Prisoners using mobile phones in jails to orchestrate crimes face crackdown

Prisoners who use mobile phones to deal drugs and orchestrate crimes from behind bars will face a new crackdown, ministers will announce today. 

Liz Truss, the Justice Secretary, will unveil new laws in Parliament which will enable mobile phone operators to jam the signals of mobile phones being used in jails. 

Prison officers will also be given new devices which will enable them to detect when mobile phnes are being used in prisons.

The new legislation will require prisons to prove that they are reforming their inmates and preventing them from committing further crimes.

Ms Truss will change the definition of prisons for the first time designating them as places for "reform and rehabilitation", rather than simply housing prisoners.

Prison governors will be given more powers to commission education and training opportunities with leading employers, in order to help prisoners get jobs on the outside.

Ms Truss said: "Prison is about punishing people who have committed heinous crimes, but it should be a place where offenders are given the opportunity to turn their lives around."

It comes amid concerns that 45 per cent of adults who leave prison go on to re-offend. Under the plans prisons will also receive more rigorous inspections and league tables will be published to identify those failing to deliver.