The Prison Officers’ Association (POA) and its national chair Mark Fairhurst have a reputation for always wanting prisons to be more secure and more punitive. So it was a surprise when Fairhurst told me he opposes the government’s new prison building programme, and went on to describe his ideal justice system in terms which the most soft-hearted prison reform charities would struggle to disagree with.
‘All we’re going to do…is spend £4.7 billion building 14,000 new prison spaces. And if you build new prisons you’ll always fill them’
I met with Fairhurst a few days after the POA’s annual conference in Eastbourne, a busy time for him because ‘everybody wants a piece of me’. I attended the annual gathering for the union which represents frontline prison staff. Sadly it was marred by news of multiple assaults on prison officers, at HMP Woodhill and HMP Gartree. As word spread on Wednesday morning I was struck by how unsurprised the delegates were.
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