WATCH | "A Stab Vest Won’t Stop the Bleeding”: A Serving Officer’s Post Lays Bare a Prison System on the Brink
In a searing message shared online, a frontline prison officer exposes the daily dangers faced by staff—while violence spirals, foreign criminals fill our jails, and the government offers nothing but
A serving prison officer put it bluntly this week: “Giving prison officers stab vests and calling it a solution is like putting a plaster on a bullet wound and calling it healed.” That line has resonated across the overstreched underpaid and overworked prison service and beyond.
Because it’s true. Behind the wire, things are deteriorating and fast. Violence is soaring. Support is paper-thin. And the Ministry of Justice seems content to patch over the bleeding cracks with what many people perceive as PR statements and token gestures.
The government’s announcement that prison officers will be issued stab vests didn’t come from foresight. Instead, it came from a complete failure to protect prison officers from extreme violence. And that failure has already come dangerously close to costing officers their lives.
A 25-year-old officer was recently stabbed at HMP Long Lartin and had to be airlifted to hospital. In April, three officers were doused in boiling oil and attacked by evil Manchester Arena bomber Hashem Abedi inside HMP Frankland. Just weeks later, at HMP Belmarsh, another officer was scalded with boiling water by Axel Rudakubana—the cowardly and evil killer serving a 52-year sentence for the brutal murder of three young girls in Southport. These are not isolated incidents. They are warnings from a system on the verge of collapse.
Assaults on prison staff have reached horrifying levels. In the 12 months to September 2024, there were approximately 10,224 prisoner-on-staff assaults, equating to 120 incidents per 1,000 prisoners. That followed 122 per 1,000 in 2023. A slight dip in rate, but not in danger. These raw numbers are still staggering, and they are rising in step with a growing prison population.
Let’s look at the figures. There are now around 97,000 prisoners in the UK, up by over 21,000 since 2005. In that same period, the number of prison officers has dropped by more than 1,000. Fewer staff. More inmates. Less experience. How can anyone with an ounce of common sense think that cutting officer numbers in the face of a growing prisoner population is a good idea!? Only 26% of today’s prison officers have more than 10 years of service under their belt. The majority are junior, underpaid, under-protected, overworked and thrown into violent, volatile environments every shift.
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And then there’s the silence. An estimated 38% of assaults on staff are not properly investigated. In many cases, the consequences for the attacker are minimal or nonexistent. Officers are expected to turn up again the next day and do it all over again, sometimes with their injuries still fresh.
Meanwhile, more than 11,000 foreign nationals are currently in UK jails, around 12% of the total prison population. That’s 10,355 inmates who shouldn’t be here at all. The vast majority of foreign nationals currently in UK prisons are Albanians, Poles, Romanians, Irish, Jamaicans, and others—some on remand, some serving sentences, and hundreds held under immigration powers.
Instead of protecting British citizens by deporting these individuals swiftly and freeing up resources, we house them at taxpayer expense inside already overcrowded and violent jails. It’s madness. We should not be protecting the rights of foreign criminals more than the lives of British prison officers.
In Australia, if you commit a crime as a foreign national, you are deported the moment your sentence ends. You are not given a second chance to reoffend or harm Australian citizens. So why is the British government so reluctant to take the same firm approach? The safety of the British public should be non-negotiable. It is not optional. It is the very reason we pay taxes and place our trust in those elected to govern.
One serving officer summed up the mood across the prison estate better than any press release or policy statement ever could. Here’s what he wrote following the government’s announcement about issuing stab vests:
"Giving prison officers stab vests and calling it a solution is like putting a plaster on a bullet wound and calling it healed. The risk that has already been forgotten by the media, as everybody knew it would be after being in the news for three days, is still staggering and the general public just don’t understand.
"An officer stabbed in Long Lartin, three officers assaulted in Frankland, serious and life changing incidents that are becoming more commonplace every day in the UK.
"There are around 22,000 prison officers in the UK, over 1,000 less prison officers now than there were in 2005.
"There are around 97,000 prisoners currently in the UK, 21,000 more than in 2005.
"The number of assaults on staff has tripled since 2005. 38% of assaults on staff are not properly investigated. There are often little to no repercussions for the prisoner who has assaulted staff.
“How can anybody justifiably call that safe?
"Those 22,000 officers and 97,000 prisoners make up a significant minority of the UK population but all have families, the prisoners have victims and their victims have families.
"The amount of people who will be affected if the prison service continues to crumble can’t be counted.
"A little reminder from a video that a lot of people might not have seen, just how quickly everything can go wrong in a prison, and if this officer wasn’t aware of their surroundings or distracted then this could easily have been a death.
"Support your prison staff."
This is why a petition is now gaining traction, demanding that the retirement age for prison officers be brought in line with that of their police and fire colleagues. Officers are currently expected to serve until they’re 68, while others in frontline emergency roles retire at 60. The petition reads: “We believe our Prison Officers should not have to work in these conditions, dealing with violence and confrontation until age 68.”
They’re right. The numbers prove it. The three recent attacks prove it. And the thousands of unreported daily confrontations prove it. Yet the current government’s answer to this escalating crisis is to hand out stab vests and release violent offenders early. A stab vest won’t protect an officer from an inmate who aims for the neck, the face, or anywhere other than the chest or back.
The officer who wrote that viral post summed it up best: “If this officer wasn’t aware of their surroundings or distracted, then this could easily have been a death.”
Support your prison staff. Not with press releases. Not with last-minute PPE. But with real action, meaningful policy, and a justice system that puts the lives of those who protect society above those who tear it apart.
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