GOVERNMENT cuts are leaving prison officers unable to deal with violent young offenders wrongly put in adult institutions, delegates to guards’ union POA heard yesterday.

Disruptive young offenders are placed in adult prisons under current policy but the influx has led to an increase in violence in adult prisons — which the POA said were ill-equipped to deal with the new arrivals.

At London’s Wormwood Scrubs an officer was stabbed by a young offender with hypodermic needle filled with floor stripper.