PRISON bosses in Dorchester today hit back at claims that the jail was full of drug users.

A new report from the Prison Reform Trust claims that Dorchester Prison has one of the highest levels of drug use in the country and that nearly three quarters of inmates have to share cells built for one person.

The report - A Measure of Success - analysed the Prison Service's performance against a number of targets from the last financial year, including overcrowding, drug use and rates of suicide.

It revealed that 19.7 per cent of random drugs tests carried out at the county town jail last year were positive, compared to a national average of 10 per cent.

The report, which looked at prisons in England and Wales, also claimed that Dorchester had one of the highest levels of overcrowding, with 73.5 per cent of inmates sharing cells designed for one person. The target was 18 per cent or less.

And it said that the level of activities for inmates was among the lowest, with a weekly average of 18.2 hours - the target is a minimum of 24 hours a week.

But Steve Holland, governor of Dorchester said today that findings did not show a true picture of the work going on at the prison to tackle drugs and improve conditions for inmates.

He said the prison was working with Dorset police to gather information on possible drug users and had introduced new methods for dealing with prisoners' post to stop drugs being sent through the mail. He said the prison's drug dog was also helping to sniff out drugs being brought in during visiting times and several arrests had been made as a result.

"These statistics do not reflect the work that we are doing at Dorchester. In the last quarter the number of people testing positive for drugs was about eight per cent.

"I am not nave enough to think that we have beaten the problem but I think the work we are doing in Dorchester is reducing it," said Mr Holland.

And he said officers were working hard to improve the quality of life for inmates, with more opportunities for activities and to learn new skills.

The report also reveals that the Weare on Portland also failed to meet the target only providing an average of 17.8 hours of activity a week.

However, the Weare, Portland YOI and the Verne all achieved targets on over crowding with no one having to share single cells, and drug use at all three prisons was below the national average of six per cent, 7.8 per cent and 4.8 per cent respectively.

The report's author, Enver Solomon, said: "Far too many prisons are overcrowded, provide inadequate levels of purposeful activity and experience high levels of recorded drug use. The only way to improve these jails is immediately to reduce their populations."