Winchester prison cracks down on smuggling with new X-ray scanner

HMP Winchester has installed a new X-ray body scanner to help stop the smuggling of contraband into the prison.

Winchester is one of 16 jails to benefit from this new government funded technology, as it was determined to be at high risk of smuggling.

Prisons and Probation Minister, Lucy Frazer, said: “New technology is a vital part of our efforts to stop those determined to wreak havoc in our jails. These scanners will help to stem the flow of contraband into jails and allow officers to focus on rehabilitation.”

The scanners take images from inside the human body and can reveal internally concealed contraband, the images produced will provide a level of detail inside the body that the Prison Service has not seen before.

In August 2019, the Government decided to invest an £100m on boosting security in prisons, £28m of which is for the advanced X-ray technology.

The government said: ‘The investment will target all types of crime in prison; from drug smugglers fuelling a rise in violence and self-harm, to gang kingpins continuing to run their operations from jail, to offenders seeking to contact their victims in the outside world.”

The ’10 Prisons Project’ tested these new security measures at the most challenging prisons across the country. Government statistics show that there was “an overall 16% reduction in assaults and a 50% reduction in positive drug tests across the 10 prisons”.

Local MP Steve Brine said: “We are serious about tackling crime, especially in our prisons where it can have a detrimental effect on the work our prison officers are doing to help prisoners with their vital rehabilitation.”