Feb 24, 2010: New Prisons Inspector

Prisons in England and Wales have generally improved over recent years, despite struggling with an increasing population and decreasing resources, said HM Chief Inspector of Prisons Dame Anne Owers in her eighth and final annual report.

But she warned that this progress is threatened over the coming months. Overcrowding and budget cuts risk instability in a fragile environment and could compromise the successful rehabilitation of prisoners.

Anne Owers leads HM Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP), which is an independent inspectorate, with the role of inspecting places of detention to report on conditions and treatment, and promoting.  positive outcomes for those detained and the public. The inspectorate notes in the report that:

• health and education have improved;

• the number and rate of self-inflicted deaths in prison has declined in the last two years; and

• resettlement has become central to prisons’ role.

But despite this progress, there remains concern about:

• prevalent self-harm, especially in women’s prisons;

• no discernible progress for young adults in prison;

• poorer reported experience of prisoners from minority groups;

• Insufficient primary mental health services and not enough skills-based activity; and

• little focus on work with alcohol misusers.

In a busy year for the Inspectorate, 2009 saw 103 inspection reports and publications designed to improve treatment and conditions in a range of custodial environments. 2,800 inspectorate recommendations were achieved in prisons and immigration removal centres. Other developments included:

• the pointless and unacceptable prisoner swaps between Wandsworth and Pentonville. As a result, the inspectorate is being resourced to carry out more unannounced inspections;

• the Inspectorate becoming the coordinator for the UK’s National Preventive Mechanism, inspecting and monitoring all places of detention;

• a new regular programme of inspection of police custody, jointly with HM Inspectorate of Constabulary, which has raised some important issues; and

• continuing inspection of immigration detention, with concerns that, unlike prisons, assessments of removal centres are less good than in previous years.

Anne Owers said:

“This year in prisons, 72% of our assessments were positive: an impressive record. But in spite of the progress made, prisons remain caught between the irresistible force of an increasing population and the immovable object of budget cuts. Population pressure affects the whole system – stretching resources, keeping in use buildings that ought to be condemned, doubling up prisoners in cramped cells. Prisons are larger and more complex. Resource pressures are at present being contained, but should not be underestimated. There are two risks: of increased instability in inherently fragile environments and of reducing prisons’ capacity to rehabilitate those they hold.

“I believe that independent inspection has had a demonstrable effect in improving places of detention and revealing shortcomings. It will be
greatly needed in the months ahead. I am particularly glad that the merits of a separate and specialised custodial inspectorate are now widely recognised, and that I am able to hand this, and the expert and committed staff team, over to my successor.”

Commenting on HM Chief Inspector of Prisons’ final annual report, Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, described it as ‘a clear warning to be ignored at any government’s peril.’ She added:

"Reading the Chief Inspector’s far-reaching summary of hard won prison reforms and the remaining blocks and challenges, you look over the precipice of slicing budget cuts and relentlessly rising prison numbers. Fragile gains could too easily fall victim to short-term thinking and cutbacks in the important things, sentence planning, family contact, training and resettlement, that reduce re-offending on release. The Chief Inspector uses the chilling phrase “regression to the mean”.

"The Justice Committee’s report on justice re-investment, referred to by Anne Owers, offers the way to deploy limited public money most effectively – by reserving prison for violent and serious offenders and investing instead in effective community measures to cut crime."