Prisoners Riot, 40 Escape as British Guards Strike

Widespread violence erupted in Britain’s prisons Wednesday as the country’s 18,500 guards refused to work overtime in a labor dispute, leaving many facilities understaffed.

Forty prisoners escaped during disturbances at Erlstoke prison, a minimum-security youth detention center for 130 inmates near Devizes in southwestern England. Police said they had not recaptured any of the escapees by late Wednesday.

In one of the worst disturbances, rampaging inmates set nine fires at Northeye minimum-security prison near Bexhill, about 60 miles southeast of London, authorities said.

Extra Police Sent In

Five inmates escaped in the confusion, but three were quickly recaptured, police said. Initial reports said 60 of the prison’s 450 inmates were involved in the disturbance, and extra police officers were sent to the area.

The local fire department said blazes were set in the prison’s administration, recreation, hospital and kitchen areas. Firefighters were unable to gain immediate access to the building.

In Bristol, 110 miles west of London, 50 to 60 prisoners took over two wings of Horfield Prison on Wednesday night, according to Patrick Stone, a local official of the Prison Officers Assn., which had called for the job action at 134 facilities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Stone said inmates were roaming freely in the prison in what he called a “riotous situation.”

“They have started ripping the place apart,” he said.

Urged To Resign

As news of the chaos reached London, Home Secretary Douglas Hurd hurried back to the House of Commons to report to Parliament, where he faced chants of “resign” from opposition Labor Party members. In the ruling Conservative Party, members demanded that the army be moved in immediately.

The prison guards decided Wednesday to refuse any overtime work for a week after months of fruitless negotiations with the government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The government is trying to cut down on overtime by changing work practices.

The government plans to cut the guards’ average of 16 hours a week in overtime by reducing the number of them assigned to supervising workrooms, escorting prisoners to court and doing other chores.

The union argues that those cuts would leave too few guards on duty to contain potential violence in the prisons, which hold 46,600 prisoners, nearly 9,000 more than normal capacity.

In other prison violence, prisoners smashed tables and chairs at Belfast’s Crumlin Road Jail, where guerrilla suspects awaiting trial are housed. Four prison officers were slightly injured.

At High Point Prison, a minimum-security facility near Haverhill in eastern England, four prison officers were taken to a hospital suffering from smoke inhalation. They had been fighting a fire set by inmates who set a mattress ablaze.

Scotland was unaffected because its prison guards work under a separate contract.