HMP/YOI Deerbolt – far too little progress restoring purposeful activity

HM Inspectorate of Prisons was following up an inspection in July 2021, where inspectors judged purposeful activity to be poor – the lowest grade – and safety to be not sufficiently good.

Despite the prison holding only 270 young men, much lower than its usual capacity due to ongoing refurbishment, inspectors found empty workshops, a tiny number of prisoners in classrooms, and nearly two-thirds locked up during the working day – more than at the 2021 inspection. Those not in work or education were spending up to 23 hours a day in their cells, and the aspiration of just 3.5 hours a day out of cell as COVID-19 restrictions lifted was far too low for a training prison.

Although there had been some progress in safety, such as improvements to the segregation unit and strengthening the oversight of use of force, violence between prisoners was higher than in 2021, some of which was very serious. Use of force was also high.

With so little constructive time unlocked to engage or tire them out, we saw prisoners with their backs to the perimeter of the exercise yards, clearly anxious for their safety. Some of the footage of incidents we viewed left us deeply concerned

The prison was suffering from major staff shortages which meant that prisoners could not be reliably escorted to work and education, and which prevented the prison from restoring and safely running a full time working day for the population. There was little to incentivise prisoners to behave better as they had so little to lose in terms of their daily regime. Very few had reliable support from a key worker.

In-cell telephones had been introduced on all but one wing: a major improvement that allowed prisoners to keep in touch with family and friends. There was better supervision of medication queues and some early promise in consultation arrangements. But it remained frustrating that the prison had excellent facilities that were not being used and potential which was not being fulfilled.

Notes to editors

1. Read the HMP/YOI Deerbolt independent review of progress report, published on 12 April 2022.
2. HM Inspectorate of Prisons is an independent inspectorate, inspecting places of detention to report on conditions and treatment, and promote positive outcomes for those detained and the public.
3.  HMP/YOI Deerbolt is a closed male young offender institution (YOI) and category C training prison for young adults aged 18 to 24. It receives prisoners from across the country, some serving long sentences. At the time of our visit Deerbolt held about 270 prisoners.
4. Independent Reviews of Progress (IRPs) began in April 2019. They were developed because Ministers wanted an independent assessment of how far prisons had implemented HM Inspectorate of Prisons’ recommendations following particularly concerning prison inspections. IRPs are not inspections and do not result in new judgements against our healthy prison tests. Rather they judge progress being made against the key recommendations made at the previous inspection. The visits are announced and happen eight to 12 months after the original inspection. They last two and a half days and involve a comparatively small team. Reports are published within 25 working days of the end of the visit. We conduct 15 to 20 IRPs each year. HM Chief Inspector of Prisons selects sites for IRPs based on previous healthy prison test assessments and a range of other factors.
5. At this Deerbolt IRP we followed up 12 of the 16 recommendations from our recent inspection and Ofsted followed up three themes. HM Inspectorate of Prisons judged that there was good progress in three recommendations, reasonable progress in four, insufficient progress in one and no meaningful progress in three. Ofsted found insufficient progress in all three themes.
6. This IRP visit at HMP/YOI Deerbolt took place between 7 and 9 March 2022.
7. Please email media@hmiprisons.gov.uk if you would like more information.