Treat jailed drug dealers like radical extremists, says prisons watchdog

Charlie Taylor, inspector of prisons for England and Wales, says dealers should be isolated and ‘assertively managed’

Jailed criminals who are flooding prisons with drugs should be isolated like radical extremists and “assertively managed”, the England and Wales prisons watchdog has said.

Charlie Taylor, HM inspector of prisons, said major dealers were living “consequence-free” in jail when they should be separated from the majority of inmates, subjected to regular searches for phones, and punished and rewarded according to their behaviour.