4Getting the basics right and providing strong incentives for prisoners to reform
94.The Ministry has recognised that safety and decency are necessary preconditions for turning prisons into places of genuine reform and rehabilitation.186 These are therefore the most immediate priorities in terms of prisons policy and we consider in this chapter the progress made by the Ministry and HMPPS on this objective. The Ministry of Justice’s approach to improving safety has been to increase prison officer numbers, seek to improve prisoner-staff relationships through a new model of support and challenge, crack down on organised crime and drugs, and target efforts to improve decency and culture in selected establishments. The Justice Secretary has recently posed the question of whether prisons currently maximise the chances of rehabilitation which we examine in relation to three factors: the availability of staff to effectively deliver and supervise an appropriate regime; the capacity of the staff and leadership to respond to the challenges they face; and the physical capacity of the estate.187
Safe prisons
95.In the 15 months since we began our inquiry, the crisis in prison standards and safety has deepened. All indicators of safety continue to illustrate an ongoing decline in safety resulting in deaths and serious violence. The number of assaults and serious assaults have reached record highs. In 2017 there was a fall in self-inflicted deaths, which it was hoped was indicative of improvements, but this has been reversed. In the 12 months to June 2018, there were 2,366 incidents of self-harm per thousand in female establishments, an increase of 24% on the previous year.188 Women account for around 5% of the prison population but around 18% of all self-harm incidents.189
Figure 8: Number of self-harm incidents for male and female establishments 2008- 2018
Source: Ministry of Justice, Safety in Custody quarterly: update to September 2018, January 2019
Figure 9: Number of assaults for male and female establishments 2008- 2018
Source: Ministry of Justice, Safety in Custody quarterly: update to September 2018, January 2019
96.Several of our witnesses highlighted to us the scale of the challenge of improving safety. Juliet Lyon, Chair of the Independent Panel on Deaths in Custody, cited the vulnerability of many prisoners documented earlier in our report, including histories of self-harm and suicide attempts.190 Limitations to prison regimes and poor day-to-day living conditions, including crowding, can both negatively impact on safety, by causing stress, frustration and boredom.191 Until recently Ministers and officials have largely attributed the rise in violence to the influx of Novel Psychoactive Substances (NPS) and staffing reductions, but an assessment of research evidence on prison violence published in September 2018 shows that prison conditions are a considerable factor, as well as the individual characteristics of prisoners.192 Professor James McGuire of Liverpool University found that physically poor conditions, highly controlling regimes, or circumstances in which rules are unevenly applied or not adhered to or where prisoners do not experience staff decisions as fair or legitimate, can each heighten tensions and induce stresses potentially giving rise to conflict and assault. Perhaps surprisingly, evidence that crowding in and of itself was a direct cause of violence was fairly weak; the effects are thought to be mediated through staff-prisoner interactions, meaning that the crucial factor in maintaining order is the availability and skills of staff.
The impact of initiatives to improve safety
97.Targeted initiatives to improve safety have largely not resulted in demonstrable improvements. The Inspectorate found that safety had improved in nine of the men’s prisons inspected in the year to March 2018 but had declined in 14.193 HMPs Liverpool, Nottingham, Exeter and Bedford—which in their latest inspections received the very poorest inspection ratings and notices for immediate improvement—were among the prisons deemed most challenging by the Inspectorate and have been subject to extra investment since the summer of 2016.194
98.The Ministry’s own prison performance rating system—which considers a wider range of measures than the Inspectorate—rated 13% of prisons, all Category A or B, as being of ‘serious concern’, the highest proportion recorded in the available data series.195 All of the bodies which monitor and scrutinise prisons—HM Inspectorate of Prisons, the Prison and Probation Ombudsman, Independent Monitoring Boards, and the Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody—and Inquest (which seeks to ensure that coroners’ recommendations are implemented following prisoners’ deaths to prevent future deaths), have expressed to us their serious concerns at the seeming inability of prisons to take action as a result of their reports, in terms of learning lessons, implementing changes, and sustaining resulting improvements.196 Inquest stated:
Coroner after coroner has highlighted systemic failures and the inappropriate use of prison for a range of groups who simply should not be there. Meanwhile a stream of post-death investigations, inspectorate and monitoring reports and official inquiries into prisons have produced evidence-based recommendations into what needs to change. Too many of these have been systematically ignored.197
99.When we discussed with Rory Stewart the Ministry’s approach to challenging prisons and the seeming difficulty of improving them, he agreed that there were long term problems with some establishments. His explanation was that they are busy local prisons with a highly mobile population which disproportionately contributes to violence and drugs.198 Nick Pascoe of the Prison Governors Association explained that in establishments with longer-term populations and long periods out of cell, prisoners buy into the regime because they have something to do purposefully in the period when they are unlocked.199
100.When he appeared before us in December 2018, Rory Stewart referred to ‘green shoots’ of improvement, and said that more positive inspection reports were now starting to be received.200 Nevertheless, Peter Clarke’s synopsis of the situation a few weeks previously with regards to safety was “pretty gloomy”. He said:
I am afraid that I have not seen anything … to give me optimism that any significant corner has been turned. At the moment, the violence figures are going in the wrong direction, as we know. We still see far too many drugs destabilising prisons.201
Urgent notifications
101.In lieu of legislation to strengthen the role of the Inspectorate of Prisons—which had been included in the Prison and Court Bill that fell at the end of the last Parliament—the Ministry has introduced a new operational process where, in urgent and severe situations the Chief Inspector can alert the Minister directly about poorly performing prisons. The Ministry must respond within 28 days.202 At the time of writing, this ‘Urgent Notification’ (UN) process has been triggered four times. The Ministry simultaneously created a new unit within HMPPS to respond to recommendations made by the Inspectorate, Independent Monitoring Boards and the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, in respect to the concerns outlined above that these recommendations were frequently not acted upon. Peter Clarke explained to us the extent of the problem in those prisons that had received a UN:
At Nottingham, which was the first one, they achieved 12 recommendations of the 48 we had made on the previous inspection. At Exeter, they achieved 19 of the 56 we had made on the previous inspection. At Birmingham, they achieved 12 of the 70 we made. At Bedford, it was 19 of 68. Those figures suggest to me that there had been a lack of focus on the inspectorate reports. When you look at the figures on the safety inspection, it is even worse. Nottingham achieved two out of 13 in safety. Exeter achieved three out of 14. Birmingham achieved three out of 15, and so on. That suggests to me a lack of seriousness and a lack of focus. To put it crudely, they are not taking us seriously.203
102.The introduction of urgent notifications was welcomed by our witnesses although it was not seen as a panacea.204 Professor Hardwick and Mark Day of the Prison Reform Trust believed that the Inspectorate had struck the right balance in avoiding the risk of “becoming a substitute for the management of the Prison Service” or “a tool of management and resource allocation”.205 Professor Hardwick believed that the existence of the process raised “questions about why… management is not identifying and dealing with those problems itself”.206 We are very pleased that, following our report on HMP Liverpool, the Inspectorate has been given additional resources to instigate follow-up inspections. Peter Clarke told us these will seek to answer the question “Is this establishment taking us seriously or not?”.207 This should enable the Inspectorate also to examine progress in those institutions just below the urgent notification threshold or which had not been recently re-inspected, which Professor Hardwick suspected also warranted attention.208
103.The urgent notification process has helped HMPPS to target resources at prisons that need additional support. One measure taken by Ministry to improve performance in each prison has been to reduce the number of prisoners. However, Mark Day noted that this creates pressures on other prisons nearby: “[y]ou will get staff taken from the prisons and drafted in. Courts will be ordered not to send people to that prison but to prisons in the surrounding area”.209 In addition, the investment targeted in those prisons has largely come from elsewhere in the HMPPS budget. For example, we were told that the costs of additional staff and £2.5 million additional maintenance at HMP Liverpool would be re-allocated from the current and following year’s budgets. The Chief Inspector of Prisons was of the view that such an approach was necessary:
I understand that it takes a lot of resource to drive significant, meaningful improvement in some of those very difficult prisons, but it surely has to be done. It has been put to me that the urgent notification process will lead to an element of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Well, yes, I understand that, but at the same time what is the alternative? If we had not gone there and raised our concerns in what I hope was a strong but evidence-based way, what would have happened?210
104.There is a grave and worsening situation in the safety of prisons in England and Wales despite significant recent, welcome advances in effort and resources. Over the last five years, the Ministry and Treasury have essentially adopted a crisis management approach, despite repeated warnings from us and other key stakeholders of the consequences. The Urgent Notification process would not be necessary if the Ministry’s own oversight arrangements were working effectively. Nevertheless, its introduction undoubtedly has had a positive impact on the targeting of resources. We are cautiously encouraged by signs of a more proactive approach with significant investment in 10 challenging prisons. The ‘green shoots’ we are promised by the Prisons Minister are not borne out in the safety statistics, but we eagerly await them. They are urgently necessary for those working in prisons, prisoners and their families, increasing numbers of whom are bearing the scars of years of underinvestment. We have very real concerns that support given to the ten prisons could be at the expense of others in serious need and we are concerned about the diversion of resources. All prisons should have the resources that they need to foster a safe and decent environment. The Prisons Minister has set clear aspirational targets to improve safety and we will judge him by the extent to which these are achieved.
Tackling organised crime and drugs
105.Cracking down on organised crime and the use of drugs has been the primary emphasis of the Secretary of State for Justice, Rt Hon David Gauke MP. Professor Hardwick described the severe impact of organised crime on prison regimes:
I am quite sure that in some prisons the absence of experienced staff has left a vacuum that organised crime has filled. If you want a profitable trade in drugs, you need some rules and structures by which that trade operates. There is a lot of money at stake. People need to pay you; you cannot go to the small claims court if they do not. What has happened in some prisons is that an alternative structure has developed, where prisoners are running too much of what is happening. Once established, it becomes very difficult to break down. That is much more difficult than to stop it arising in the first place.211
106.The Ministry has allocated resources to support HMPPS to reduce the supply of drugs in prison, which can lead to violence and instability. Steps taken to do this includes surveillance, drug detection dogs, body scanners and intelligence-led searches.212 £6m has been spent on creating a national intelligence unit and a national serious organised crime unit, with regional teams. £8.2 million has been invested in prison analysis and search capability at a local level. This includes working with other Government departments and agencies to identify, investigate and convict suppliers of drugs and those involved with organised crime gangs. The Ministry takes a “zero-tolerance approach”, meaning that anyone found with contraband will be subject to disciplinary action and police investigation. They have also introduced new drug tests to identify users of psychoactive substances. However, the charity Inquest believed that the effect of Novel Psychoactive Substances on record death rates has been broadly overstated, with Government focus placed on staffing, drugs, drones and mobile phones. They suggest that this has obscured other issues including high rates of legally prescribed medication, the plight of mentally ill people in prison and the disturbing number of self-inflicted deaths.213
107.We have seen less evidence of how HMPPS is seeking to support those using drugs or with mental health problems which may co-exist or lead to drug use. Michael Spurr acknowledged that HMPPS had been slow to respond to trends in mental health and drug misuse and wished to see funding for treatment coming into prisons:
“ … we have significant issues with people who end up in prison, and then go back into the community with significant risk to the community. There must be investment in the prevention of drugs coming into prison and investment in treatment.”214
108.Just under one third of prisoners claimed it is ‘easy’ to get drugs in prison and 13% of men and 8% of women report developing a problem with illicit drugs while in prison. The rates of positive drug tests are rising and there was a 23% increase in drug finds in the last year, which may be the result of greater vigilance.215 Nevertheless, the number of adults receiving treatment for drug and alcohol problems within secure settings (most of which were in prisons) has been falling in the last few years.216 More positively, dropout rates for people in treatment in secure settings were low, at 5% or less, and the effectiveness of treatment for those who complete it is increasing: the proportion leaving treatment free of dependence has risen from 24% in 2015–16 to 31% in 2017–18. On the other hand, any progress in prison may be undermined by the lack of support on release.
109.The Health and Social Care Committee (HASCC), in their January 2019 report Prison Healthcare, regarded the Government’s commitment to “continue work at all levels to reduce the impact of substance misuse (including from the use of psychoactive substances), to address the risks of misuse and resultant harms, and to ensure the right help is available at the right time” as very vague.217 They recommended a commitment to reducing substance misuse in prison, as well as its impact, and set clear and ambitious targets for: a) reducing the supply of, and demand for, illicit drugs in prisons; and b) improving the recovery, and associated health outcomes, of people in prison with a substance misuse problem. To ensure that sufficient resource is provided for substance misuse treatment within the secure estate, the BMA recommended to us that substance misuse data is incorporated into prison population data sets and that projections should include trends in the specific health needs of prison populations, including indicators on mental health, self-harm and substance misuse.218
HMPPS capacity to improve safety and create rehabilitative cultures
The respective roles of the Ministry and HMPPS
110.In April 2018, the Ministry restructured its management of prisons and their performance, moving to a model where Ministers set high-level strategic priorities, performance expectations and budgets for HMPPS with the performance levels of individual prisons and probation services to be agreed and monitored by HMPPS rather than through a commissioning function within the Ministry.219 This reversed changes made following the 2016 Prison Safety and Reform White Paper.220
111.We raised concerns about the previous arrangements in our report on HMP Liverpool as we felt it created a situation whereby HMPPS were effectively “marking their own homework”. We also wished to see Ministers taking personal responsibility for ensuring that Inspectorate of Prisons recommendations were implemented and being held accountable to Parliament for doing so, which we are pleased to note has been the case.221 HMPPS itself has been restructured to create 17 prison group directors who oversee a much smaller group of prison governors and to create several teams centrally which support prisons facing particular challenges. For example a Director of Prison Improvement leads a new drug strategy; a Drugs Taskforce; and a Security, Order and Counter Terrorism Directorate is seeking to “tackle the modern face of criminal behaviour”, including drones, serious organised crime and mobile phones.
Governor empowerment
112.A key initiative stemming from the White Paper was the devolution of budgets to prison governors, due to commence in April 2017. While our predecessor Committee was generally supportive of plans to improve governor empowerment, and devolve budgets, they had not seen evidence that it would lead to improved outcomes for prisoners. They identified issues with the support and development provided to governors to fulfil this function and the need to coordinate the contributions made by various agencies in providing rehabilitative services at a local level, and to apportion accountability for post-release outcomes between prison governors and probation services.222
113.As we noted above, the implementation of these plans has slipped somewhat. We considered the extent to which governors are genuinely empowered to distribute funds to meet the needs of the population they hold and our evidence from Ministers and prison governors indicates that in practice budgetary freedom is limited.223 For example, Rory Stewart acknowledged that the basic operating budgets in public sector prisons are determined from the centre and the governor has discretion over relatively small sums of money.224 Governors have discretion in their budgets for wages and prison food and prioritise security, safety and maintenance, the costs of which are fairly fixed, unless there is under-staffing.225 If underspends are not pulled back to the centre, there are strict rules on how much can be spent and what it can be spent on.226 Private sector prison leaders do not have these restrictions and therefore have greater capacity to innovate. For example, Serco has provided telephones in all their cells since 2010; these promote contact with family and can act as a means of improving safety, reducing self-harm, and self-inflicted deaths.227 In the public sector, although in-cell technology was trialled in 2015, it is only now being rolled out gradually. 50 prisons will have in-cell telephones by March 2020, subject to affordability.228
Skills and leadership
114.The Ministry’s education and employment strategy puts public sector prison governors in England fully in charge of their education provision from April 2019 and explained that governors will “set the strategy, commission the providers and manage its delivery”.229 The effectiveness of this strategy, and the similar approaches to strengthening family ties and the co-commissioning of healthcare, for example, will be dependent on governors having the capacity, in terms of time and expertise, and the financial resources and staff to implement them. The Health and Social Care Committee (HASCC) concluded that with respect to the co-commissioning of healthcare, prison governors currently lack the financial and other levers to drive improvement.230 Francesca Cooney of the Prisoners Learning Alliance highlighted that some innovative practice might stem from governors who are able to commission, co-ordinate and integrate services appropriate to the population’s needs.231 On the other hand, for already pressured governors in prisons that are already struggling, the expectations of new strategies would, in her view, create added “upheaval” and “change”.232 Peter Clarke similarly observed that governors’ capacity “varies from place to place”, even in comparable establishments, but highlighted that they are all severely constrained by staffing and resource issues, stating that “… They really do not have the space, time, energy or resource to start developing all sorts of things at the local [level].”233
115.He further explained the complexity of running prisons:
There is a lot happening in them and there is a lot to manage. The degree of control that governors have over all of the things being delivered there, whether it be healthcare, education and so on, is variable. Those things are really very difficult. You can almost draw a comparison and say, “Is the governor actually a general in charge of an army, or is he or she a conductor in charge of trying to bring all the component parts together to deliver a finished product?” That is a skill. Whichever way it is, it is a specific skill”.234
116.When our predecessor Committee examined the potential benefits of governor empowerment, they concluded that for it to work effectively, governors would require opportunities to develop their leadership capacity and skills.235 They recommended that the Ministry should ‘clarify what support will be available to governors from April in carrying out their new functions and how they will address potential skills gaps in the short term’.236 In their written evidence, HM Inspectorate of Prisons partially attributed the poor outcomes it had found in some of its inspections to failures in leadership and staff training and experience, which they believed could be improved through basic changes.237 Peter Clarke explained:
“… I am concerned that there appears to be a lack of higher leadership and management training in the Prison Service at the moment. I know that the Minister has focused on that and is very keen to try to do something about it. In simple terms, to an extent, it is unfair to put people in those very highly pressured jobs without adequate preparation.238
117.The Prison Governors Association and Prison Officers Association were strongly of the view that HMPPS does not invest enough in developing managers.239 The Ministry explained that financial pressure meant it was a challenge to put in place a fully-funded leadership strategy, but it continues to seek improvement. Work underway includes a leadership review, leadership being a focus of the 10 Prisons Project, and consultation on a refreshed HMPPS Strategic Leaders Programme, which should be available in May 2019.240
118.Prison governors are expected to implement several rehabilitative strategies at a time when they are beginning to benefit from a higher complement of staff and are seeking to focus on reversing the deep decline in safety. While we agree that it is right to focus on both decency and rehabilitation, governors have limited capacity, with prison population at current levels, to deal with the range of competing and challenging demands on their time. They also continue to lack meaningful control over their budgets to enable them to implement these strategies effectively. We welcome the fact that there appears to have been a shift by Ministers from seeing the problems facing prisons primarily as a leadership problem to primarily a resources problem, over the last two years. Nevertheless, owing to a lack of resources, the limitations with leadership training, which our predecessor Committee commented on in 2017, appear unresolved despite a welcome aspiration to improve it. This is a matter we may return to in a future inquiry.
Managing safely and effectively the prison population
119.The Ministry has focused on increasing prison officer numbers and implementing a new Offender Management in Custody (OMiC) model as a key element of their strategy for improving safety in the day-to-day management of prisoners.241 It is also taking steps to foster a rehabilitative culture in all prisons by creating local strategies aligned to the model with the support of a central Board.242
120.Since June 2017, HMPPS has been gradually implementing the OMIC model, designed to give more time for interaction between staff and prisoners, including through one-to-one support for approximately 45 minutes per week.243 This is due to be completed in 2019/20.244 Under the model each key worker will be responsible for supporting six prisoners, with some prisoners being given a more enhanced level of support.245 Another element of the approach is to increase the number of probation officers and senior probation officers based in prisons, with their focus particularly to engage long-term prisoners.246 The model also applies in the private sector, where the ratio of officers to prisoners is 1:10 according to the trade union Community.247 The Ministry has committed to drawing up plans to evaluate OMIC following a recommendation in our follow-up report on young adults in the criminal justice system.248
121.Mark Fairhurst and Nick Pascoe both saw signs that OMiC was beginning to have an impact, including at HMP Liverpool where it was fully implemented, for example.249 Nevertheless, we heard that there were some challenges to implementation. In Mr Fairhurst’s view, making it work effectively would require a return to prison officers being located regularly on the same wing so that they can get to know the prisoners.250 Julia Rogers noted the risk that the “burden of contact” could relate to prisoners asking officers for assistance with day-to-day administration about visits, gym time, and canteen orders, which could be ameliorated by the use of self-service technology on the wings. This technology is available in many private sector prisons.251
122.Other witnesses welcomed the implementation of OMIC, which the Prisons Minister told us recognises the importance of the quality of relationships, the need for coordination of interventions, and the environment in which rehabilitative work is undertaken.252 We consider these in more detail below.
The quality of relationships
123.The implementation of OMIC is dependent on the recruitment of sufficient staff, the numbers of whom had been falling prior to the model’s conception.253 The Ministry met its target of net recruitment of 2,500 prison officers to support the model by December 2018, “nine months ahead of schedule”, with an average of 22,319 officers in the year to 30 September 2018, 2,500 short of the number in 2009–10. Nevertheless, officers are continuing to leave the service in increasing numbers, with the resignation rate having risen from 3.4% in 2009–10 to 10.3% in 2017–18.254 Turnover rates are as much as 35% per year in some jails.255 The Ministry has sought to address challenges in retaining prison officers, including through a 1.7% pay rise, by adopting a targeted approach to areas with recruitment difficulties, and by strengthening training and support for new recruits. Nevertheless, the pay rise was not wholly funded by the Treasury, with £11 million coming from existing budgets, and we heard some concerns about the nature of support provided to trainees.256
124.To further improve retention, the trade unions representing public and private sector prison officers advocated for higher starting salaries, further salary and career progression opportunities, and lowering the retirement age to 60 in recognition of the role’s demands, to provide greater incentives for people to stay in the job.257 Mark Fairhurst called on the Government to “pay us what we are worth”, noting the increased challenges of the job, low starting pay in comparison with other public sector workers in the NHS, police and Border Agency, for example, and the fact that pay rises have not kept pace with the cost of living.258 Nick Pascoe and Julia Rogers agreed that pay was an issue, and also emphasised the importance of staff feeling safe and valued.259 Julia Rogers said:
As far as I am concerned, prison officers are as vocational as police officers or nurses. Most people have no idea of the complexity of the job they do and how compassionate they are. It is very important that our role is to keep them safe, to put care around them and to keep them engaged. [ … ] It is about the contract you have with your staff. It is about engaging with them, listening to what they say will make a difference to them and acting on it. Pay is one thing, but I do not think it is everything.260
She gave the recent example of Serco providing patrol dogs to help officers feel safe. Other examples are the introduction of body-worn cameras, and an incapacitant spray (PAVA) for use by prison officers, recently sanctioned by the Ministry of Justice at the request of the Prison Officers Association.261 There has been some controversy over this after an evaluation found that, during piloting, PAVA had a limited effect on reducing violence.262 The Ministry explained that staff felt better able to deal with violence and better equipped to arrest escalation and prevent harm with the spray.263
125.Rory Stewart recognised that inexperienced staff destabilise prisons and, when we saw him in June 2018, he anticipated that new officers would “take another year or two” to bed in and “provide a consistent, fair regime to the prisoners”.264 Some prisons have as many as 40% staff who have started in the previous 12 months, which governors find “quite challenging”.265 Mark Fairhurst of the POA said its members who are new recruits get “virtually zero” support after their basic training:
“ … They go away for 10 weeks, when they are trained. In their opinion, that training does not adequately prepare them for the reality of life on the landings, particularly dealing with prisoners with mental health issues and dealing with violence. They come back to their prison, where they are supposed to have an induction week when they are shadowed permanently by experienced staff. Quite often, they are shoved straight on to a landing, with no supervision. They are left in the wilderness and do not know what to do. [ … ] In some prisons, an experienced prison officer with nine months in the job is trying to run a wing with three other staff who have all just come out of college.”266
126.Better training is another means of improving officer confidence. Basic public sector prison officer training has recently been extended by two weeks, to ten weeks, and HMPPS is piloting a new 20-week prison officer training scheme, under which recruits will have a longer training period, spending more time in an establishment to seek to better prepare them for prison work.267 This builds on the learning from the two-year graduate training programme, Unlocked Graduates, introduced in 2016.268 HMPPS has also introduced mentors for new recruits.269 Private sector prisons are responsible for training their own officers, based around a core syllabus. For example, Serco delivers eight to ten weeks of training, which includes learning and time on the job.270
127.Several of our witnesses were of the view that the demands created by the changing nature and complexity of the prison population would necessitate a greater number of prison officers to provide the time, capacity and appropriate skills to develop meaningful relationships with prisoners.271 Mark Fairhurst did not consider the reintroduction of manager posts to be sufficient to improve the experience on the wings, because the administrative burdens placed on managers take up too great a proportion of their time.272 Staffing levels on wings are also affected by sickness, training and deployment to other establishments.273 For example, Serco works on the assumption of a 20% reduction in staff as a result of these matters.274 We asked the Ministry for an estimate of how much the availability of public sector prison staff is reduced by these factors but they did not wish to disclose this.275 We also asked the Ministry what assessment it had made of the likely costs of prison staff up to 2022, which it told us it saw no benefit in calculating.276
128.Good relationships foster more settled and safer prisons. Our evidence demonstrates a need for greater emphasis on sentence planning, including preparation for release and resettlement which should stem from the Offender Management in Custody model when fully implemented. While it is a matter for offender managers to plan individual sentences, it is not yet clear how this will work for those representing a low and medium risk, who Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) are responsible for managing. Another matter to be clarified is how sentence planning will feed into planning at establishment level or nationally. The Ministry should provide details of sentence planning arrangements, including those handled by CRCs, and on its planned evaluation of the Offender Management in Custody model in its response to this report.
Managing complex and challenging needs
129.A key question which concerned us during our inquiry was the demands placed by complex and challenging prisoners on prison officers and other professionals. Juliet Lyon recounted something that a prison officer had recently said to her “We are running a nursing home, a psychiatric ward and a homeless shelter. Why can’t they sort it out from the start, rather than dumping women in prison?”. She went on to say that staff often feel that they are exactly that. They are having to receive and help women who are in a very bad way indeed.”277 She did not see prison facilities or those working in them as equipped to deal with these complexities:
“It is unreasonable to expect prison staff and mental health teams in prisons to work with the severity and seriousness of women’s conditions in a situation that is so far from what you would see in a psychiatric hospital or any health setting, where a multi-disciplinary team of people would be available across the clock.”278
130.We heard other evidence agreeing that prison staff and others working in prison do not feel equipped to deal with these complexities, partly as a result of limitations in their training.279 Mark Fairhurst of the Prison Officers Association said:
They give a prison officer three hours of mental health awareness training, which is just not enough. We are not trained to deal with people with mental health issues. We have an increasing elderly population. I am not trained to deal with someone with dementia.280
Substance misuse treatment providers in the NHS reported that the time for training their workforce had become strained as demands had increased as well as the complexity of service users.281
131.Our witnesses made suggestions for a range of action that could be taken better to manage these complexities in prison. These included, for example, better screening and assessment; increasing eligibility for, and the capacity of, prison mental health services, including community mental health in-reach teams; increasing access to psychological therapies, including counselling, therapeutic group work and trauma-informed practices; better integration of forensic psychologists, clinical psychologists and healthcare with each other and with the wider prison; greater segregation of the prison population; providing accessible communication tools and other support to people with learning disabilities and neuro-disabilities; redesigning commissioning practices to be less siloed and more personalised; staff awareness training, and providing domestic abuse support services in prisons.282 NHS England plans routinely to collect a wider range of data about prisoners’ mental ill health.283
132.Our witnesses outlined a range of ways in which the higher proportion of sexual and violent offenders had impacted on the effective management of prisoners. There are obvious implications for levels of security and categorisation, for example.284 Martin Jones of the Parole Board found that the growth in sexual offenders and a large proportion of the prison population that have personality disorders placed pressures on psychology resources owing to the volume of assessments and on the Parole Board which now holds lengthier hearings to deal with the complexities involved.285 Dr Jo Bailey said that prison psychologists both assess and report on a higher volume of cases and see a significantly more complex presentation in the prisoners, with “significant impact on resourcing”. This includes the need for more specialism, some of which requires external expertise.286 We heard that steps were being taken to increase prisoners’ access to prison psychologists and probation officers and address deficits in skills and expertise.287
133.Some witnesses were of the view that some strategies for dealing with the most disruptive and challenging individuals do little to tackle the problematic behaviour that warranted that action. This included, for example, transferring prisoners to another establishment and adding days to a sentence following adjudications.288 Several witnesses called for more action to deal with disruptive and challenging individuals, including developing more effective interventions for extremists; removing opportunities for financial exploitation by leaders who continue their criminality in prison; and protecting vulnerable people who are targeted by those distributing new psychoactive substances.289 Another element of the effective management of prisoners is ensuring that there is an appropriate balance between managing risk and supporting change. In Dee Anand of the British Psychological Society’s view this balance is not always achieved by prison psychologists or others working in prisons.290 HMPPS has developed a Challenge, Support and Intervention Plan to improve the case management of violent prisoners.291
134.Prison is often the endpoint for people with complex histories who can present challenging behaviours in different ways, including through violence, self-harm, and suicide attempts as well as their offending behaviour. The experience of imprisonment can make these problems worse or provide an opportunity for them to be addressed. The approach taken by professionals who deal with them, including probation officers, forensic and clinical psychologists and other health professionals, and prison officers can be invaluable in addressing offending behaviour and supporting change.
135.A key priority for improving the evidence base should be to understand better the implications of having a more ‘challenging mix of prisoners’, including the prevalence of more complex needs and vulnerabilities, and how best to address them. Adopting a more balanced approach to violence reduction in prisons would not mean that violent incidents should not be addressed, but rather that effort is also made to understand the reasons behind that behaviour as well as challenge it. Our evidence suggests that existing responses are largely punitive, although there are some promising attempts to adopt alternative approaches.
136.We have not yet seen evidence that improvements in safety can be achieved with the prison population at current levels. For example, we are not satisfied that staffing levels are sufficient to stabilise prisons and facilitate meaningful relationships and to deal with the growing complexity and challenge of prisoners. We are also concerned about the loss of experienced staff and the high turnover of prison officers. As well as monitoring staffing levels, the diversity of prison officers should be monitored to ensure that they can relate to an increasingly diverse prison population. Where there are signs of improvement in prisons that have received urgent notifications, these have been achieved at reduced prison population levels. The Ministry has recognised in its recruitment practices that the skills required of prison officers have changed but it is not clear to us how the Ministry and HMPPS plan to ensure that prisons are equipped with the staffing expertise to handle the challenges and complexities. Overcrowded and under-resourced prisons will not rehabilitate those suffering from mental ill health, addiction and illiteracy.
137.Managing a more complex and challenging population safely and effectively will undoubtedly require greater resource in terms of staffing and training. While there is some recognition of the importance of this including in developing a longer basic training course there is not yet a credible plan for dealing with staffing up to 2022 and beyond. The Ministry of Justice should set out such a plan in its response to this report.
The coordination of interventions
138.The Ministry of Justice defined effective rehabilitation as comprising “activity to assess and manage individuals’ criminogenic and resettlement needs, risks and responsivity to particular types of intervention and support”.292 Nacro described what constituted effective resettlement in practice, which it believed would, in turn, reduce the numbers of people who are released from prison and come back:
We know that it requires co-ordinated planning from the outset; that the period in prison should be geared to and focus upon a safe release; the resettlement plan should include community services and comprehensive through the gate support; and should have an element of contingency or ‘what if’ planning, Ultimately, effective resettlement/risk management plans should help minimise the motivation to reoffend, identify and minimise circumstances that might be ‘risky’ for the individual, minimise the likelihood of a further offence occurring, and minimise the impact of any harm that might be caused. Effective resettlement means breaking the cycle of crime, addressing vulnerabilities, and providing support and stability for a positive future through access to appropriate housing, education, employment and health services.293
139.Francesca Cooney of the Prisoner Learning Alliance wished to see clarity about who is responsible for each intervention in respect of individual prisoners to avoid “different departments in the prison [ … ] trying to find the same prisoners for different activities on the same days” and promote the coordination and integration of services.294 She also cautioned that the effectiveness of OMIC would be reliant both on knowledge of what resources are available in prisons and in the community and on social engagement and motivational skills, which new officers may lack.295 As Anne Fox observed, it also requires the resources to be available:
In other key working and intensive models, like children’s social work, someone is the lead to access a range of services for the individual whose care they manage. If you look at that, there needs to be a whole raft of resource that that person is able to tap into.296
140.Rory Stewart interpreted the term ‘complex needs’ as describing broader societal issues.297 We asked him for his assessment about developments in integrating services in prisons for people with complex needs:
We are doing a lot of work around it, but they are very complex social things. By the time you are talking about somebody’s education, their housing, their family and their employment, these things stretch into so many facets of their life. They are quite tailored to the individual, so I do not think we are ever going to get to a stage where we can say that we are absolutely certain we have been fully holistic and have joined up everything. There has been a lot of drive towards it. A lot of our governors are passionate about changing lives and about rehabilitation. There has been a long-standing commitment, from NOMS through to HMPPS, to bring probation and the Prison Service together, thinking about the offender’s journey, as you say, in a holistic way.298
He sees the offender manager, i.e. probation officer, playing the coordinating role.299 Nevertheless, we were told by Sonia Crozier of the National Probation Service that the increase in probation officers was primarily intended to deal with long-term prisoners.300
The role of the voluntary sector
141.Clinks felt that there should be a greater level of transparency and inclusivity to enable the voluntary sector to offer their expertise in the development of strategic and operational approaches to prison reform.301 For example, Anne Fox advocated for voluntary sector co-ordination and for prisons to have individual strategies for bringing together VCS organisations that could offer services in prisons and outside the gate. She explained that engagement with prisons required such brokerage as “[r]elationships are harder [to build] because you cannot just pick up a phone and always have the access you might have if you worked in the community or in local authority and other kinds of environments.”302 The Minister seemed encouraged by a year-long pilot of a voluntary sector coordinator post at HMP Wandsworth which he said had increased both the number and quality of relationships between the voluntary sector and prisons and had encouraged the prison to take a strategic approach to more efficient engagement and filling gaps in provision. Nevertheless, while the findings have been shared across HMPPS, there was no suggestion of funding being found to replicate the post in other prisons, beyond an existing grant given to Clinks, largely to fund support to voluntary and community sector organisations working in the criminal justice system.303
The environment in which rehabilitative work is undertaken
142.We heard that the rehabilitative capacity of prisons can be undermined by the volume of prisoners held in them, by a lack of resources to provide interventions and by the siloed nature of provision. Over the last five years, we heard that governors have been unable to deliver full and purposeful regimes to prisoners, which Nick Pascoe described as “at the heart of some of the instability”.304 The nature of existing regimes affects detrimentally the quality of interaction between prisoners and prison officers and others seeking to provide rehabilitative services in prisons.305 The Prison Officers’ Association told us that officers on wings struggle daily to maintain law and order, and have difficulty carrying out simple tasks and delivering consistent regimes.306 This was very evident from the conversations we had with officers at HMP Birmingham. Some witnesses believed that prisons could not perform their rehabilitative function unless prisoner numbers were reduced or staffing levels were further increased.307 Juliet Lyon considered staffing levels to be insufficient and environments too bleak to deal effectively with prisoners’ vulnerabilities.308
143.We heard frequently during our inquiry and our visits that where rehabilitative activities and interventions were provided, prison conditions had hindered prisoners’ access to them. Those delivering education, training, substance misuse treatment, mental health treatment, and resettlement services in prisons reported that when regimes are on lockdown owing to staff shortages, family visits may be shortened, there is limited ability to move prisoners around to attend appointments or programmes, and it may not be possible to access suitable space in which to work, for example.309 NHS England told us that between April 2017 and December 2017 over 3,000 healthcare clinics were cancelled or re-arranged owing to prison regime pressures, 780 of which were mental health clinics, and 645 were substance misuse clinics.310 One voluntary sector provider of resettlement services had anecdotal evidence that around one-fifth of appointments were missed.311 Dr Jo Bailey told us that prisons work hard to avoid disruption and that while this does affect the delivery of psychological interventions, they later seek to catch up.312
144.Another of Professor McGuire’s findings is that violence is more likely to occur in places that offer less purpose, have fewer formal ground-rules, and lower staff oversight, such as cells. Activity is also a factor in self-harm. Some of our witnesses felt that lack of resources, including staffing and activities, inevitably result in a more punitive regime in prison, with more time spent in cells, greater disruption, and increased use of adjudications and segregation. Clinks argued that a lack of access to rehabilitative services and purposeful activity may have a cyclical impact, leading to increased boredom and frustration which can lead to violence, self-harm and drug use, which in turn leads to further lockdown and an exacerbation of the current difficulties.313 On the other hand, we also heard that until violence, drugs and living conditions were addressed, it would be challenging to meet ambitions around rehabilitation, training, education and meaningful resettlement.314
145.We have a long-standing concern about prison regimes and how they are monitored, particularly in relation to the time prisoners spend out of their cells and engaged in purposeful activity.315 HMIP expects prisoners to spend at least 10 hours out of their cells on weekdays, yet regularly finds examples of between a quarter and half of prisoners being locked in their cells during the day.316 We often hear from prisoners about this during our prison visits. Private sector prisons are obliged to tell the Ministry daily how many purposeful activity places they have, how many people have attended education, how many people have been unlocked, how many cells are available and what condition they are in.317 Two years after a meaningful measure for time out of cell in purposeful activity for public sector prisons was promised in the White Paper, it has not proven possible to deliver one. The Prisons Minister has assured us that officials are still working on this, but there were likely to be limitations.318 One issue raised by the Prison Governors’ Association is the validity of existing monitoring practices:
“ … hypothetical activity profiles are at best optimistic, and in many cases, Enron accounts are more honest. Prisons have struggled to implement a part-time - uptime/downtime regime, and no longer measure time out of cell or ‘purposeful activity’ - an exercise to do so would flush [out] the reality of barren regimes.”319
Purposeful activity, education and training
146.Lack of access to purposeful activity is a factor in violence and self-harm. The Prisoner Learning Alliance highlighted that Ofsted, HMI Probation and HMI Prison reports all pointed to serious concerns about the ability to manage prisoners’ access to education, training and employment (ETE) support.320 In 2016–17, 89,000 adult prisoners participated in learning, a 6% decline from the previous year, although the education budget has been static.321 While governors seek to optimise regimes, including access to purposeful activity, Nick Pascoe of the Prison Governors Association told us that most prisons do not have the activity levels to support the number of prisoners they hold.322 HM Inspectorate of Prisons cited the examples of HMP Swansea which had 163 full time places for 458 prisoners, and HMP Dovegate which had a population of 858 and 160 full-time and 133 part-time places.323
147.The Prisoner Learning Alliance feared that failure to support education even at current levels risked increasing reoffending and further driving up the prison population. They expressed concern that a rise in the prison population without additional resources for education and training was likely to make supporting prisoners who have barriers to learning—such as specific learning difficulties, learning disabilities and other complex needs—even more challenging.324 The Treasury has asked the Ministry to review spending on education services at the end of 2019–20, to form a clear picture of what is being delivered under the new purchasing arrangements, which they plan to evaluate.325
148.The Minister, Rory Stewart, has rightly focussed on safety and decency in prisons, but this has come at the expense of rehabilitation and purposeful activity. The Ministry needs to refocus its efforts to enable a dual approach to maintain both safety and decency, as well as improve rehabilitation. The Ministry should review its regime measurement statistics to properly monitor the amount of time prisoners spend outside of their cells, as well as access to purposeful activity, such as education.
Supporting family ties
149.Only three in ten prisoners said that it was easy or very easy for their family to visit in their current prison; 16% said that they did not receive family visits.326 Rory Stewart placed great importance on this element of rehabilitation:
In fact, one of the only things that really seems to shift the behaviour, particularly of adult male prisoners, is the fact that in many cases they desperately want to retain their family contacts. They want open visits. Being able to redevelop a relationship with a child and commit to a child is a really important way of changing behaviour.327
150.Accordingly, he said that the Ministry has continued to work very closely with Lord Farmer and that there is much more to be done. Prisons are devising family strategies, examples of which can be found through Barnardo’s national information centre on the children of offenders. As we noted above, in-cell telephony is being introduced in public sector prisons to give prisoners a chance to speak for “serious long periods” every day to their families, which Rory Stewart believed ultimately, “will make sure that they return to their families when they leave”.328 We have been impressed with both the improved facilities for family visits and examples of programmes to promote family ties that we have seen during our prison visits.
Offending behaviour programmes
151.The completion of accredited programmes which are designed and approved to address offending behaviour in custody fell by 21% in the twelve months to March 2018. The Ministry attributed this to an increase in the use of non-accredited programmes for substance misuse treatment by the NHS and a shift towards longer, more intensive programmes.329 We consider the question of sex offender treatment later in our report.
The wider impact of poor prison conditions
152.Running effective regimes is dependent on there being enough staff with sufficient expertise in all parts of a prison. Professor Hardwick told us that, based on his experience when he was Chief Inspector of Prisons, shortages in other prison-based roles besides prison officers were often a major problem for prisons. He highlighted that it is unclear from the available data what has happened to the number of governors and specialist non-uniformed staff working in prisons such as nurses, instructors, workshop supervisors, teachers, and psychologists, some of which are not directly employed by the prison service.330 We heard that challenges in recruitment were related to some extent to working conditions. Danny Hames of the NHS Substance Misuse Treatment Alliance said prisons had become less attractive environments in which to work, hindering the recruitment of people with the skills required.331
153.To get a clearer picture of the impact of shortage of non-uniformed staff, we discussed the example of forensic psychologists with some of our witnesses.332 Martin Jones of the Parole Board explained that the increased complexity of the prison population, including a greater proportion of people with personality disorders, for example, has led to increased demand for assessments resulting in pressures on psychology resources which has impacted on the timeliness of Parole Board hearings.333 It can take three months for a psychological assessment, which is delayed by a lack of qualified psychologists in the Prison Service.334 HMPPS acknowledged the gap, which it is seeking to address, with some signs of improvement in retention.335 Dr Jo Bailey, Head of Psychology at HMPPS, explained that while there were net vacancies of just over 100 posts, they use the resulting underspent budget to commission expertise—such as risk assessments for the Parole Board—both when they do not have sufficient supply in-house and when there is a particular skills gap.336 HMPPS recruits unqualified staff to fill those vacancies, training them in post. Dee Anand of the British Psychological Society described the challenging work of forensic psychologists and called for more effective recruitment, remuneration, support and strategies for retention.337 This included subsidising tuition and placement fees for those in training, in the same way as the NHS do for clinical psychologists.
154.The limited access to prisoners as a result of regime problems and lack of appropriate spaces for providing support can also put the funding of those providing services at risk which may in turn limit the diversity of the market, with only those providers who can buffer the financial risks bidding for contracts. We heard that education providers, NHS substance misuse treatment providers and voluntary organisations experience uncertainty in their caseloads and this impacts their funding, whether they are paid on a case-by-case basis or on meeting quotas for qualifications or courses, for example. This worsens existing issues with shrinking budgets and puts funding at risk.338 Clinks explained that voluntary sector organisations are often funded to deliver their services by funders outside of the criminal justice system and raised the possibility that some charitable funders may choose to disinvest in prison-based work if funded activities cannot be delivered because of the current challenges and pressures.339 We asked the Ministry of Justice for its assessment of the financial impact of regime restrictions on wider services provided in prisons. It sought to assure us that regimes will improve as recruitment continues, but confirmed that there has been no specific, estate-wide costing exercise to examine the broader impact of loss of regimes on prisoners.340
155.Some service providers have sought to mitigate the limitations in access to prisoners in various ways. During our visit to HMP Oakwood we met a prisoner who escorted other prisoners to healthcare appointments to improve attendance. Clinks told us that voluntary sector organisations have adapted their interventions and activities so that individuals can undertake them in cell. Nacro told us they often engage with prisoners “through the cell door” rather than in dedicated meeting spaces in prison, which are limited.341 Danny Hames of the NHS Substance Misuse Providers Alliance had found that in some prisons budget reductions had resulted in greater integration between mental health and substance misuse services to streamline referrals, assessments and casework and place more emphasis on evidence-based practice.342
156.Our evidence strongly demonstrates that prisons are not currently maximising opportunities for rehabilitation. Regime restrictions related to staffing shortages and other disruptions severely undermine the delivery of rehabilitative services including education, mental health treatment, substance misuse treatment and offending behaviour programmes. Not only does this result in immeasurable wasted costs, it can put those providers delivering services at risk by undermining the viability of their funding. The nature of regimes and restricted access to rehabilitative activities has a cyclical impact on the degradation of regimes and safety, owing to the boredom and frustration of prisoners enduring impoverished regimes, which can in turn lead to violence and self-harm. Regimes need to be reported upon in a meaningful way to enable monitoring of their operation, especially since they are key to rehabilitation. Staffing levels mean many prisons are not delivering their intended regimes. The Government must inform the Committee of the extent to which prisons are able to operate their stated regimes through regular updates and the first such should be produced within six months from the publication of this report.
157.We note that there have also been problems recruiting for other staff, including forensic psychologists and teachers which must also be addressed. Creating a rehabilitative culture will entail greater integration between the various professionals working in prisons, which should be part of the role of prison leadership. Greater integration between rehabilitative services provided in prisons should be reflected in strategies on rehabilitative culture. We recommend that prisons are monitored on their capacity to meet the identified needs of prisoners, which would also inform the Ministry’s evidence about resources. These data should be used to review the adequacy of existing recruitment targets to foster the relationships required to support the high volume of prisoners who have complex needs.
Incentives for reform
158.The Secretary of State, David Gauke, said in March 2018 that one of his aims was to provide prisoners with positive incentives to reform, including through temporary release and expanding contact with family members “for those who have complied with the rules”.343 Dee Anand explained the importance of the balance between reward and punishment in fostering rehabilitation:
For a prison environment to be conducive to change, we need to create an environment where prisoners feel self-worth and feel that authority is used fairly and proportionately. Where prisoners do not feel that, or have mistrust in the system, as they would view it, whether that system is just psychologists or everybody in the prison state, and they feel it is an unfair place to be, it creates a significant problem in creating a culture of safety and change.344
159.Since May 2018 governors have been permitted to devise their own incentives and earned privileges (IEP) policy.345 The Ministry of Justice later consulted governors on a new Framework which aims to give them greater freedom to offer the incentives which work best for their particular cohort of prisoners.346 Under the draft framework, those who do not follow the rules would have privileges removed and face swifter punishment through a new adjudications process. This is intended to “help break the cycle of reoffending and put prisoners on the right path”. This contrasts with evidence cited in the Model of Operational Delivery for reception prisons which notes that deterrence and punishment are not effective means of reducing violence.
160.Some of our witnesses commented on how proportionate the existing systems of enforcement and rewards are, including how fairly they were applied.347 The impression they had was that there was greater emphasis in prison culture on punishment than on positive reinforcement.348 We heard concerns about access to family visits and letters being removed as a form of punishment, as it punishes family members and children, not just those in prison.349 Women in Prison has found that women do not understand how and why the scheme works as it does.350 There are also issues around how fairly the system is applied, or seen to be applied.351 There are some positive examples, for example, at Werrington young offenders institution and HMP Parc prison.352
161.Professor McGuire recommended that violence reduction policies could be oriented towards situational control of staff-prisoner interaction, requiring, for example, staff training in the use of styles and patterns of behaviour that wield authority alongside instilling respect.353 The Inspectorate found recently at HMP Bedford, which has been subject to an Urgent Notification, that the prisoner violence reduction scheme was largely ineffective: there were few challenges or sanctions faced by perpetrators of violence beyond the use of the IEP and formal adjudications processes, which in themselves were not effective, and use of force was very high.354
162.The extent to which prisoners feel that they are treated fairly, known as procedural justice, is an important factor in violence reduction. HMPPS acknowledges this in its model of operational delivery for reception prisons, noting that the IEP scheme tends to be used when negative attitudes are present, but not when prisoners are displaying consistently compliant and helpful behaviour, and that changing this will require a change in culture.355
163.David Lammy found that BAME prisoners tend to have more negative perceptions than white prisoners about their treatment. The Inspectorate of Prison’s prisoner surveys echo this. Understanding these perceptions is important as they can undermine prisoners’ feelings about the legitimacy of prison authority and hence compliance with the regime. The Inspectorate has repeatedly encouraged and recommended that prisons should try to understand this but finds that more often than not, they do not. Specialist voluntary sector provision to support BAME people in the criminal justice system has suffered particularly acutely from funding cuts.356 Recognising why people from particular racial and ethnic groups might experience the system differently requires culturally informed staff.357
164.HMPPS has stated its commitment to addressing the issues highlighted in the Lammy Review, including by adopting the principle of ‘explain or reform’ where disproportionality is identified. To equip prisons to do this, it is seeking to improve the equalities monitoring data available to governors, including to allow for comparisons with similar prisons and introduce new performance measures. There is no mention of a commitment to additional resources to facilitate the implementation of this or accompanying action plans.358 The Chief Inspector of Prisons believed that prisons had “a long way to go” to implement these recommendations. The Inspectorate had seen only one specific example of good practice in this area so far, at Wetherby young offender institution, where the YOI had undertaken a self-assessment to try to understand the disproportionate negative perceptions of the regime on the part of BAME young men held there.359 Clinks suggested that a specific strategy is required in both the adult and children’s systems to address disproportionate numbers and unequal outcomes for BAME people.360
165.There is some sign of a shift in the use of punishment for all prisoners. The use of adjudications (hearings for disciplinary matters) is high (46,952 outcomes, 64% of which were proven) and had been increasing but, as at March 2018, there was a 2% fall on the previous year.361 There has also been a 12% decrease in proven adjudications for disobedience and disrespect over the last year, although one in three (31%) of proven adjudications were for such offences. Additional days can be added to sentences as punishments following adjudications. This can add to pressure on the population. For example, punishments given to prisoners in Wales amounted to an extra 70 years of sentence in the past two years.362 David Lammy found in his review of ethnic disproportionality that mixed ethnic men and women were more likely than white men and women to have adjudications for breaching prison discipline brought against them, but less likely to have those adjudications proven when reviewed.363
166.Considerable change is required to foster rehabilitative cultures. The incentives and earned privileges scheme and the use of incapacitant spray for managing behaviour highlight the potential tensions between the various purposes of imprisonment in prison operations. We note the potential benefits of incapacitant spray in helping prison staff to feel safe. While there is of course a balance to be struck, there is an overemphasis on punitive approaches, including the use of IEP to remove privileges and the overuse of disciplinary processes. We welcome the greater discretion afforded to governors and recognition in guidance that punishment and deterrence are not always effective in reducing violence. HMPPS should encourage governors to review the balance between punishment and rewards as part of their strategy for implementing a rehabilitative culture.
167.The clear documentation by David Lammy of the strikingly disproportionate impact of imprisonment on BAME prisoners appears to have had little impact on prison practice to date. It is disappointing that the Chief Inspector of Prisons was unable to provide more than one example of a prison having embraced the principle of ‘explain or reform’. We welcome the Ministry’s new approach but note the expectation that this must be achieved within existing resources and amongst other priorities.
168.We expect to see clear evidence of progress in monitoring and explaining BAME disproportionality in prisons by the next annual update, following the expectation laid down by Mr Lammy that the system must “explain or reform”. Again, significant cultural change will be required to change outcomes and we expect this to be addressed in the Ministry’s Justice 2030 strategy. In the short-term, the Ministry should focus on seeking to reduce disproportionality in outcomes in the youth custodial estate. We expect to be kept updated directly on this matter.
Meeting the needs of particular cohorts of prisoner
169.We heard that better management of certain specific sections of the prison population could reduce pressure and maximise the chances of rehabilitation. HMPPS has adopted a new approach, known as Models of Operational Delivery (MODs), to support the reconfiguration of the estate described elsewhere in this report and to enable governors and commissioners to tailor services according to the prison’s function and the people it will hold. They have identified ‘specialist’ cohorts—older prisoners, foreign nationals, young adults and men convicted of sexual offences—for whom particular consideration is required on how to best meet their needs and manage them effectively. Professor Julian Roberts et al proposed approaching the management of the population by examining who constitute penal “bed blockers” in the same way that the NHS examines and deals with demand.364 We consider in this section, provision for some cohorts of prisoner for whom there might be an opportunity to progress sentences more efficiently: IPP prisoners, older prisoners and prisoners maintaining their innocence.
Older prisoners
170.People in prison aged 50 and over represent 16% of the total adult prison population (those aged over 18) and the numbers are projected to increase. Some prisons hold between 40 and 50% prisoners aged over 50.365 Six in ten prisoners over the age of 50 report having a long-standing illness or disability. Several witnesses, including the current and former Chief Inspectors of Prison, Prison and Probation Ombudsman, representatives of Independent Monitoring Boards, and the Prison Officers’ Association, expressed concerns about provision for older prisoners both currently, in terms of the suitability of the existing estate and parole decisions, and in relation to future planning.366
171.Several witnesses expressed concerns about the impact of the growing elderly population on prison capacity.367 For example, Julia Rogers explained:
… there is almost a version of what the NHS used to call bed blocking, where people who are very ill are still incarcerated. [ … ] Having something purpose-built or some way of having care facilities for older prisoners that still keeps them secure, but that is perhaps not as strict or not under the same strictures as full prison conditions, would be a sensible move, I think.368
172.Although there is good provision in some prisons, physical constraints in the prison estate mean that older and infirm prisoners are not always well accommodated, with cell showers and walkways largely inaccessible. Places in palliative care units and dedicated units for older prisoners are insufficient for the size of the population and in some cases, they are held in healthcare beds as the only suitable accommodation.369 Our witnesses noted the burden placed on prison staff from the increasing number of hospital appointments and bed watches required to care for people suffering a range of age-related ill-health conditions.370 This also has implications for release planning. As Martin Jones observed, this also has implications for timely releases, as the Parole Board was “[q]uite often … getting involved in how to release an 80-year-old man into a care home—how to get social services to pick up the pass, essentially. It makes it very difficult for us.”371
173.Both the Inspectorate of Prisons and the former Prison and Probation Ombudsman, Elizabeth Moody, commented on the reactive approach taken by the Ministry and HMPPS to managing the needs of this population. The latter said:
Prisons designed for fit young men have become care homes and hospices in a largely piecemeal fashion, with individual prisons and their healthcare partners—coping with limited resources and no training—almost always reacting to challenges “on the ground”. This “adhoc-racy” from HMPPS and the MoJ has been difficult to defend. Sick people have died before they should because crucial appointments were missed, records were lost, warning signs were ignored.372
174.Both they and others, including representatives of Independent Monitoring Boards, called for a more strategic approach, as had been recommended by our predecessor Committee in 2013.373 This might include for example, forecasting future needs of the ageing population in terms of the rates of certain illnesses and disabilities and the implications for the estate; having a dedicated lead to ensuring their particular needs were met; identifying different ways of providing appropriate care; and addressing issues with security categorisation, particularly frail and very ill men—who would physically struggle to escape—being treated as highly dangerous..374
175.It had been anticipated that an Older Prisoners strategy was being produced. Peter Clarke said he had been “heartened” when he’d been invited to join a steering group to develop a strategy about 18 months ago, but it had only met once and he had “heard nothing since”.375 There is now a Model for Operational Delivery, devised by HMPPS, for older prisoners which, Peter Clarke noted, explicitly says that it is not a strategy but provides an operational framework which he characterised as “a menu of tactical options that local establishments could use”. HMPPS specifically stated in the Model that it will not be proposing special or separate accommodation for cohorts of older prisoners—for example for those requiring palliative care—as suggested by some of our witnesses. Although when we discussed HMPPPS’ plans with Phil Copple, Director, Public Sector Prisons, he recognised that managing this cohort was a long-term challenge and mentioned a need to “systematise” and “make it more of a strategic plan”, Rory Stewart confirmed to us that there is no intention to produce a dedicated strategy.376
Sentence progression and parole
176.The changing nature of offending and sentencing has led to a significant increase in prisoners whose length of sentence is determined by the Parole Board. In such cases, the prisoner may not be released until the Board is satisfied that it is no longer necessary for the protection of the public that they remain confined. A significant proportion of people in prison therefore do not know if, or when, they might be released. Over a quarter of the prison population is now entitled to a parole review at some point, impacting on the workload of the Parole Board.377 As an indication of the volume of work, in 2017–18, the Parole Board made just over 25,000 decisions, over 8,000 of which were at oral hearings which must be held for life sentenced prisoners, prisoners serving an indeterminate sentence of imprisonment for public protection (IPP), those serving extended determinate sentence (EDS); and serious sex offenders and terrorists as well as some offenders recalled to prison. We focus our attention on the particular case of IPP prisoners.
People serving indeterminate sentences of imprisonment for public protection (IPP)
177.Indeterminate sentences of imprisonment for public protection (IPPs) were introduced in 2005, having been created under the Criminal Justice Act 2003, and were abolished in 2012. The IPP prison population has fallen by 55%, from a peak of 6,080 in 2012 down to 2,745 by 30 June 2018 and is expected to continue to fall. Nevertheless, many of our witnesses drew attention to the knock-on effect of the sentence on the prison population, particularly on those people still subject to IPPs and how they are currently managed.378
178.The sentence has created its own complexities.379 The test for release of an IPP prisoner is set at a high threshold.380 Dr Harry Annison, of Southampton Law School described the sentence as falling “little short of life imprisonment”.381 The uncertainty about whether or when they might be released can make people serving such sentences vulnerable and may foster a sense of despair, which has been found to contribute tragically to self-inflicted deaths.382 The Justice Secretary recognised in his speech the importance of “a positive outlook for the future and a sense that there is light at the end of the tunnel” to reduce the chances of reoffending on release. IPP-sentenced prisoners suffer from disproportionately high rates of self-harm, with a rate of self-harm of 550 per 1000 prisoners, compared to 324 per 1000 determinate-sentenced prisoners and approximately 250 per 1000 life-sentenced prisoners.383 As we noted in chapter 3, once IPP prisoners are released, there are high rates of recall, including for technical and administrative breaches.384 The sentence also has other, broader effects on society, particularly on family members and other individuals providing ongoing support to IPP prisoners.385
179.Since 2017, there has been concentrated effort by the Prison Service, National Probation Service and the Parole Board to progress cases, and significant progress has been made.386,387 The Parole Board ordered the release of over 900 IPP prisoners in 2017–18, including re-releases of some recalled. Nevertheless, there remain some concerns about the progression of such prisoners towards release. Our evidence suggests that it can be difficult for prisoners to demonstrate that the risk they pose to the public has reduced to a level that can be safely managed in the community. For example, we have heard mixed reports about the availability of offending behaviour programmes for prisoners which can provide a means of indicating behaviour change.388,389 We received evidence from families of IPP prisoners on these challenges. This is illustrative:
[My brother, who died in prison after a self-harm incident] often found himself in prisons that did not offer the specific type of rehabilitation he needed with no support or guidance on how to move to a prison that offered them. If there ever was a ray of hope with regards to this it was often lost owing to the lack of feedback on progress, the resource being changed or even closed down. On a number of occasions [he] was advised to join a therapeutic community, he repeatedly applied to these and waited many months for a response, often trying to chase it up himself to no avail. When he did finally hear back from them he had been rejected but he was then later informed by the Parole Board that he needed to join a therapeutic community in order to show he was safe for release. This type of ‘back and forth’ was seen regularly throughout my brother’s sentence.390
180.Mark Day noted a “very common view” among prisoners and staff, that prisoners need to take part in treatment programmes to progress and that there is a shortage of places on such programmes.391 Nevertheless, we were assured by the Parole Board and psychologists that there are other ways in which prisoners can demonstrate that their risk has reduced.392 The Parole Board noted that some indeterminate prisoners held within the closed estate and referred to it are excluded from possible progression to an open prison. The Parole Board, being unable to consider such a move, is left with only two options, either to release the offender into the community or direct that they remain in closed conditions. In the Board’s view, reviewing these exclusions may result in more prisoners progressing more swiftly, with the added benefit of being tested in open conditions first, before eventual release into the community.
181.The Parole Board also stated that although there had been progress in reducing the numbers of IPP prisoners detained, the legacy of IPP prisoners would remain for many years to come without legislative change, not least because the number of IPP prisoners recalled to custody continues to rise and it can be expected that the rate of progression will slow down as the number of IPP prisoners in the system falls.393 Some witnesses, including the Howard League for Penal Reform, proposed to us legislative solutions, which we have looked into previously.394 For example, the release test could be changed, prisoners could be re-sentenced to determinate terms, lifetime post-release supervision of IPPs could be replaced with a shorter, fixed term period of support, thus lessening the chance of IPP prisoners being recalled for technical or administrative breaches. The Parole Board itself suggested two options which are already open to the probation service: the suspension of supervision after four years of good behaviour on licence, and the cancellation of the licence after ten years’ good behaviour, upon application.395 Making more use of these, where appropriate, could remove some IPP offenders from the system entirely. Sonia Crozier of the National Probation Service agreed that better use could be made of such mechanisms.396 While the Prisons Minister recognises the importance of hope for people on IPP sentences, there is no sign of an intention to legislate as a means of improving progression.
182.Whilst it is almost certain that there will remain a hard core of IPP prisoners who present a significant risk and may not be safe to release, the aim of the system should be to ensure that most IPP prisoners are safely managed back into communities at the earliest opportunity. We welcome improvements in rates of release stemming from the concerted effort to ensure that IPP prisoners are managed more effectively towards release. This is important to reduce the disproportionate rates of self-harm which may be indicative of loss of hope which in turn can undermine rehabilitation. The high rates of recall are troubling. As part of its review of sentencing the Ministry should consult on legislative solutions to both release and recall of indeterminate sentenced prisoners to bring about sentencing certainty.
Sexual offenders
183.As we noted above, the proportion of the prison population who have committed sexual offences is growing, although there is no evidence that more sexual offences are being committed.397 The profile of sexual offenders is wide-ranging and different types of offences will require different approaches to rehabilitation and risk management. A joint inspection report by HM Inspectorate of Probation and HM Inspectorate of Prisons found that HMPPS had an incomplete picture of sexual offenders and had not analysed their collective risks and needs.398
184.One means of managing risk is through the provision in prison to sex offenders considered eligible of treatment programmes which seek to change their behaviour on release by working on their empathy, attitudes and risk awareness. Nevertheless, the College of Policing does not believe that there is sufficient research evidence to draw strong conclusions about the effectiveness of such treatment, although it has been found to be effective in community settings and in secure mental health facilities.399 A widely used course, the Sex Offender Treatment Programme (SOTP), was discredited in 2017 after an evaluation found that those who had taken part were 25% more likely to reoffend.400 The joint inspectorate report found that work in prison with men convicted of sexual offending was “poor” and that staff were not trained and supported sufficiently well to protect the public and that accredited programmes were under-used.
185.More recent research has looked at possible factors affecting the efficacy of sex offender treatment programmes internationally and found that that the type of sex offender treatment on which the SOTP programme was based (i.e. Cognitive Behaviour Treatment) does reduce reoffending—in prison and in the community—by around one-third.401 Professor Theresa Gannon also found that treatment is more effective if there is consistent input from an independent registered psychologist and if it is delivered solely in groups, rather than also being combined with individual treatment.402 This has important implications, as it suggests that the SOTP programme may not have been properly resourced with sufficiently qualified staff to enable it to work effectively. Dee Anand of the British Psychological Society agreed that constraints on forensic psychology funding had contributed to the limited effectiveness of treatment. In his view, other problems with the delivery of SOTP included the theory underpinning it, the operational practice, the method of referral, who it was delivered to, and the ‘post-delivery environment’.403 In relation to the latter he said “[w]e were returning those individuals to an environment that felt unsafe and was not conducive to change.”404 While it is not clear whether he was referring to prisons or to the community, the joint inspectorate report identified several failings in the post-release supervision of sex offenders—who represent 1 in 5 of probation cases—including the quality of supervision provided, access to community-based treatment and a lack of suitable accommodation, including in probation hostels.405
186.Rory Stewart made an oral statement in the House on the day that the joint Inspectorate’s report was published.406 He did not describe how the Government would respond to concerns about access to accredited programmes. The newly developed programmes that are currently being delivered in prisons, which take a different approach to SOTP—Horizon and Kaizen—have not yet been rigorously evaluated, although the results of a process study on the Horizon programme were published in January 2019.407 The Inspectorates found that where treatment was available, waiting lists were not excessive. Nevertheless, in other prisons which held a high proportion of sex offenders such treatment was not available or was not delivered in a form appropriate to the needs of the population, for example, those with learning disabilities.408 The Minister believed that there was sufficient availability of programmes.409
187.The results of the study on the Horizon programme found that 83% of those who started the programme completed it. Participants provided feedback that they had ‘increased confidence, greater assertiveness, increased problem-solving skills and improved relationships following completion of the programme’. However, concerns remained around the perception of the programme by outside teams, such as parole boards and offender supervisors.410 The programme is delivered to men assessed as medium, high or very high risk of re-conviction and targets issues such as self-regulation, relationships, sexual attitudes and behaviours.
188.We also heard that prisoners maintaining their innocence may remain in the prison system longer than those who admit their guilt.411 The Centre for Criminal Appeals noted that offending behaviour programmes often require a prisoner to admit guilt, which of course an innocent person cannot do, and this can slow down or even stall a prisoner’s progression through their sentence plan.
189.Many prisons are operating well over their operational capacity. Our evidence points strongly to need to provide high quality care to an increasingly complex, challenging and vulnerable prison population. Prisons are not equipped to deal with this range of issues and their inability to do so limits opportunities for rehabilitation, even for those who represent a serious risk to the public. We agree that all prisoners should be given hope. When prisons are unable to provide access to effective treatment and interventions to prisoners eligible for parole this extends unnecessarily the sentences of those who may be safe to release, with robust supervision in the community, but are unable to demonstrate it. As part of its strategy for a sustainable prison population, the Ministry should explain how it intends to ensure that opportunities for long-term prisoners to progress their sentences will be optimised. This should include consideration of the potential benefits of legislative and other options for managing prisoners serving IPP sentences, particularly those over-tariff and on recall.
190.The issue of the efficacy of sex offender treatment needs urgent resolution. We expect the Ministry to clarify how it is evaluating the Kaizen programme and when it intends to publish the research. The evaluation should include consideration of the impact on outcomes of the level of qualification of those delivering it and should also address whether the Ministry intends to review its policy of recruiting trainee psychologists to fill vacancies, or whether it might be necessary to take steps to attract qualified psychologists to the role.
Release on Temporary Licence (ROTL)
191.The Ministry of Justice is reviewing the operational policy on Release on Temporary Licence (ROTL) with the aim of streamlining it.412 Of every 1000 such releases, 999 are completed without incident. The Justice Secretary cited research evidence that the more ROTL a prisoner gets, the less chance there is of them reoffending.413 Successful ROTL can enhance eligible prisoners’ chances of parole by enabling them to demonstrate that they can adhere to the conditions on which they are released and by enabling them to undertake resettlement activities outside the prison, for example, links with their families, training and employment.414 Between 2013 and 2017, use of ROTL fell by 40% and is largely confined to the open prison estate, however, during the quarter ending March 2018, there was a 5% increase on the year previously.415 There is potential to expand the use of ROTL using GPS tagging.416
192.We heard that there are some limitations to the existing policy. The Prison Reform Trust highlighted that prisoners who have been recalled to prison or failed to return from previous temporary release restrictions are restricted in their eligibility for ROTL, as well as their ability to transfer to open conditions.417 Serco told us that directors of private sector prisons are unable to sanction the use of ROTL directly and must refer the decision to HMPPS.418 The Ministry is currently reviewing the latter requirement and seeking to remove other restrictions within the wider policy as part of the ROTL review.419 Release on temporary licence provides opportunities for prisoners to demonstrate that they are prepared for a law-abiding life in the community. The arrangement whereby private prison directors must seek permission from HMPPS to release prisoners on temporary licence strikes us as unnecessarily bureaucratic and we hope that the Ministry’s commitment to review this process results in its cessation by a fixed date determined in the response to this report.
Decent and modern prisons
193.Another of the four overarching expectations of the Inspectorate of Prisons is respect, for example that prisoners are treated with respect for their human dignity. The Chief Inspector of Prisons told us in December that the Inspectorate had not seen significant improvements in living conditions.420 Of the 14 local prisons inspected in the last year, only five reached the standard of reasonably good or good.421
The Prison Estate Transformation Programme
194.The Prison Estate Transformation Programme which commenced in November 2016 is intended to create an estate that is less crowded, better organised, more effective and comprises modern, fit-for-purpose accommodation. The programme’s stated objectives were to:
- simplify the organisation of the estate, placing prisoners at the right level of security in prisons; with appropriately tailored regimes;
- invest £1.3 billion to build up to 10,000 new adult prison places;
- build and open five new community prisons for women; and
- close prisons that are in poor condition and those that do not have a long-term future in the estate.422
Progress on reforming the prison estate
195.HMPPS set out progress on the Programme in its 2017–18 annual report:423
- HMP Durham has become a reception prison and HMP Holme House has become a training prison as part of simplifying the estate in line with the vision
- Outline planning permission was received at the former HMP&YOI Glen Parva, HMP Wellingborough and land next to HMP Full Sutton. Project partner agreements have been awarded for the detailed design work at Glen Parva and Wellingborough
- Work has begun on a new houseblock at HMP Stocken, which will create 206 decent prison places
- The sale of the former HMP Holloway site has now been agreed.424
- Work has begun on the reconfiguration of The Verne (IRC) into a male prison, which is expected to open later this year.
- HMP Berwyn, a new rehabilitative male prison in North Wales, was opened at the end of February 2017. We visited in January 2018. As at December 2018, HMP Berwyn housed 1,282 prisoners, although intended capacity is 2,106.425
- The Ministry has also launched the Secure Schools Programme for the youth estate, with the first secure school to be opened at Medway.426
196.A key pillar of the Ministry’s Prison Estates Transformation Programme is closing old prisons in a poor condition by building new ones to replace them. None of the five new prisons planned has yet been built. The Ministry has been seeking suitable sites for new prisons. On 22 March 2017, it announced plans—subject to planning approvals, value for money and affordability—to build one at Port Talbot in south Wales, and two by redeveloping HM Prison and Young Offender Institutions Rochester and Hindley.427 The Ministry later announced that the latter two would remain open until 2019 owing to unforeseen prison population pressures.428 A decision is now likely to be taken in 2020.429 The Ministry has dropped its plans for building new women’s community prisons.430
197.As of August 2018, only £0.2 billion of the £1.3bn had been spent, including the cost of constructing HMP Berwyn.431 The Ministry announced on 29 November 2018 that prisons built at Glen Parva and Wellingborough would be built using public financing and operated by private companies under the Prison Operator Services Framework.432 When we questioned why the decision was taken not to run the prisons in the public sector as had been previously intended, the Minister explained that public sector costs would be used as a benchmark against which the bids would be tested.433 Some of the prisons that were opened using private finance initiatives will see their contracts coming to an end in the next few years, commencing with HMP Altcourse in 2020. The Prison Operator Services Framework will also cover contracts coming up for retender.
198.The Prison Reform Trust commissioned Julian Le Vay, a former finance director of the prisons service, to analyse the Ministry’s reform programme. His analysis questioned whether the Ministry’s plans are sufficient to keep pace with the prison population: “[o]n current population projections, there is no prospect of any impact on overcrowding before 2022—indeed, unless the Government abandons plans to close old prisons and instead keeps them all open as well as building new ones, emergency measures to create space are likely to be necessary as early as next year and throughout the period up to 2022.”434 He concluded that a further prison building programme was likely to be required by 2026.
199.One element of the Programme was to use money from the sales of closed prisons to regenerate the estate. It is now apparent that the potential yields from such an approach are likely to be lower than anticipated. A key example is HMP Holloway which was closed in July 2016 and has not yet been sold. The Minister explained that, even in seemingly valuable sites such as prisons in London, sales can be complicated by listed buildings which would have to be converted as part of any development. He said “in the best-case scenario you might get, let’s say, £75 million from selling one of those sites. A new prison would cost you north of £200 million.”435
200.The Ministry of Defence is an example of a Government department which has developed a long-term estate strategy in recognition of the fact that over 40% of buildings are over 50 years old. The Ministry of Defence’s plan, A Better Defence Estate, published in December 2016, included investment of £4bn in the estate over the subsequent decade and the earmarking of 56 sites for disposal by 2040, focusing on the most expensive sites.436 The estate will reduce in size by 30 per cent by 2040 which is forecast to save nearly £3bn in running costs over that period.
201.Whilst progress made on the Prison Estates Transformation Programme is welcome, the new-for-old strategy is not working as intended. Sites for new prisons have proven difficult to obtain, older and decrepit prisons have been forced to remain open owing to population pressures and receipts from the sale of existing sites do not cover the cost of building new prisons. In the short-term this is being recognised by the Treasury which is funding new prison building. Refurbishing older prisons like HMP Birmingham, where accommodation is substandard, is unlikely to represent value for money. We recommend that as part of its Justice 2030 project the Ministry develops a realistic, properly costed, long-term estate strategy, that enables it to meet the needs of an ever-changing prison population.
Prison estate maintenance
202.The Ministry aspires to provide “good, decent, humane standards.”437 The Prisons Minister saw cleanliness, safety and decency as “the foundation of the relationship between the prison officer and the prisoner. That is the contract between the state and public.” 438 Many prisons were built in the Victorian era and the size and age of the estate mean its maintenance is a significant challenge. There are two types of maintenance that are required to maintain the estate:439
- Facilities maintenance, which is usually minor works like repairing windows or doors, some of which is ‘reactive’ as it stems from prison disorder; and
- Major maintenance, which is where something needs to be rebuilt or where significant work is required, for example where a wall collapses.
203.The Ministry’s expenditure for facilities maintenance in 2018–19 is expected to be around £122 million.440 In 2015, facilities maintenance was contracted out to two private sector companies, Carillion and Amey, who began to deliver contracts to provide ongoing and reactive maintenance of prisons as well as some other “works” functions. The Ministry expected that these contracts would save £115 million over 5 years. Carillion—who were spending roughly £50 million on facilities management in the prisons they were responsible for—folded in January 2018, after months of profit warnings.441 The Ministry was forced to step in and established a Government company to take over the contract.442 The National Audit Office estimated that Carillion made a loss of £12 million on the contract in 2017.443 The Ministry now expects to spend £65 million a year providing facilities management services to prisons in the south of England, i.e. £15 million more than Carillion.444
204.The challenge of renovating the prison estate is significant, with a large backlog of major maintenance that requires attention. The Minister told us in August 2018 that the current pipeline of major maintenance work was then estimated to amount to £716 million.445 Yet, for the year 2018–19, £90 million was allocated towards it. Mike Driver acknowledged to us the scale of the problem:
“we have recognised the size of the backlog, and we are trying to prioritise how we spend our money so that we deal with the most significant elements of it. As we go forward, we cannot allow prisons to deteriorate in terms of their condition, so the focus has been on facilities management, capital maintenance and, ultimately, for some of our prisons, swapping them out with new prisons as we build new estate.”446
The Prison Governors Association estimated that the average cost of refurbishing one prison wing holding 200 prisoners was £500,000.447
205.We have heard a range of explanations for the situation. One area of concern has been the effective operation of the contracts. Peter Clarke, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, said to us “I have to say that I do not recognise “robustly managing the FM contracts” as something I see around the country. What I see are FM contracts that very often fail to deliver basic standards, with huge backlogs of maintenance tasks, often into thousands of items.”448 The Minister reported to the House in February 2018 that hundreds of warning notices had been issued to the contractors.449 Richard Heaton, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Justice explained that “They were big, difficult contracts, with lots of hidden things that you only find when you let contracts on maintenance for the first time”.450 Nevertheless, it is also apparent that the Ministry did not carry out a review of the standards of repair of the prison estate when it let the contracts. Peter Clarke expressed disappointment that HMPPS had largely rejected HMIP’s recommendations on prison living conditions, including one which proposed that an assessment of cell standards was conducted.451 The Ministry is now undertaking two audits of the condition of the prison estate and estimated that around 40% of establishments require major work.452 In addition, there does not appear to have been clarity about the expectations of standards for the contractor. We found that there are not currently minimum standards around what clean and decent accommodation should look like across the prison estate. The Ministry is now undertaking a project to establish these.453
206.The acceleration of the growth of maintenance backlogs was also attributed by our witnesses to a lack of investment in the estate, prior to the contracts being let, and a rise in vandalism. The Prison Governors Association explained “[t]here has been a marked rise in vandalism in many prisons … with high numbers of broken cell windows and “smash ups”. This has taken resources away from basic maintenance, and in truth there is no systematic plan for prison refurbishment. Vandalism appears to be a direct response to an impoverished regime, and one way in which prisoners can demonstrate their frustration.”454 The lack of investment in the prison estate was acknowledged by both Michael Spurr Chief, Executive of HMPPS, and the Prisons Minister.455
207.A major issue is the priority afforded to maintenance when the estate is under pressure for places.456 Our examination of the events leading to the poor inspection at HMP Liverpool highlighted that some poorly maintained cells were brought back into use prematurely. Mr Stewart told us that critical maintenance work and planned prison closures had been postponed in the summer of 2017 owing to short-term capacity pressures.457 The Chief Inspector for Prisons’ description of what he found at HMP Birmingham when he triggered the urgent notification process highlights the extent of dilapidation:
Many cells were cramped, poorly equipped and had damaged flooring or plasterwork. Most toilets were poorly screened, many were leaking, and we saw cells with exposed electrics … . In the older part of the prison (primarily A, B, C wings), virtually every window was damaged, and many were missing. We met several vulnerable or newly-arrived prisoners who were placed in accommodation that was squalid and unfit to be used.458
Replacing these windows will cost approximately £6.1 million.
208.We welcome the Prison Minister’s drive to improve the decency of prisons and his recognition that this is essential both for ensuring that our society treats prisoners humanely and with dignity and for providing the foundations for prison reform. While the deterioration in prison standards can be attributed partially to the failure of one of the providers contracted to maintain prisons and the complexity of the service, when the Ministry outsourced prison maintenance it did so in an uninformed, under-resourced, and unsustainable manner. The Ministry is now prioritising bringing down maintenance backlogs, auditing the true state of the prison estate, and developing long-overdue minimum standards for good quality prison accommodation. We welcome the Ministry’s commitment to build new prisons that are uncrowded and to reduce incrementally overcrowding across the estate. Nevertheless, the backlog continues to grow, and many prisoners continue to live in cells designed for fewer people. On the Ministry’s current spending trajectory, it will take many years before these major issues are resolved. We recommend that the Ministry publishes the results of HMPPS’s audits of the prison estate along with an action plan setting out how it will achieve the minimum standards it is setting and how it will manage the maintenance backlog. Transparency about the costs of the estate is essential to support public understanding of the costs of imprisonment. This should include a realistic assessment of the viability of refurbishing existing accommodation over the medium and long-term.
Eliminating overcrowding
209.We noted in chapter two that prisons are overcrowded. Phil Copple, then Chief Operating Officer of HMPPS, explained that it was looking to build new prisons with uncrowded accommodation, and that across the prison estate they would incrementally seek to reduce the level of crowding as older prisons are closed.459 HMIP found that during 2017, cells designed to hold one prisoner were often being used to hold two (for example, HMP Pentonville; HMP Garth; HMP Lincoln; and HMP Swansea).460 The Ministry also intends to reduce the use of shared cells, with the aim that, in new prisons, 90% of accommodation will be built as single cells and 10% as doubles.461 HMIP identified that current HMPPS guidelines do not include a minimum cell size in line with recognised standards for living space published by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) in December 2015.462 In an October 2017 thematic review, Life in prison: Living Conditions, HMIP examined whether cells in five establishments met these requirements and found that although the majority of single cells did, the majority of double cells did not.463 The Prisons Minister saw the CPT as a potential ally in building the case for additional resources for decent prison accommodation.464
Modernisation and reconfiguration of the estate
210.The Ministry intends to create 10,000 new prison places, most of which will be created in five new prisons. The Prison Reform Trust expressed concern that the underlying principles which should drive the creation of a prison estate that appears designed rather than accidental had “not been publicly articulated or subject to consultation with the people most affected.”465 The Prison Governors Association expressed concerns about the location of new prisons which it believed was based on availability of sites rather than geographical need. They explained that HMPPS had found it very difficult to obtain new sites for prisons, hence the decision to re-build at Rochester, Glen Parva, Wellingborough and next to HMP Full Sutton. They were particularly concerned that new prisons built close to existing prisons, such as the cluster of prisons (HMP Belmarsh, HMP Thameside and HMP Isis) in South East London, could exhaust the local labour market of potential staff.466 The most recently built prison, HMP Berwyn, was created to hold 2,100 prisoners. Peter Clarke, Chief Inspector of Prisons, had only visited HMP Berwyn informally and did not wish to speculate on whether or not it would deliver improved outcomes, but believed that it demonstrated the potential to both break down a large establishment into smaller communities and provide a greater breadth of provision.467
211.Simon Boddis, executive director in HMPPS, set out the general principles on which new prisons would be designed, saying that “The prisons themselves will … hold 1,680 men. The other principles are use of greenery and making them look not too institutionalised, without compromising security. It is having proper activity, healthcare and other facilities. It is having more facilities on housing units than is common. We will have group rooms. All those things are based on wings. We will have classrooms where activities can take place. There are better designed and properly designed education centres. A lot of our education centres in older prisons were not purpose-built; they just happened to be an area that was converted into an education centre.”468
Specialist provision
212.We asked HMPPS about their plans for greater differentiation in provision in the prison estate to reflect the more complex and challenging population. The intention is to break down prison wings of 60 into units holding 20 people, within a prison accommodating 1,680 people overall. We heard that this could facilitate more specialised approaches, including the use of enabling environments, which focus on the promotion of well-being.469 Nevertheless, we did not get a clear picture of how these plans would reflect the changing demands of the prison population and the future use of the estate. We did learn that HMPPS is piloting a rehabilitative unit, to address challenging behaviour as an alternative to segregation or transfer but have not assessed the need for provision of drug recovery wings, for example.470
213.Our witnesses drew particular attention to the implications for the prison estate of an ageing prisoner population, including the need for alternative means of accommodating them and a more strategic approach to be taken to planning for this. This could include, for example, building palliative care facilities. We have been frustrated in our efforts to engage the Ministry of Justice and HMPPS in testing appropriate models for accommodating young adults which we continue to believe is necessary as they typically have the poorest outcomes in relation to safety, access to purposeful activity, and reoffending.471 Our witnesses also raised the question of whether there was sufficient provision of separation centres for extremists. We heard that thought needed to be given for how the prison estate could cater for people with severe mental health needs. We also received written evidence on the need to manage safely and with dignity the very small number of transgender prisoners who have committed offences which may mean they pose a risk to those they are held with.472 The potential impact on prison capacity of expanding the supply of secure mental health treatment places as recommended by HASCC should also be considered.473
Alternative future accommodation options
214.The Ministry plans under its Female Offender Strategy to spend £1.5m to test new residential options for diverting women who receive short custodial sentences which could in future reduce the size of the women’s prison estate. Dr Paradine of Women in Prison and Jessica Southgate of Agenda told us they remained to be convinced about this approach. Dr Paradine believed that the resources would be better spent on community provision which would meet the needs of a higher volume of women.474
215.We heard several suggestions which the Ministry could explore. Juliet Lyon proposed that planning any such provision should start with analysing the population and the needs of the population, working across Departments. She supposed that this might, for example, result in the creation of a health setting with closed elements, appropriate for those who needed to be held securely.475 Women in Prison highlighted a lack of bail hostel places for women and follow-on accommodation post-release, as well as Baroness Corston’s recommendation for small community units, for the small number of women on long sentences and that represent a serious risk to the public.476 Dr Paradine believed that there could also be learning from the model for refuges.477 The Howard League for Penal Reform recommended that women’s prisons are closed and that a limited number of secure places are created instead, noting that Scotland was already moving towards a model of small regional, secure units.478 We welcome the Ministry’s commitment to creating smaller, more normalised prison environments with improved rehabilitative facilities. The Ministry must consider how best to develop the estate more creatively to diversify provision and cater for the future needs of key cohorts of the prison population. A long-term prison estate strategy should be created as part of the Justice 2030 project. This should include provision for trials of alternative approaches for accommodating and caring for elderly and otherwise infirm prisoners, for women who do not represent a high risk to the public, and for the treatment of young adults to resolve the long-standing anomaly of the sentence to detention in a young offender institution no longer meaning that they are accommodated in suitably specialist provision.
Improvements in technology
216.Rory Stewart cited the use of technology as one of the key opportunities for developments in prisons policy under the Justice 2030 project.479 Tom Read, Ministry of Justice Director of Digital Transformation, identified three tracks of digital transformation in prisons: building services for offenders themselves, building services for prison officers and building digital services for families and friends. This includes the roll-out of in-cell telephony mentioned earlier in the chapter. Our evidence suggests that there is scope for significant improvement in the use of technology, particularly for education and managing the day-to-day requirements of prisoners, including booking healthcare appointments and meal preferences, for example.480 In two prisons—Wayland and Berwyn—they are piloting in-cell computers, laptops or tablets. Tom Read noted that this is quite a restricted trial, allowing prisoners to do basic self-service (for example, booking appointments for healthcare and the gym, ordering everyday necessities, and making food preferences) which we saw in operation on wings in HMPs Oakwood and Berwyn. We welcome the roll-out of in-cell telephony which will enable prisoners to build and maintain stronger family relationships. A modernised prison estate could benefit significantly from greater use of technology to support purposeful activity, including education and training, and to free prison staff from tasks which could be automated enabling them to spend more time engaging meaningfully with prisoners. We welcome the Ministry’s commitment to examine how best to utilise technology as part of the Justice 2030 project and encourage them to consider the cost-benefits of a major expansion in its use.
189 Ministry of Justice, Safety in Custody Statistics - Summary tables, January 2019
191 Qq189–190 [Mark Fairhurst]; Q192 [Julia Rogers]; HM Inspectorate of Prisons (ppp0036); Prison Officers Association (ppp0032); An individual prison officer (ppp0026)
192 McGuire, J, Understanding prison violence, 2018. These include youth, history of earlier violence in prison or with violent convictions, membership of gangs, low self-control, anger.
193 HM Inspectorate of Prisons, Annual Report 2017–18, HC1245, page 8
196 Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (ppp0031); Q536 [Peter Clarke]; INQUEST (ppp0033) (regarding coroners’ findings); Independent Monitoring Boards (ppp0059); Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody (ppp0063)
202 Ministry of Justice, Urgent Notification [accessed 7 March 2019]
215 Ministry of Justice, HMPPS Annual Digest, July 2018
216 Public Health England, Secure setting statistics from the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System (NDTMS) 2016–17, 2017–18. In 2017–18, 55,413 adults accessed treatment in a secure setting. In 2016–17, the equivalent figure was 59,258.
217 Health and Social Care Committee, Twelfth Report of Session 2017–19, Prison Health, HC963, November 2018
219 Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice, to Chair, Justice Committee, 25 June 2018
220 Justice Committee, Twelfth Report of Session 2016–17, Prison reform: governor empowerment and prison performance, HC 1123, 7 April 2017
221 Justice Committee, Fifth report of Session 2017–2019, HM Inspectorate of Prisons report on HMP Liverpool, HC 751, 16 February 2018
222 Justice Committee, Twelfth Report of Session 2016–17, Prison reform: governor empowerment and prison performance, HC 1123, 7 April 2017
224 Q38 [Rory Stewart]; Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice to the Chair, Justice Committee, 21 August 2018; Oral evidence taken on 25 October 2017, HC418, Q59.
225 Qq203–204 [Nick Pascoe]; Justice Committee, Fifth report of Session 2017–2019, HM Inspectorate of Prisons report on HMP Liverpool, HC 751, 16 February 2018.
228 Ministry of Justice, In-cell phones for more prisons in drive to cut crime, 28 December 2018; Q464 [Tom Read].
229 Ministry of Justice, Education and Employment Strategy, Cm9621, May 2018, page 13
230 Health and Social Care Committee, Twelfth Report of Session 2017–19, Prison Health, HC963, November 2018
235 Justice Committee, Twelfth Report of Session 2016–17, Prison reform: governor empowerment and prison performance, HC 1123, 7 April 2017, para 26
236 Justice Committee, Twelfth Report of Session 2016–17, Prison reform: governor empowerment and prison performance, HC 1123, 7 April 2017
240 Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice, to Chair, Justice Committee, 18 January 2019
241 Ministry of Justice, Annual Report and Accounts 2017–18, HC1285, July 2018, page 18
242 Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice, to Chair, Justice Committee, 18 January 2019
244 Justice Committee, Fifth Special Report of Session 2017–19, Young adults in the criminal justice system: Government Response to the Committee’s Eighth Report of Session 2017–19, HC1530, September 2018, para 17
248 Justice Committee, Fifth Special Report of Session 2017–19, Young adults in the criminal justice system: Government Response to the Committee’s Eighth Report of Session 2017–19, HC1530, September 2018, para 17
253 In 2009–10 there were 24,830 prison officers. This had fallen to 18,222 by 2014–15.
254 Ministry of Justice, Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) Workforce Statistics Bulletin, as at 30 September 2018, November 2018
261 Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice, to Chair, Justice Committee, 18 January 2019; Q210 [Mark Fairhurst]. PAVA is a synthetic pepper spray which temporarily incapacitates those it is sprayed upon.
262 Prison Reform Trust, PAVA spray a Prison Reform Trust position paper, December 2018
263 Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice, to Chair, Justice Committee, 18 January 2019
267 Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice, to Chair, Justice Committee, 18 January 2019; HMPPS, Annual report and accounts 2017–18, HC 1175, June 2018; Qq216–217 [Nick Pascoe; Mark Fairhurst]
268 Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice, to Chair, Justice Committee, 18 January 2019
269 Q216; Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice, to Chair, Justice Committee, 18 January 2019.
273 Q219; Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice to the Chair, Justice Committee, 21 August 2018
275 Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice to the Chair, Justice Committee, 21 August 2018
276 Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice, to Chair, Justice Committee, 18 January 2019
282 Women in Prison (ppp0022); Q414 [Anne Fox; Helen Berresford]; Centre for Social Justice (ppp0029); Q427 [Danny Hames]; Waymarks (ppp0037); Headway (ppp0020); Q310 [Dr Jo Bailey]; Dee Anand (ppp0061); NHS Substance Misuse Providers Alliance (ppp0065)
291 Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice, to Chair, Justice Committee, 18 January 2019
292 Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice, to Chair, Justice Committee, 18 January 2019
299 Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice, to Chair, Justice Committee, 18 January 2019
303 Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice, to Chair, Justice Committee, 18 January 2019
309 Women in Prison (ppp0022); HM Inspectorate of Prisons (ppp0036); NHS England (ppp0050); NHS Substance Misuse Providers Alliance (ppp0065); Clinks (ppp0005); Prisoner Learning Alliance (ppp0051)
315 Justice Committee, Sixth Report of Session 2015–16, Prison Safety, HC625, May 2016
318 Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice, to Chair, Justice Committee, 18 January 2019
321 Prisoner Learning Alliance (ppp0051); Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice, to Chair, Justice Committee, 18 January 2019
325 Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice, to Chair, Justice Committee, 18 January 2019
326 Prison Reform Trust, Bromley Briefings Prison Factfile, 2018, page 22
329 Ministry of Justice, HMPPS Annual Digest, July 2018, page 20
330 Professor Nicholas Hardwick (ppp0056); Dee Anand (ppp0061); Prisoner Learning Alliance (ppp0051). See also An individual prison officer (ppp0026).
335 Q310; Letter from Sam Gyimah, Former Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice to Chair, Justice Committee, Indeterminate Sentences of Imprisonment for Public Protection, 20 November 2017.
338 Clinks (ppp0005); NHS Substance Misuse Providers Alliance (ppp0065); Prisoner Learning Alliance (ppp0051)
340 Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice, to Chair, Justice Committee, 18 January 2019
343 Justice Committee, Oral evidence: The Work of the Ministry of Justice, HC 418, 7 March 2018, Q85
345 Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Prisons, to Chair, Justice Committee, Statutory instrument to amend the Prison Rules 1999, 27 April 2018
346 Ministry of Justice, New incentives framework to help prisoners turn their lives around, 3 September 2018
353 McGuire, J, Understanding prison violence, 2018.
354 HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, HMP Bedford, January 2019
355 Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice, to Chair, Justice Committee, 18 January 2019
358 Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice, to Chair, Justice Committee, 18 January 2019
361 Ministry of Justice, Offender Management Statistics Bulletin, England and Wales, July 2018, page 6
362 BBC News, Rule-breaking prisoners get 70 extra years as punishment, 13 August 2018
363 David Lammy, The Lammy Review, September 2017, page 52
366 Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (ppp0031); Prison Officers Association (ppp0032); HM Inspectorate of Prisons (ppp0036); Professor Nicholas Hardwick (ppp0056); AMIMB (ppp0040); Independent Monitoring Boards (ppp0059); Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody (ppp0063); Q309 [Mr Jones, Parole Board]. Health and Social Care Committee, Twelfth Report of Session 2017–19, Prison Health, HC963, November 2018, page 10
367 INQUEST (ppp0033); Older People’s Commissioner for Wales (ppp0045); Independent Monitoring Boards (ppp0059).
373 Justice Committee, Fifth Report of Session 2013–14, Older Prisoners, HC89, September 2013
376 Qq491–492 [Phil Copple]; Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice, to Chair, Justice Committee, 18 January 2019.
386 Letter from Sam Gyimah, Former Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice to Chair, Justice Committee, Indeterminate Sentences of Imprisonment for Public Protection, 20 November 2017; Qq333–334.
397 HC Hansard, Joint HMI Prison and Probation Report, volume 653, col.369–373, 24 January 2019
398 HM Inspectorate of Probation and HM Inspectorate of Prisons, Management and supervision of men convicted of sexual offences, 24 January 2019
401 When comparing treated versus untreated groups reoffending over 6 years was reduced to 9.5% from 14.1%.
405 HM Inspectorate of Probation and HM Inspectorate of Prisons, The management and supervision of men convicted of sexual offences, 24 January 2019.
407 Q313 [Dr Bailey]; PQ 127045 [on offender rehabilitation], 14 February 2018; Wilkinson, K and Powis, B, A Process Study of the Horizon Programme, 10 January 2019.
408 HM Inspectorate of Probation and HM Inspectorate of Prisons, The management and supervision of men convicted of sexual offences, 24 January 2019.
409 Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice, to Chair, Justice Committee, 18 January 2019
410 Wilkinson, K and Powis, B, A Process Study of the Horizon Programme, 10 January 2019
411 SAFARI (ppp0001); False Allegations Support Organisation (UK) (ppp0009); FACT (ppp0010); Dr Dennis Eady (ppp0007); Centre for Criminal Appeals (ppp0021)
412 Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice, to Chair, Justice Committee, 18 January 2019
413 David Gauke, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, Beyond prison, redefining punishment, 18 February 2019
415 Ministry of Justice, Offender Management Statistics Bulletin, England and Wales, July 2018, page 7
419 Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice, to Chair, Justice Committee, 18 January 2019; David Gauke, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, Beyond prison, redefining punishment, 18 February 2019
422 National Offender Management Service, Annual Report and Accounts 2016/17, HC 198, 19 July 2017, p.18
423 HM Prisons and Probations Service, Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service Annual Report and Accounts 2017–18, HC1175, 28 June 2008, page 21–22
424 BBC News, Holloway Prison: Up to 1,000 homes to be built in £82m deal, 8 March 2019
425 Ministry of Justice, Prison population statistics December 2018, January 2019. Ministry of Justice, Berwyn prison information, accessed 8 March 2019.
426 Ministry of Justice, Justice Minister outlines vision for secure schools, 1 June 2018
428 HM Prisons and Probations Service, Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service Annual Report and Accounts 2017–18, HC1175, 28 June 2008
429 Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice, to Chair, Justice Committee, 18 January 2019
430 Ministry of Justice, Female Offender Strategy, Cm9642, June 2018, page 7
431 Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice to the Chair, Justice Committee, 21 August 2018
432 Rory Stewart, Prisons Update: Written statement - HCWS1123, 29 November 2018
436 Ministry of Defence, A Better Defence Estate, November 2016
440 Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice to the Chair, Justice Committee, 21 August 2018
442 Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Justice launches new facilities management company, 26 January 2018
443 Comptroller and Auditor General, Investigation into the Government’s handling of the collapse of Carillion, HC1002, June 2018
445 Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice to the Chair, Justice Committee, 21 August 2018
449 PQ: 127748 and 127270 [Amey and Carillion]
450 Justice Committee, Ministry of Justice Annual Report and Accounts 2017–18, HC 1650, Q72
456 Justice Committee, Oral Evidence: HM Inspectorate of Prisons report on HMP Liverpool, HC 751, Q3; Q614
457 Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice, to Chair, Justice Committee, February 2018
458 Letter from Peter Clarke, Chief Inspector of Prisons to Secretary of State for Justice, on HMP Birmingham, August 2018
463 HM Inspectorate of Prisons, Life in prison: Living conditions, October 2017, page 13
470 Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice, to Chair, Justice Committee, 18 January 2019.
471 See for example Justice Committee, Fifth Special Report of Session 2017–19, Young adults in the criminal justice system: Government Response to the Committee’s Eighth Report of Session 2017–19, HC1530, September 2018. See also Transition to Adulthood (T2A) Alliance (ppp0003).
472 The Henry Jackson Society (ppp0072); Fair Play For Women (ppp0011); Qq373–376 [Dr Kate Paradine]
473 Health and Social Care Committee, Twelfth Report of Session 2017–19, Prison Health, HC963, November 2018
Published: 3 April 2019