Central prison

Prisoners are ‘gasping for breath and screaming for help’, as smoke fills corridors and cells according to relatives of inmates. Some are said to be hanging out of windows calling for help as they struggle to get fresh air, as a fire remains at Winson Green Prison. Hundreds of prisoners have been rioting since 9am at the G4S-run jail, with reports of people seriously injured inside.

“My brother is screaming for help, the smoke is that thick on the landing that he can’t breathe, he said it is absolute chaos. He is screaming for help and they are not doing anything. People have been locked in their cells for hours with no food.

Another relative said her uncle was also struggling to breathe as the fire was said to have spread elsewhere around the prison.

A leading Birmingham criminologist has argued that prisoners should be paid the living wage for any work they do whilst in prison.

Professor David Wilson, a former jail governor, argues that the measure would make it less likely they would re-offend by 'reducing their exclusion from society’.

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