This Simply Cannot Go On

Yesterday HMI Charlie Taylor lost his patience with HMPPS and the Minister Alex Chalk MP and wrote him a letter. Probation staff must continue to reflect on how much longer they can possibly continue to be part of an increasingly dysfunctional and abusive HMPPS, especially when there are over 5,300 bureaucrats just a couple of miles away at HQ doing what exactly? 

Dear Secretary of State, 

Urgent Notification: HMP Wandsworth 

In accordance with the Protocol between HM Chief Inspector of Prisons and the Ministry of Justice dated October 2019, I am writing to you to invoke the Urgent Notification process following our unannounced inspection of HMP Wandsworth between 22nd April and 2nd May 2024. The protocol sets out that this letter will be placed in the public domain, and that the Secretary of State commits to respond publicly within 28 days. 

Wandsworth is a prison that is still reeling from the very high-profile escape in 2023. Our findings suggest that security remains a significant concern, although failings were evident in almost all aspects of the prison’s operation. This was reflected in our healthy prison test scores of poor for “safety”, “respect” and “purposeful activity” and not sufficiently good in “preparation for release”. 

When we last inspected Wandsworth in September 2021, we reported serious concerns about outcomes for prisoners and at that time I cautioned against plans to increase the prison roll:

“Leaders in this crumbling, overcrowded, vermin-infested prison will need considerable ongoing support from the prison service…It is hard to see how HMP Wandsworth’s limited progress can be sustained if prisoner numbers in this jail are allowed to increase as they are scheduled to do next April.” 

The population at the time of that inspection was 1,364. When we returned this month, it had risen to 1,513. 

I have issued an Urgent Notification for the following reasons:

• Despite a high-profile escape from Wandsworth in September 2023, inspectors found significant weaknesses in many aspects of security. Wings were chaotic and staff across most units were unable to confirm where all prisoners were during the working day. There was no reliable roll that could assure leaders that all prisoners were accounted for. Given the recent escape, it was unfathomable that leaders had not focussed their attention on this area. 

• There had been 10 self-inflicted deaths since the last inspection, seven of which had occurred in the last 12 months. The rate of self-harm was high and rising, and yet around 40% of emergency cell bells were not answered within five minutes. 

• Overall rates of violence, including serious assaults, had increased since the last inspection and were higher than most similar prisons. In our survey, 69% of prisoners said they had felt unsafe at Wandsworth. 

• Over half (51%) of prisoners surveyed said it was easy to get illicit drugs and the smell of cannabis was ubiquitous. Although leaders had identified this issue as presenting the highest level of security risk, they had suspended drug testing between August 2023 and January 2024. In the most recent confirmed random drug test results (February 2024), 44% of prisoners tested positive. 

• Wandsworth was badly overcrowded and has a transient population, with more than half on remand. Living conditions were very poor, cells were cramped and ill-equipped, and the prison was still too dirty. The fabric of the buildings and facilities including showers and heating still needed significant investment to bring them up to a decent standard. 

• In our survey only 41% of prisoners said that staff treated them with respect, significantly lower than in comparable prisons. Very limited time out of cell, absent staff, and a failure to deliver any key work reduced the opportunity to develop meaningful relationships on wings. 

• A substantial lack of work and education spaces and poor use of those that were available meant there was very little purposeful activity. Most prisoners were unemployed and spent over 22 hours a day locked up.

 • Prisoners had no idea when or if they would be unlocked each day or whether they would get access to fresh air. Life on residential units was unpredictable and confusing for staff and prisoners alike. 

• Consistent failures to enable access to healthcare services due to prison staff absences resulted in important assessment and treatment interventions being curtailed. Clinic non-attendance rates were high at around 24%. The costly new health centre that was supposed to open in the summer of 2022 was still unused. 

• Despite a full complement of officers, sickness, restricted duties, and training commitments meant that over a third could not be deployed to operational duties each day; this led to curtailed regimes, cross-deployment, and burnt out staff. 

• Inexperience across every grade of operational staff was preventing them from bringing about much needed change. Staff were not wilfully neglectful, they simply did not understand their role and they lacked direction, training, and consistent support from leaders. 

The poor outcomes we found at Wandsworth stemmed from poor leadership at every level of the prison, from HMPPS and the Ministry of Justice, leading to systemic and cultural failures that have led to this shocking decline. There was a degree of despondency amongst prisoners that I have not come across in my time as Chief Inspector.

Many well-meaning and hard-working leaders and staff persevered at Wandsworth, but they were often fighting against a tide of cross-cutting, intractable problems that require comprehensive, long-term solutions. 

For this troubled prison to begin to recover, Wandsworth needs permanent experienced leaders at all levels who are invested in the long-term future of the prison to improve security, safety and guide their less experienced colleagues. 

Yours sincerely 

Charlie Taylor

--oo00oo--

The Governing Governor having resigned her post, but professionally decided to stay on pending a new appointment, the Prison Governors Association were quick to respond:-

PRISON GOVERNORS’ ASSOCIATION – URGENT NOTIFICATION AT HMP WANDSWORTH  

The decision by Charlie Taylor, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons to issue an Urgent Notification (UN) at HMP Wandsworth will be of no surprise to the Government, Ministry of Justice or to the Senior Leadership of His Majesty’s Prison & Probation Service (HMPPS).

The Prison Governors’ Association (PGA) has been highlighting the challenges facing our members in Wandsworth and other prisons for years. We are in a position now, where the levers needed to relieve the stress facing many prisons are not available. Although the chronic shortage of staff across the estate has reduced it remains stubbornly high in some prisons. HMP Wandsworth was built in 1851. It has cells designed to hold 964 prisoners. At the time of the inspection, it held around 1500. 

The Governor and her team are in an almost impossible situation, trying to maintain security, order and control whist helping prisoners to reduce the chances of reoffending on release in a prison holding more than 500 more men than it was designed to hold in Victorian times in buildings that haven’t been properly maintained by the Ministry of Justice for the last 15 years. The Governor had decided to leave HMPPS early in the 2024 and resigned during the inspection. This is undoubtedly due in part to the personal toll that running a prison like Wandsworth in current times takes on those who do so. 

The biggest lever for reducing a prison’s population is no longer available as it was when the UN process was introduced several years ago. Then, following a UN, prisons reduced their population by hundreds, allowing a process of improvement to take place. The prison population is around 88,000 in an estate designed to hold less than 80,000, and it is projected to continue to grow. Government policy of locking up more people for longer, making it more difficult to release them, has paralysed a system to the point it is unable to make a difference for prisons which face the gravest of challenges. It is directly impacting on the safety of prisoners, staff and the public. The impact on the health and wellbeing of prison leaders and their staff working in such an environment is significant. It is grossly unfair that our members must shoulder the burden of a crisis which is not of their making. Neither is it of the making of the Senior Leadership of HMPPS, who still have the confidence of the PGA. It is the Government that needs to act, and act now. 

Building more prisons whilst failing to invest in the existing prison estate simply to allow more and more people to be sent to prison is a mistake, it does not effectively protect the public. Ministers have been warned of the consequences at Wandsworth and across the wider prison estate. On sending their report to the Minister in September 2023 the Chair of the Independent Monitoring Board at Wandsworth, Tim Aikens, said: 

“Recent events at Wandsworth have demonstrated the shortcomings of the prison system that the IMB has been highlighting repeatedly for many years. Prisoners are being failed and most have a severely reduced chance of rehabilitation upon release. We are told there is significant investment in the prison system, but we see little evidence of this in Wandsworth.” 

The PGA call on the Government and Opposition to have the courage to move away from being simply “tough on crime” to putting resources into public services, such as mental health and drug treatment, to reduce the burden on our prisons and really being “tough on the causes of crime.” This simply cannot go on.