Ross Kemp’s latest documentary Ross Kemp Behind Bars saw him live as a prisoner for one night.
Appearing on today’s This Morning to talk about what he went through, Ross admitted to Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield it was an eye-opening experience.
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“I had to go into prison as a prisoner,” he revealed. “I had to be stripped, then you sit on a plastic commode that looks for metal objects.
“They’ve picked up knives this big on some people.”
Ross was at HMP Barlinnie in Glasgow discovering what life is really like for inmates and prison officers.
A big part of the documentary is the drug problem behind bars and he told the hosts of all the different ways drugs get smuggled into the prison.
“Drugs thrown in with a dog whip,” he explained as one way to smuggle the substances inside.
“Underpants soaked in liquid Valium, dried out then boiled and sold. The ingenuity is fascinating.”
Ross also talked about how men became addicts inside and ended up having their sentences extended for drug offences.
As Phil asked him what the answer to the problem of was, Ross admitted:
“We have to look at ourselves, why we sentence people, what are prisons for?
“They have to be to keep the bad and truly bad away from us, away from the rest of society, harmful, dreadful people.
“But are they places where we put people we don’t like?
“We have to change the way we look upon people who have been to prison. [It costs] £36,000 to keep someone in prison for a year, far more than a young prison officer get paid.”
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On a lighter note, Holly was keen to know how Ross, who’s just become a dad to twins Kitty and Ava, making his total number of offspring four, is getting on with his newborns.
He’s obviously well-practised on this as he replied: “I’m the wrong person to be asking, my wife, who is hopefully tuning in if she’s got chance, is the one to ask.
“It’s great. It’s never easy, four is definitely enough. I am so done.”
Phillip then quipped: “Are you going to be done?”
“I think I should be,” Ross laughed!