Riots

August 2017 - Birmingham, England

On Twitter, a West Midlands based criminology lecturer claimed the prison's Wing A was "severely damaged" as inmates were heard chanting "we want burn" - which is prison slang for tobacco.

August 2017 - Cumbria, England

Prisoners staged a nine-hour riot and caused hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of damage - after they were banned from smoking.

Inmates smashed sinks, flooded cells and destroyed TVs at the Category C HMP Haverigg as they became the latest prison to be subject to the smoking ban.

May 2017 - Staffordshire, England

Some 'nicotine addict' prisoners became violent and staged sit-ins knowing they would be moved to another jail where they can smoke freely.

Inmates in Drake Hall Women's Prison went berserk and sat on the roof after a ban was tested there in May, one insider said.

[...]

'Within the first week of the shop stopping selling it there was a riot. Loads of prisoners refused to go back to their cells and it was mayhem.

'There were women screaming and shouting, sitting on the roofs of blocks. After it calmed down a lot of those involved were transferred, probably to prisons where they can smoke.

June 2015 - Melbourne, Australia

Police armed with tear gas and water cannons were on Tuesday evening still attempting to contain a riot that broke out at a maximum security prison in Victoria earlier in the day, after prisoners became angered by the introduction of a smoking ban.

Prison overcrowding and inadequate fencing contributed to Victoria's largest prison riot, which was sparked when a canteen ran out of tobacco ahead of the state-wide smoking ban, a review has found.