Wandsworth Prison is in the worst state it has been in its history. It is unsafe, inhumane, and the Ministry of Justice is to blame, according to an independent report published on Thursday.
The fiercely critical report from the prison’s Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) says that it has been “the worst year in memory” for Wandsworth and highlights the depth of the prison’s problems including:
- Nearly 1,000 assaults in the past year, between prisoners or on staff
- Inhumane living conditions, with most prisoners forced to share “cramped, squalid cells” that were built in the Victorian era for just one prisoner
- “Appalling” shower facilities
- Ready access to drugs, weapons, mobile phones and drink
- A severe lack of experienced staff – with nearly half of the prison officers having been in the job for less than a year
- A severe lack of staff in general – with up to half of the prison officers off work at any given time
The end result is a prison that is not only failing but getting worse and the report points the blame squarely at the Ministry of Justice. The prison’s failing have been known for a long time, it is noted. “Many of the same issues had been raised in previous IMB annual reports and ignored by the Ministry of Justice,” the chair of the IMB, Matthew Andrews, said in a statement.
The report comes following an extraordinary year for the prison where a local pressure group started running public meetings to Wandsworth residents know just how bad conditions in the prison had become. That led to the resignation of the prison’s governor and an excoriating official inspection report.
Then the prison was dragged into the press after a female prison officer was filmed having sex with a prisoner inside one of the cells (she pled guilty to misconduct earlier this month), and a former police inspector was found dead inside his cell while waiting for trial.
Government finally acts
Earlier this month, the Ministry of Justice finally acted, promising £100m over the next five years to improve the situation while acknowledging that over 80 per cent of prisoners were living in overcrowded conditions.
But it is a case of too little, too late, according to the IMB which has been tracking and highlighting Wandsworth Prison’s problems for years. The report does note that the prison’s management team have “worked very hard to deliver an acceptable regime despite
very limited resources” but noted that they have failed to do so.
It puts the appalling situation down to a number of things, including the decaying infrastructure of the buildings, staffing issues and “insufficient or unhelpful management from His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) and its lack of financial support.”
It also notes that “the shortage of available experienced staff seriously undermined the ability of the prison to function effectively.”
You can read the full 32-page report by the IMB online, but here are the additional main points that it highlighted:
- Showers are damp, mouldy and there are too few of them
- A new multi-million pound healthcare centre at the prison is still unused more than two
years after it was due to open - There are regularly less than half the staff working at the prison that are paid to be there
- New staff recruits are not adequately trained or prepared for the job
- There were ten deaths at the prison in the past year, six of them from people taking their own lives. The previous year there were four
- There were 960 assaults on prisoners or staff, and 998 incidents of self-harm
- Access to “contraband” – meaning drugs, weapons and phones – was “easy”
- Cells that had been designed in 1851 for a single prisoner were being shared by 1,200 prisoners. The cells are described as “cramped, squalid and often had broken or missing windows, furniture and fittings”
- Basic necessities are in short supply, including sheets, towels and prison clothing
- The lack of staff means that prisoners are not getting their minimum essential time of 45 minutes of exercise and 45 minutes outside their cells
