not one but 2 inquiries in the prison riot to be launched...

[R1Geezer]

Why? we know what happenned, some jobsworth found out they'd been boozing and tried to breathalyse them (I know not what possible use that would have been, anyway I digress). The prisoners objected and torched the place. There you go, Geezer inquiry complete, tax payer saved a Gazillion on lawyers!

[sara3]

jobsworth??

do you think maybe they shouldn't have prison officers at all?

[ummmm]

You really do like to simplify things....

[R1Geezer]

No, sara, I think when you have an open prison full of drunk prisoners and 6 staff, you do not generally set out to start a riot by insisting on some "procedure", you use a bit of common. What is the purpose of trying to breathalyse them? what purpose does that serve. Again it's a case of not engaging brain I'm afraid.

If we mst have thse holiday camps at least run them with a minimum of agro.

ummm, indeed I do as most things are very simple when looked at logically.

[Coobeastie]

Wasn't it more a case that they suspected alcohol had been smuggled in rather than the prisoners rolling around drunk...short of searching the entire site breathalysing would have shown consumption of alcohol.

If instead of the riot it had got into the news that the warders had knowingly allowed the smuggling of alcohol and had turned a blindeye with the prisoners getting drunk how long would it had been before somebody would have posted on here about holiday camps and calling for the sacking of those involved for not doing their jobs.

[R1Geezer]

they discovered 19 empty booze bottles, doesn't take Sherlock Holmes does it? No need for the breathalyser.

[Coobeastie]

Hadn't heard that bit but then the breathalyser still makes sense if they wanted to know who had been drinking.

[New Judge]

That’s as may be, Coobeastie. But they should have been aware that they had no right to compel prisoners to take a breathalyser test for any reason. And in any case, the fact that any of them had taken drink shows an abject failure on the part of the authorities and there was no need to establish just who had broken the rules.

I have to agree with the Geezer on this. It is quite obvious that the regime at Ford has been nothing like that required to maintain discipline in a prison (“open” or otherwise). The root cause of this is the lack of that discipline and this episode is symptomatic of a prison service that has, somewhat, lost its “raison d’être”.

Although somewhat unrelated in a question I posed a few weeks ago:

http://www.theanswerb...s/Question963403.html

I tried to understand what people consider is now the purpose of prison. I was not surprised at some of the answers and if the governor of Ford is anything like Mr Dawson, the governor of HMP High Down in Surrey, then it is no wonder events at Ford unfolded as they did.

No enquiry is needed. Just ask the governor, Ms Sharon Williams, what she thinks HMP Ford exists for and take it from there.

Squillions of £££s saved.

[VHG]

Thinking about it, surely the term "Open prison" is an Oxymoron.