CAMPAIGNERS slammed the government’s “chronic problems” across the prison system after the publication of a damning report looking into a jail plagued by high rates of violence, self-harm and drug use.

The Howard League for Penal Reform demanded the government fix the problems in “the dire jails we already have” instead of “spending billions on new prisons” following today’s publication of an inspection report into HMP Woodhill in Buckinghamshire.

Inspectors visited the prison in March, finding some of the highest rates of assaults on officers among similar high-security prisons, with about a third of incidents involving weapons.

Chief Inspector of Prisons Charlie Taylor called for “substantial and sustained improvement” in his report.

Howard League chief executive Andrea Coomber KC said: “The words are a damning indictment, but one only has to look at the disgusting photographs in this report to see that Woodhill is a prison in crisis.”

She said the findings at Woodhill reveal the “chronic problems we see across a prison system that has been asked to do too much, with too little, for too long.”

Prison Officers Association deputy general secretary Mick Pimblett said the MoJ “cannot ignore yet another report exposing dangerous failings and must take immediate and sustained action to end this scandal.”

National chairman Mark Fairhurst said that the inspector “once again fails to acknowledge that poor wages, excessive levels of violence and inadequate training of new recruits has led to an unattractive offer for those seeking to join the service.”

“If things are to improve at Woodhill, this government needs to improve Prison Officer salaries and recruit twice as many staff,” he said.

When contacted, the MoJ referred back to its action plan to improve the prison published in April.