Different aspects of security
Security in the prison service is an all-embracing term, whose definition includes:
Physical security, which comprises walls, bars, locks or even more modern devices such as Closed Circuit Television- Security procedures, which includes accounting for prisoners at different times of the day and carrying out searches of cells
- Assessment procedures, which are used to categorise prisoners to make sure that they are kept in appropriately secure conditions
- Intelligence gathering to predict the future.
Intelligence gathering is a complicated process and prison Security Departments have at their disposal information from prisoners, staff and volunteers. This, if collated in the right way, can form invaluable intelligence that can help them to predict events and prevent problems before they come to a head and, for example, prevent drugs coming into prison, a disturbance from breaking out or a prisoner self-harming. A major part of the paperwork is the security intelligence report (SIR). These documents are of crucial importance, outlining suspicious or unusual incidents and logging the movements and interactions of prisoners that seem out of the ordinary. However, the process requires people to look beneath the surface and explore all the possibilities in helping to minimise risks in prison and head off disorder before it happens.
Considerable weight is also given to the security effects of other activities which, ostensibly, are linked more with the rehabilitative aspect of the prison service’s mission. These include:
Diverting prisoners’ energy into constructive work and activity- Developing good staff prisoners relationships (“dynamic security”)
- Creating decent regimes and programmes for prisoners.
A system of Prison Rules is in place to mange behaviour and allowances for prisoners and breaches of these rules are managed through court style hearings known as Adjudications. Lesser offences are managed by a scaled system of privileges called Incentives and Earned Privileges (IEP) which are behaviour dependant. The use of privileges is also closely linked with security and good order. All prisoners are required to be classified to one of three regimes: basic, standard or enhanced. The prison governor takes this decision based on performance in custody, for example a prisoner’s disciplinary record. Each regime offers a different level of incentives and privileges and commonly prisoners on the basic regime will receive the bare legal minimum in terms of visits or access to private cash and wages. Those on the standard and enhanced regimes will receive progressively more favourable facilities, although the precise nature of these will vary according to each prison's security category.