Rioters sit out unconstructive prison sentences

Offenders sent to prison following the recent rioting across the country will enter a system where too many will have to sit out their sentences with very little constructive to do and little input to prevent them reoffending, the chief inspector of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) has concluded.

Nick Hardwick, published his first annual report today, which although charts improvement in the treatment of prisoners and the conditions in prisons over the past five years, it revealed that progress has been inconsistent overall and progress on work and resettlement has been too slow.

Mr Hardwick said: “The improvements in prisons over the last five years are very welcome. Nevertheless, going to even the best run prison for only a short time is a very severe punishment indeed. I have found no holiday camps. But for many short-term prisoners, the reality will be being locked up in a small shared cell with an unscreened toilet for twenty hours a day – with too much access to drugs and negative peer pressure and too little access to work and resettlement help.”

 The report raised a number of key concerns including:

• too little work, training or education – particularly for young adults;
• inadequate resettlement support which was the worst performing area and a squeeze on small voluntary organisations who contribute to this;
• the unacceptably high availability of drugs despite efforts to combat this;
• the continuing high level of unmet mental health need in all forms of custody and particularly amongst women prisoners; and
• the negative perceptions of prisoners from minority groups, particularly Muslim prisoners.

“Our current inspection programme has given us a good insight into how prisons are coping with the influx of prisoners resulting from the recent disturbances. There has been some disruption and stresses.  It has been a challenge to keep young people safe in particular – both in the existing population and among new arrivals. There have been tensions between prisoners, some potentially serious incidents and significant numbers of young people placed on self-harm prevention procedures. It is a credit to the staff involved that there have not been more serious incidents.

“Although we have only looked at a small cross section of prisons and young offender institutions, up to now they have had the capacity to physically absorb the additional numbers. But capacity is more than just a question of how many prisoners can be squeezed into the available cells. The concern my report highlights is that there will not be sufficient capacity to do anything useful with many of them when they are there,” added Mr Hardwick.

Inspections of immigration centres also revealed a mixed picture, although the report welcomed the intention to end the detention of children. Inspectors found improvements in police custody but were concerned that in some areas, there was ineffective use of schemes to divert those with mental health problems from police custody, and police cells were too frequently used for those who needed to be detained in a place of safety.