The UK prisoners Union Preservation of the Rights of Prisoners had been founded on 11 May 1972. It had started organising peaceful protests in prisons across England. There were five protests between 11 and 13 June, including one in Albany. On 4 August there was an England-wide prison strike involving 10,000 prisoners, i.e. 25% of the total prison population. This included Albany. The Prison Officers Association found this disturbing. By the week of 21 August they had issued a six-point policy document called "Get Tough". However Prison Officers in Albany rejected this as not being strong enough and demanded stricter punishments for "every" infringement of the regulations. This was backed up by threat of a work-to-rule and overtime ban if their demands were not met by 13 September. Further prison officers provided stories for the media of a "mafia-style" organisation amongst high-profile long term prisoners. Several were named: Charles Kray, Robert Welch, John Duddy, Ian Brady and Ray Morris. A deputation of Police Officers met with Governor, and shortly afterwards the Governor organised a lock-up and search of the entire prison, citing fears of a mass escape as the reason.