Key findings paper digs deeper into the ongoing failings in purposeful activity

Summary: Our annual report highlighted ongoing failings in purposeful activity with 30 out of 32 closed prisons inspected in 2023-24 being poor or not sufficiently good. This key findings paper looks in more detail at how much time prisoners spend out of their cells, and its impact, across the closed prison estate. During 2023-24, we found more than two thirds of prisoners were spending most of their days in their cells with little to occupy them.

The situation was particularly acute in men’s reception prisons, where half of prisoners reported receiving less than two hours out of their cell on a typical weekday – and just under three-quarters (72%) at the weekend. This is not a new finding, and we have previously published reports highlighting the deleterious effects of being confined to cells for so long. In this latest review, two years after the pandemic, prisoners continue to describe the harmful effects of long days spent locked in their cells on their well-being. We found a striking correlation between prisoners’ own perception of the likelihood of them reoffending and the amount of time they reported getting to spend unlocked and engaged in constructive activity, suggesting that purposeless prisons are not only harmful for prisoners, but could also extend to wider society.

Points to note: 80% of prisoners spending less than two hours unlocked reported needing help with their mental health compared with 65% who had more time out of their cells. Concerningly, men who had less than two hours out of their cell were also less likely to report that they had been helped with their mental health than those unlocked for longer, 28% compared to 43%.

Read the report: Purposeful prisons: time out of cell

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