One in five crime empires are run from inside prison, study finds

One in five of the organised criminal groups (OCGs) in England and Wales is run from inside prisons, an investigation has discovered.

Mobile phones are the most commonly used communications tool for incarcerated criminals, although they also pass on messages through prison visits and regular phone calls.

A senior source at the Multi-Agency Response to Serious and Organised Crime (Marsoc), which carried out the study, said: ‘The scale of the challenge is huge –mobile phone use is still a problem across prisons and we can see the effects of the contact from within prison to the gangs on the outside.’

The unit – which includes the police, prison service and National Crime Agency (NCA) – was set up in 2020 to ‘jointly disrupt’ gangland activity.

Mobile phones are the most commonly used communications tool for incarcerated criminals, although they also pass on messages through prison visits and regular phone calls

The NCA has made several assessments of organised crime in the UK. Last year it said there were 69,281 individuals engaged in serious and organised crime.

In 2018, the agency mapped 4,629 organised crime groups across the country, while in 2020 it said 1,716 gangs were involved in the illicit supply of drugs.

John Podmore, former governor at Category-A Belmarsh Prison in South-East London, said: ‘It shows the level of the problem.

‘The role of the prison service is also about stopping crime being committed in prison – but putting them behind bars is not doing that. Serious and organised crime is seriously and well organised in prison.

‘You not only have to proactively stop prisoners escaping, you’ve got to stop them operating inside and the gang culture.’

He added: ‘The police often don’t respond to crimes in prison – they argue they’ve got enough to deal with outside.’

A Government spokesman said: ‘We are doing more than ever before to tackle crime behind bars, including a £100 million investment in prison security – the biggest for more than 25 years.

‘This is delivering innovative new measures like X-ray body scanners to stem the smuggling of illegal phones and drugs, and closer working with the police to crack down on organised criminals in jail.’

Marsoc co-ordinates investigations into gangland criminals, focusing on those who operate behind bars, and seeks ‘to reduce the impact of the highest-harm persistent serious and organised criminals on the criminal justice system’.