House of Commons Justice Committee
A new (31 October 2025) report from the House of Commons Justice Committee on Tackling the drugs crisis in our prisons says that use of illicit drugs and the trade in them across prisons has reached ‘endemic’ levels, fostering a ‘dangerous culture of acceptance that must be broken’.
The ability of HM Prison and Probation Service to maintain safety and control, and offer effective rehabilitation, is being ‘critically undermined’ by the scale of the drugs crisis within the prison system, the cross-party Committee chaired by Labour MP Andy Slaughter concluded.
The highly critical report concludes that without urgent reform to tackle the demand for drugs, the lucrative profits fuelling supply networks and the poor condition of the prison estate, the prison system, which it describes as “failing and unstable”, will continue at ‘unacceptable human cost’.
The scale of the problem
The report sets out the current scale of the drugs problem in prisons and marshals a range of evidence from HMI Prisons, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman and other official sources. Key facts include:
- The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman investigated 833 deaths between December 2022 and December 2024, with 136 (16 per cent) classified as drug-related.
- Eleven per cent of men and 19 per cent of women said they had developed a problem with drugs, alcohol or medication not prescribed to them since arriving in prison.
- The prison drugs market is driven by the volatile threat of New Psychoactive Substances, especially highly potent synthetic opioids such as Nitazenes. Nitazenes are significantly more potent than heroin and present an acute threat of overdose, having already been linked to deaths at HMP Parc in 2024. Prisoners are coerced into using new, unregulated substances as ‘guinea pigs’.
- Drugs in prisons fuel violence and debt whilst also exacerbating existing mental health conditions and trauma. With prisoners routinely locked in their cells for up to 22 hours a day, the persistent lack of purposeful activity and boredom drives them to use drugs for escapism.
- The illicit drug economy is dominated by Organised Criminal Gangs who monopolise the highly lucrative prison drugs market. Concerningly, the Chief Inspector of Prisons said the police and prison service have “ceded the airspace” above two high-security prisons, with HMPPS records indicating a 770 per cent increase in drone sightings around prisons between 2019 and 2023. Prices are enormously inflated, with drugs selling for up to 100 times their street value.
The report notes that this “sophisticated criminal supply chain” is not limited to drugs but also trades in mobile phones and, occasionally, weapons.
Drones
The report describes the emergence of sophisticated drones to convey drugs as a “paradigm shift”, offering the unique advantage of bypassing traditional perimeter security to deliver packages often including higher value items.
Despite the escalating threat posed by drones, the report finds that traditional ingress routes such as throwovers and visits remain persistent and are more common. The Committee also makes the point that supply reduction alone is insufficient while the demand for drugs remains overwhelming.
Treatment deficiencies
Turning its attention to demand reduction, the Committee draws attention to a “fragmented and inconsistent commissioning structure”. The division of responsibility between NHS England (in-prison care) and local authorities (community care) creates a gap where therapeutic progress is interrupted and incoherent upon release.
This jeopardises recovery, guarantees high rates of relapse and contributes directly to the risk of fatal overdose experienced by individuals recently released from custody. The Committee says that the priority must shift from simply managing the crisis to delivering a single, continuous and effective public health pathway designed to save lives.
In addition to the drug-related deaths in prison, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman also investigated 137 post-release deaths (within 14 days of release) between September 2021 and December 2023, finding that 83 (61 per cent) were drug-related. Even more tragically, 20 of these deaths occurred within a single day of release.
Conclusion
The report considers the operational constraints placed upon prison governors, who are tasked with leading the response to the drug epidemic. This is particularly challenging with the additional strain of a prison population crisis and in some cases, severe overcrowding. It highlights how governors lack resources, robust data systems and face overly bureaucratic procurement processes.
The report raises fundamental concerns that the scale of the drugs problem makes it impossible to deliver a stable, rehabilitative environment.
The Chair of the Justice Committee and Labour MP Andy Slaughter MP sums up the inquiry’s findings:
“Without urgent reform and investment that tackles the profitable supply networks, the discrepancies in treatment provision and purposeful activity, plus the poor physical condition of the estate, prisons will remain unstable, unsafe and incapable of gaining control over the drugs crisis.”
Thanks to Andy Aitchison for kind permission to use the header image in this post. You can see Andy’s work here
