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Drugs, violence and poor regime remain serious threats to stability at HMP Manchester

Published:

Fifteen months after the Chief Inspector of Prisons invoked the Urgent Notification process at HMP Manchester, inspectors returning to the jail found that it remained in a precarious state. Despite concerted efforts from leaders, a failure to prevent drones delivering illicit items, including large quantities of drugs, continued to affect stability, and was contributing to serious violence which threatened the safety of prisoners and staff.

The prison service had made very little progress in installing secure windows and grilles to stop drugs getting in, and half of the prisoners surveyed during the inspection said that it was easy to get hold of illicit substances. The rate of positive mandatory drug test results was 38%, one of the highest in prisons in England and Wales.

Rates of serious assaults were very high and violence against staff had increased. Drug availability, restricted time out of cell and limited access to purposeful activity were undermining prisoners’ motivation to behave well. Forty-four per cent of prisoners were unemployed and spent less than three hours a day out of their cells, exacerbated by recent cuts to education provision. Along with isolation, loneliness and poor mental health, this inactivity was contributing to high rates of self-harm, and there had been four self-inflicted deaths since the previous inspection.

The offender management unit was well led and prisoners received some good support with their sentence plan objectives, but Manchester was still not fulfilling its purpose as a training prison. The curriculum did not meet prisoners’ needs, it took too long to allocate them to education, and classes were often cancelled.

Leaders at Manchester had made a determined effort to start grappling with some of the issues identified in 2024 and we saw some early evidence of improvement.

However, without more determined action from HMPPS to improve physical security, drugs will continue to undermine those efforts. That work must be prioritised, and issues around staff recruitment and education provision tackled, if Manchester is to deliver the rehabilitative activity that prisoners need to successfully re-establish themselves in society when they are released.
Charlie Taylor, Chief Inspector of Prisons

Notes to editors