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HMP Rochester

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Inspection report - Rochester (PDF, 1.6 MB)

Report on an unannounced inspection of HMP Rochester by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons (12–22 August 2024)

We issued an Urgent Notification for this prison on 30 August 2024

Read the Rochester Urgent Notification

Rochester healthy prison scores

Bar chart showing the healthy prison outcomes at HMP Rochester in 2024 compared with 2021. Safety had declined from reasonably good to not sufficiently good; respect had declined from not sufficiently good to poor; purposeful activity remained poor; preparation for release had declined from reasonably good to poor.

What we found

In September, a very concerning inspection of HMP Rochester led Charlie Taylor, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, to write to the Secretary of State to invoke the first Urgent Notification for improvement at a category C prison. Today, the full report from that inspection further outlines the dilapidated accommodation, rising violence and self-harm, widespread illicit drug use, and the lack of purposeful activity and risk reduction work inside the jail.

Safety, much like the fabric of the prison, was deteriorating. Assaults against prisoners had increased by 67% over the past year, self-harm had risen 79% since the last inspection in 2021, and the positive drug testing rate was 42%, yet there was no coordinated action plan to tackle these cross-cutting, prison-wide issues.

Rochester was fundamentally failing in its rehabilitative purpose as a category C training and resettlement prison. Less than a third of the population was engaged in purposeful activity and Ofsted graded the overall effectiveness of education, skills and work as inadequate. Although prisoners were generally unlocked during the day, most had nothing to do.
HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, Charlie Taylor
Read the full press release
Easy read summary – Rochester
(DOCX, 557 KB)
Population statistics – Rochester
(PDF, 147 KB)
Prisoner survey methodology and results – Rochester
(PDF, 362 KB)
Prisoner survey analysis (Excel workbook) – Rochester
(XLSX, 355 KB)
Staff survey methodology and results – Rochester
(PDF, 245 KB)

Action plan

HM Prison and Probation Service Action Plan – Rochester
(PDF, 295 KB)