Prison overcrowding crushing rehabilitation efforts, MPs warn after visiting Wandsworth

A parliamentary committee has warned that overcrowding and staff shortages at prisons including HMP Wandsworth are sabotaging efforts to rehabilitate offenders and reduce crime.

The Justice Committee’s report [pdf], published late last week, found that 80 per cent of all offending in England and Wales is reoffending: an unsurprising statistic when half of all prisoners are not taking part in education or work.

The cross-party committee visited HMP Wandsworth among four prisons studied for its inquiry into rehabilitation. The report highlights how workers at the Heathfield Road prison miss out on time in fresh air because overcrowding forces impossible choices.

“Many prisoners are locked up for 22 hours or more each day, with limited access to fresh air, showers, or rehabilitative activities,” the report states. At Wandsworth, those working off the wing miss out on fresh air entirely.

The findings come amid mounting evidence of systemic failures at Wandsworth Prison, which Putney.news has documented extensively.

Pattern of failure

In October, the Independent Monitoring Board reported that one-third of Wandsworth staff were absent every day, forcing the 170-year-old prison holding 1,500 men to operate with fewer than 85 officers.

Former chaplain Liz Bridge revealed in September that prisoners eat meals sitting on toilets in cells so small two men cannot both lie on the floor. A preventable death from heat exhaustion occurred in December despite the winter timing.

The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman concluded in August that father-of-three Rajwinder Singh “would still be alive today” if sent to a different prison, after staff falsified observation records and ignored his emergency cell bell for 30 minutes before he was found hanging.

National crisis

The Justice Committee’s report reveals the scale of the rehabilitation failure across England’s prison system:

• 50 per cent of prisoners not in education or work
• Two-thirds not in education or work six months after release
• Remand prisoners (20 per cent of population) excluded from rehabilitation programmes
• 11.6 per cent staff leaving rate among prison officers
• £1.8 billion maintenance backlog across the estate

“The intended purpose of prisons is to rehabilitate criminals, as well as punishing them and managing their risk to the public,” the committee states. “But we heard that offenders are instead languishing in prisons.”

Committee chair Andy Slaughter MP said: “The committee’s report reveals an overcrowded, short-staffed, crumbling prison estate where the long-term focus on rehabilitation is often lost in an over-stretched environment which is grappling day to day to function.”

Beyond breaking point

The report found the prison estate in a “state of disrepair” with dilapidated buildings limiting access to rehabilitative spaces and contributing to poor mental health.

Remand prisoners are now at their highest level in at least 50 years and face particular problems. Despite often spending extended periods in custody, they remain excluded from education and rehabilitative programmes, then are frequently released directly from court with no support.

The Wandsworth Prison Improvement Campaign (WPIC), a community group that has campaigned for years to improve conditions, submitted written evidence to the inquiry.

The committee visited HMP Wandsworth, HMP Brixton, HMP Buckley Hall and HMP Wormwood Scrubs as part of its investigation.

Recent mistaken releases from Wandsworth, including a sex offender freed in error who remained at large for nine days, have been described by ministers as symptoms of the wider prison system crisis.

The Justice Committee is calling on the government to explain how it will ensure rehabilitation is not compromised as demand for prison places continues to increase.