The chief inspector of the British Car Ceri accused the police and the London government to allow British criminal gangs to have as they believe in the air space above the criminal institutes of his majesty. No, it is not a political short circuit or a move of opposition to the Starmer government: the English organized crime has more simply discovered the (huge) flaws in the safety of the kingdom, and is taking advantage of it. Inside the English criminal archipelago, which extends from DartMoor to the Vallo di Adriano, there are 122 prisons for a prison population which, in March 2024, reached approximately 97,700 prisoners (87,900 in England and Wales, eight thousand in Scotland and 1,900 in Northern Ireland). But the problem are above all the 13 special departments, called Long Term and High Security Summer, where the prison service borders the most dangerous criminals – terrorists, serial killers and murderers of children – in conditions that would be pressed by absolute isolation.
With the beginning of 2025, however, above the skies of these prisons of maximum security, pompously nicknamed “supermax”, Drones have appeared capable of carrying useful loads of up to 15 kilograms, and still unreliable for the prison police forces. Today they are used to deliver drugs to prisoners, tomorrow they could carry weapons and money useful for satisfying revolts and/or evasions. These are not tempora expedients in the thoughts of corrupting the seconds or satisfying some toxic from the “end penalty never”: we are faced with sophisticated drones, from the cost of several thousand sterns, with a wing opening of about one meter and equipped with Thermal imaging equipment for relevant kings night raids with low flight and with maximum discretion. Although (after repeated deliveries of drugs that have been successful) some criminal institutes have raised for cover by adopting anti drone technologies to detect the presence of pilot -free planes (UAV) in approach, few – if not nobody – has actually prevented them from approaching and deliver the load. Charlie Taylor, chief inspector of the prison system, after having presented two alarmed relationships on the topic, confirms that to get goods of smuggling and all kinds of electronic apparatus, they are also and above all those “very dangerous prisoners confined in maximum security structures”. Taylor detailed his accusations, indicating securitarian gaps especially regarding the airspace above the Manchester penitentiary (previously known as Strangeways and considered “the most violent of the United Kingdom”) and Long Larin, in the Worcestershire.
In both structures, the “guests” even managed to open cracks in the windows, through which they could regularly and convenience the shipments delivered to them via Drone. To any attempt to repair these “passages”, the workers in charge of repairs were threatened by prisoners. The inspectors, in addition to the degradation of the structures, have detected video surveillance systems in a state of total abandonment and the absence or the lack of installation of very trivial anti-drone networks. In Manchester, then, the officials were not only slow in the installation of anti-drone windows, but these were damaged, and some torn off, just completed the assembly. In Long Lantin, the staff is so discouraged by the amount of deliveries through drones, that over half it declares that this method is certainly the simplest for detainees to obtain a smuggling goods. “A more efficient delivery service in England”, he crashed with bitter irony among the corridors of the criminal institute. Neither structures is in any case overcrowded: an important distinction to be made, because this is often the excuse that it campaign who should supervise. It is true that the United Kingdom prisons have been in an emergency state for decades, with a group of ministers of justice and premier with the alternative who continued in the custom not to face the causes of the crisis. Which? First of all, the budget for the criminal system, which from 2010 onwards has been progressively cut as well as the staff, while the convictions continued to grow, thanks to the season of Islamic terrorism and the increase in poverty following Brexit. It is since 2020 that Taylor and many other operators of the Penalty Institutes denounce the danger of definitive shoulder strap, if the corrections are not put in the field. But that have never been implemented. And so the criminals were able to take possession of the skies and repeatedly mocking the controls, delivering to mafia bosses and drug -terrorists, cell phones, orders, bets and who knows what else. The fact that, in addition to the notes and imaginable consequences, has contributed to the depressed morality of the prison staff, with percentages of dissatisfaction that even exceed the statistics of the pandemic era.
The inspectors inside the Long Larin prison, for example, found “the delivery of large quantities of illicit articles” in prisoners such as Vincent Tabak, head of the kidnapping and heinous murder of Joanna Yeates; the traveler Jeremy Bamber, guilty of five murders (including that of a little girl); And the famous extremist preacher Abu Hamza, then extradited to the United States for instigation to terrorism. Also because, as the association of British penitentiary agents denounces, the security system is deeply compromised. “There are people who are framed as penitentiary agents for the sole purpose of with trabing articles such as drugs”. It is an excellent business, considering that 38 percent of English prisoners were positive for tests to detect drugs. «Organized crime has realized that a lot of money can be made with smuggling in prisons. They pay you to train you and then do what you want. If it goes well, you don’t get discovered and go out after five or six months having guarded some money. It looks a little surreal. But it is really happening ». In 1994, some terrorists of the Irish anger processed from the prison of Massi but Whitemoor’s security, structure on the “escape proof” card, after having forced the surveillance to open the prison doors thanks to two 9 mm and 1 pistols, 1, 5 kilograms of semtex explosive. A similar load, today, could enter thanks to corrupt agents or be easily transported by a drone, which can contain both the explosives and weapons.
