very hard with other agencies, including the University of Dundee, to bring in technologies that help us detect these materials. We’ve been quite successful in that.
“Increased statistics aren’t necessarily a sign of an increasing problem. They are perhaps a measure of the success of some techniques being used.”
Plans to replace the ageing Porterfield prison, opened in 1902, have been delayed for over a decade.
In August last year, Scottish justice secretary Keith Brown announced the new £110 million prison would not be built until 2026.
The Conservatives’ Highland MSP Edward Mountain said: “While I’m pleased to see that increased search efforts have been effective, I’m horrified by the huge number of weapons and drugs finding their way into HMP Inverness.
“If the SNP had delivered the new state of the art prison we were promised years ago, then our prison officers would have been better supported to stop the flow of weapons and drugs into the prison.”
Green Party Highland MSP Ariane Burgess expressed concern for prisoner and staff welfare, saying: “The figures are concerning.
“While I do understand that some of this is related to increased search efforts and proactive work to improve detection, I worry about the mental and physical health impacts on prisoners who have had to spend longer in their cells due to Covid 19.
“It is important to invest in tackling the root causes of addiction to reduce the chances of drug users falling back into criminal behaviour when released.
“I’d hope that the SPS is taking action to ensure the safety and welfare of both the staff and prisoners of HMP Inverness.”
Labour's Highland MSP Rhoda Grant said: “Modern prisons are designed to provide better facilities for prisoners and staff. This enables prisoner behaviour to be better monitored.
"A new building would provide better care for prisoners and cut down the number of opportunities for drug taking and carrying weapons.
“While imprisonment is a punishment it must also be rehabilitation. These activities make rehabilitation more difficult and therefore have a knock on impact on prisoners and their communities after release.
“The Highlands and Islands have been badly let down because of delays in the provision of a new prison and I hope there will be no further delays.”
A spokesman for the University of Dundee said: "The Leverhulme Research Centre for Forensic Science at the University of Dundee works with the Scottish Prison Service in the identification of novel psychoactive substances on different materials seized by prison staff."
