Andrew Bingham – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Bingham on 2014-04-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many packages of books delivered to HM Prison Manchester were found to contain drugs in each of the last five years.

Jeremy Wright

Prisons employ a range of measures to detect, disrupt and deter the trafficking of drugs into prisons. This is particularly the case at HMP Manchester which is a High Security prison. Over the last 5 years there have been 53 recorded attempts to smuggle drugs into Manchester by post – all were in letters.

In common with many other prisons, HMP Manchester does not allow books to be sent direct to prisoners in packages because of the ease with which illicit items may be concealed. As such there have been no recorded incidents of drugs been sent in packages of books over the last 5 years. Prisoners may order books through the prison from approved suppliers and can borrow books from the prison library.