The decision to pilot the use of stun guns in prisons was inevitable, but terrible (I hate the idea of British prison officers carrying stun guns – but it may be our only option, 22 April). How to reduce violence in our jails? The response always seems to be some new piece of kit – be it Pava spray, which it appears has been authorised for use on children, and now stun guns.
This doesn’t deal with the root causes of a service in perpetual crisis after a decade or more of austerity and a failed 30-year political race of longer sentences and locking more people up as the answer to reducing crime. If we hold people in squalid conditions, it’s hardly surprising more violence erupts. Prisoner assaults are at an all-time high, but so are deaths in prison custody, self-harm and overcrowding.
