Debate contribution: Prisons: Staffing Levels
Debate contribution by Mrs Naomi Long on .
- MLA
- Mrs Naomi Long
- Party at the time
- Alliance Party
- Date
- 30 June 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution (made as a minister)
- Business
- Oral Answers to Questions
- Heading
- Prisons: Staffing Levels
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5653154
Read the official Assembly record
Text
The Northern Ireland Prison Service (NIPS) assesses that current staffing levels are sufficient to maintain the safe and secure operation of houses, units and landings across the estate. However, sustained increases in the prison population have placed pressures on staffing, requiring difficult decisions at times on staff deployment and the delivery of regimes in order to prioritise safety and security. NIPS is actively recruiting and training additional prison officers and continues to keep staffing requirements under close review in light of population pressures. While safe and secure custody is fundamental, the ambition is to ensure that prisons are also properly resourced to support rehabilitation through education, training and other interventions that reduce reoffending. I will continue to work to secure appropriate funding for the justice system, including prisons, in order to support operational demands and those relating to the wider rehabilitative ambition.
142 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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