News

Today, there are fewer than 500 children in custody in England and Wales. This is down largely to the success of diversion schemes over the last 10 years and, more recently, the impact of the pandemic. While this decline in the population is positive for children and society in general, it has created its own set of challenges, notes Angus Jones, Team Leader for Children and Young People.

Inspectors to HMYOI Parc found a safe and stable establishment providing good outcomes across all our healthy prison tests for the 20 young people in its care.

Inspectors returning to HMP Woodhill found an establishment struggling to make progress due to severe staffing shortages. The staffing position was no better than it had been at the time of the inspection in 2021, with as many staff leaving the prison as joining. Inspectors were concerned that the staff shortages, inexperience and high turnover were limiting what the jail could achieve and were negatively affecting outcomes for prisoners.

The prison service must do more to make sure prisoners spend more time out of their cells in purposeful activity and it needs to recruit and retain high-quality staff., according to the Chief Inspector of Prisons in his annual report for 2021–22 published today.

The prison service must do more to make sure prisoners spend more time out of their cells in purposeful activity and it needs to recruit and retain high-quality staff., according to the Chief Inspector of Prisons in his annual report for 2021–22 published today.

Inspectors to HMP Ranby, a category C training and resettlement prison in Nottinghamshire, found that prisoners and staff were now much safer, but this improvement was let down by poor provision of purposeful activity.

Inspectors returning to HMP Wandsworth, an inner-city male reception prison serving the London courts, found that progress on recommendations made in the last inspection was inconsistent. When they last visited in September 2021, inspectors had been concerned to find an overcrowded jail where prisoners felt unsafe. There was a lack of oversight of use of force, poor mental health support, and a severely limited regime.

Inspectors returning to HMP Erlestoke were encouraged to find a prison that had made reasonable or good progress against 11 of the 13 recommendations they followed up. The Wiltshire jail was last inspected in 2021, when violence and self-harm levels were rising, staff-prisoner relationships were poor, and living conditions were inadequate.

The inspection of Colnbrook immigration removal centre found an experienced leadership team delivering reasonable outcomes for detainees despite its prison-like design and weaknesses in Home Office engagement. The centre, situated next to Heathrow and run by Mitie Care and Custody, held 184 detainees at the time of the inspection, and was judged reasonably good in all healthy establishment areas.

In this blog, Charlie Taylor explores purposeful activity findings from inspections of four category C prisons: Rochester, The Mount, Brixton and Coldingley.