nmates at two resettlement prisons in England and Wales are locked up for more than 22 hours a day with too little to do, inspectors found.
Unannounced inspections at Brixton and The Mount prisons in March found that most of the 1,716 inmates were locked up at both sites for 22 hours a day and more on weekends.
Reports from the HM Chief Inspector of Prisons of the two category C prisons show that they do not provide the resettlement and training functions essential for prisoners’ rehabilitation.
Category C prisons are training and resettlement prisons that hold prisoners who are considered to have a low risk of escape but who cannot be trusted in open conditions,
Prison Inspector Charlie Taylor said the findings “raise serious questions” about the lack of importance of prisons in providing inmates with truly purposeful ways to spend their time.
Prisons, including Brixton, The Mount and also Rochester, each received the lowest “poor” rating for targeted activities after inmates said they spent 22 hours or more a day locked up in their cells.
The picture was even worse over weekends, the inspectors found.
Mr Taylor said in a blog post: “In these prisons we have found delays in getting prisoners back into education, training and employment, often created by too little activity space, poor allocation processes, staff shortages and a tentative approach to reopening the regime. . “
Other Category C prison inspections have shown a delay in returning to a full regime once pandemic restrictions have eased, including at HMP Rochester where a prisoner said “they are taking advantage of Covid to make it easier for staff.”
More than a third of all detainees in England and Wales are detained in Category C prisons, which, according to the Prison Service, should provide prisoners with “the opportunity to develop their own skills so that they can find work and they can resettled in the community upon release ”.
Delays have been found in getting prisoners back into education, training and employment, often caused by too few activity spaces, poor allocation processes, staff shortages and a tentative approach to reopening the regime.
Mr Taylor said it was “particularly depressing” to see workshops and classrooms that had to flourish, either empty or with only a handful of inmates taking part in activities.
Recommendations made regarding concerns about respect, purposeful activities, rehabilitation and release planning at Brixton Prison, in south London, which were raised during the last inspection in 2019 before the pandemic struck, have not been reached.
Prisoner safety outcomes were previously described as “fairly good”, but are now said to be “not good enough”.
The inspectors found that 24% of the inmates in the survey said they were currently feeling unsafe and the dangerous environment had led some Brixton inmates to isolate themselves out of fear.
Recorded levels of violence against staff, which have increased since the last inspection, were high and are likely to be caused by inmates’ frustrations with an inability to solve daily problems, the report said.
The number of recorded assaults on prisoners has decreased.
Overcrowding exacerbated the issue of lack of time out of the cell for Brixton inmates.
Too many inmates shared dirty, graffiti, and poorly equipped cells designed for one, and it was often difficult for inmates to access basic items, such as toilet rolls, clean bedding, and clothing.
But Brixton inmates said the quality of the food was excellent, and many inmates said it was the most positive part of life in prison.
The mountain, near Heaven Hempstead, Hertfordshire, was judged to be insufficient in the area of respect.
Security at The Mount was considered mostly good.
Ofsted rated the overall education provision at The Mount and Brixton as “inadequate”.
Both prisons were found to offer too few opportunities to obtain accredited qualifications, while poor attendance and late detention of prisoners, often due to delayed openings, hampered a learning ability.
Mr Taylor added: “It costs taxpayers around £ 45,000 to keep someone in jail for a year.
“It is in all our interests that our prisons, especially Category C prisons, make more effort to give the prisoners the skills to successfully relocate when they are released.”