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HMI Prisons

@hmiprisonsnews.bsky.social

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Independent inspectorate reporting on conditions for and treatment of those in prisons, young offender institutions and immigration detention facilities. Learn more at: https://hmiprisons.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/

hmiprisons.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk

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HMI Prisons @hmiprisonsnews.bsky.social · 9h

With the publication of the ‘Just passing time’ thematic review, Chief Inspector, Charlie Taylor, outlines the problems with current work and training provision in adult prisons and his concerns that cuts will make things worse.

Read the blog: hmiprisons.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/news/what-do...

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Russell Webster @russellwebster.com · 1d

Prison work and training "deeply concerning"
@hmiprisonsnews.bsky.social finds major cuts threaten to derail already poor work and training in prisons.
www.russellwebster.com/prison-work-...

Prison work and training “deeply concerning”

Prison Inspectorate finds major cuts threaten to derail already poor work and training in prisons.

www.russellwebster.com

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HMI Prisons @hmiprisonsnews.bsky.social · 2d

Our researchers are conducting a survey at HMP Whitemoor at the start of an inspection. If you have information about the establishment, please email: [email protected]

Photograph of a prison visits hall with the HMI Prisons email address overlaid on the image.

HMI Prisons @hmiprisonsnews.bsky.social · 2d

Fails to replicate work in the community

“It's nobody's fault, but when you're looking at trades, you go to work at 8am, you have lunch on site and stay until the light fades. The fact is that [our prisoners] are only doing 2.5 hours and then going back to sleep, and then go again for another 2.5 hours, purely due to the regime…”

Senior prison manager

“We get out of room at 8.30, we do our rounds in 20 minutes, half hour at the most… then we're there sitting around for two hours, doing nothing.”

Prisoner at HMP Foston Hall

HMI Prisons @hmiprisonsnews.bsky.social · 2d

Problems with allocating prisoners to activity

Allocations processes should place prisoners into work, education or training, but across the 13 sites that we visited for this thematic, around a fifth of prisoners did not have an activity space.

""So, say I finish my English course and I want to move onto plumbing, but there's a 12-week waiting list for plumbing, if they don't have anything for you, they'll just allocate you anywhere...”

Prisoner at HMP The Mount

However, Standford Hill, a category D open prison, had developed an effective induction and allocation process to make sure that prisoners were purposefully occupied and placed on pathways that aligned with their needs and ambitions.

HMI Prisons @hmiprisonsnews.bsky.social · 2d

Not enough spaces

"The problem is you can only put a certain number of people through; like I did Safety Counts, for the railway, but I think only 15 people can jump on that course. I think they were only doing it twice a year... Think of the turnover you have of people going out and coming straight back. If you get more people opportunities, with things like CSCS training, people won't be coming back to jail.”

Prisoner at HMP Parc

In many jails there are simply not enough activity spaces for the population. This has been compounded by overcrowding and the failure by the prison service to maintain buildings which are often dilapidated or, in some cases, out of use.

HMI Prisons @hmiprisonsnews.bsky.social · 2d

Earlier today we published ‘Just passing time’: A review of work and training provision in adult prisons’.

Find out more below or in the review: hmiprisons.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmipris_repo...

Purposeful activity has always been a poor-performing healthy prison area,
but since COVID it has got even worse.

Over the last three years, 94 of the 104 closed prisons we inspected scored ‘poor’ or ‘not sufficiently good’ for purposeful activity.

Just a small minority of prisoners accessed meaningful work and training and prisoners too often left jails having gained little or no skills to help them avoid reoffending.

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HMI Prisons @hmiprisonsnews.bsky.social · 2d

Earlier today we published ‘Just passing time’: A review of work and training provision in adult prisons’

Read the review: hmiprisons.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmipris_repo...

And release: hmiprisons.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/news/major-c...

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Prisoners' Education Trust @prisonersed.bsky.social · 2d

Today's @hmiprisonsnews.bsky.social report on work and training is worrying yet unsurprising. The government needs to fix prison regimes and the first step should be reversing cuts to education budgets that will only make a bad situation worse.

hmiprisons.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmipris_repo...

‘Just passing time’: A review of work and training provision in adult prisons – HM Inspectorate of Prisons

hmiprisons.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk

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HMI Prisons @hmiprisonsnews.bsky.social · 5d

In February of this year, we published ‘Time to care: what helps women cope in prison’.

We found staff spent a lot of their time helping women suffering acute crises, leaving little time to provide less intensive yet vital support for other women, which was taking a toll on the mental health of both staff and the women in their care.

HMI Prisons @hmiprisonsnews.bsky.social · 5d

In February 2024, we published ‘The long wait: A thematic review of delays in the transfer of mentally unwell prisoners’, which scrutinised access to mental health care in prisons.

In 2022–23, we noted delays in mental health transfers in over three-quarters of our prison inspection reports.

HMI Prisons @hmiprisonsnews.bsky.social · 5d

Against a backdrop of rising prison populations and frailties in staffing, effective mental health support in prisons is vital. #WorldMentalHealthDay.

Find out more below and here: hmiprisons.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmipris_repo... and hmiprisons.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmipris_repo...

World Mental Health Day, 10 October 2025

Mental health is a troubling area in prisons, for both prisoners and the staff caring for them.

HMI Prisons @hmiprisonsnews.bsky.social · 9d

Our researchers are conducting a survey at HMP Birmingham at the start of an inspection. If you have information about the establishment, please email: [email protected]

Photograph of a prison visiting hall with details of the HMI Prisons email address overlaid.

HMI Prisons @hmiprisonsnews.bsky.social · 9d

Points to note:
- Six self-inflicted deaths since Nov. 2021
- Not enough done to address causes of self-harm
- Serious, longstanding risks to patient safety
- Insufficient activity spaces
- Impressive range of family initiatives
- Prisoners could eat lunch and dinner together.

HMI Prisons @hmiprisonsnews.bsky.social · 9d

HMP Altcourse: illicit drugs posed major threat to safety and security.

Read the report: hmiprisons.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmipris_repo...

And the press notice: hmiprisons.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/news/report-...

See the healthy prison scores:

A bar graph showing HMP Altcourse health prison outcomes for 2021 and 2025. Safety remained the same at 'not sufficiently good' and respect continued to be 'reasonably good'. Purposeful activity dropped from 'reasonably good' to 'poor' and preparation for release' improved from 'not sufficiently good' to 'reasonably good'.

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Pact @prisonadvice.bsky.social · 15d

@hmiprisonsnews.bsky.social has today published a report about HMP Pentonville setting out 'comprehensive failures' at the prison.

Read the response from our Deputy CEO, Ellen Green 👇👇

www.prisonadvice.org.uk/latest/news/...

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HMI Prisons @hmiprisonsnews.bsky.social · 15d

Points to note:
- 44% of prisoners felt unsafe
- Drugs drove violence
- New arrivals received little support
- Poor relationships between staff and prisoners
- Lack of support for vulnerable men
- Most prisoners locked up 22 hours a day
- Release dates incorrectly calculated.

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HMI Prisons @hmiprisonsnews.bsky.social · 15d

HMP Pentonville: comprehensive failures creating chaos, violence and fear.

Read the report: hmiprisons.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmipris_repo...

Read the press release: hmiprisons.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/news/compreh...

See the healthy prison scores:

Bar graph visualising the healthy prison scores for Pentonville when it was inspected in 2022 and 2025. The score for safety had declined from not sufficiently good to poor, the score for respect had remained not sufficiently good, the score for purposeful activity had remained poor, and the score for preparation for release had declined from not sufficiently good to poor.

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HMI Prisons @hmiprisonsnews.bsky.social · 16d

Points to note:
- Detainees positive about staff
- Accommodation reasonable and detainees could move about freely
- Violence, use of force and self-harm rare
- Women not always separated sufficiently from men
- Care for vulnerable individuals not always good enough.

HMI Prisons @hmiprisonsnews.bsky.social · 16d

Residential short-term holding facilities at Larne House, Manchester and Swinderby: calm and well managed, but some concerns.

Read the report: hmiprisons.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmipris_repo...

Read the press notice: hmiprisons.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/news/reports...

Report on an unannounced inspection of the residential short-term holding facilities at Larne House, Manchester and Swinderby by HM Chief Inspector of prisons (7-11 July 2025)

HMI Prisons @hmiprisonsnews.bsky.social · 16d

Points to note:
- Violence had increased and many prisoners did not feel safe
- Too few work and education places
- Prison infrastructure required investment
- Living conditions and functioning of workshops affected
- Officers trained to support prisoners with addictions.

HMI Prisons @hmiprisonsnews.bsky.social · 16d

HMP Wakefield: Too many prisoners locked up during working day

Read the inspection report: hmiprisons.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk?post_type=hm...

And the press notice:
hmiprisons.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk?post_type=ne...

See the healthy prison scores:

Bar graph illustrating the healthy prison scores for HMP Wakefield in 2022 and 2025. The scores for Respect and Preparation for release remained reasonably good; the score for safety declined from reasonably good to not sufficiently good and the score for Purposeful activity declined from not sufficiently good to poor.

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Nacro @nacro.bsky.social · 22d

Campbell Robb, Chief Executive at Nacro, responds to today's @hmiprisonsnews.bsky.social 'Children in custody' report 2024-2025, he says YOIs are "entrenching disadvantage."

👉Nacro knows it doesn’t have to be this way. We help young people to move on and be who they want to be.
shorturl.at/sbErX

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HMI Prisons @hmiprisonsnews.bsky.social · 22d

Our researchers are conducting a survey at HMP Featherstone at the start of an inspection. If you have information about the establishment, please email: [email protected]

Photograph of a visits hall, with the HMI Prisons email address overlaid on top.

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Jon Collins @jonbcollins.bsky.social · 22d

More than a third of children in custody spend less than two hours a day out of their cell during the week. More than half spend less than two hours a day out of their cell on weekends.

Young people who've already been failed by the system are being failed again.

HMI Prisons @hmiprisonsnews.bsky.social · 22d

In this year's Children in custody report, many of the issues identified in our 2023-24 inspections remained.

Find out more about some of our key findings in the infographic below.

Read the report: hmiprisons.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmipris_repo...

Bar graphs that show how safety was still not good enough, how for some children, relationships with staff were poor, and how time out of cell varied across establishments.

Donut charts that show who the children in our survey are. 99% identified as male; 1 in 3 reported having a disability; including any physical, mental or learning needs that affected their day-to-day live; 2 in 5 were unsentenced or on remand and 10% reported having children of their own.

Donut charts that show some groups continue to be overrepresented: 33% were Muslim, 8% were from the Traveller community, 63% were from an ethnic group other than white, 46% had health problems (including mental health) and 65% reported having been in local authority care.

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