Care for those at risk of suicide and self-harm has improved at the island’s prison, but found that some procedures remain that are “unjustified and excessive”.
His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons has revisited the island a year on from its initial visit in March 2023.
That initial report found issues with safety, purposeful activity, and rehabilitation and release planning required improvement, and the approach adopted by leaders in the prison needed to be more effective.
A year on, HMIP found that individuals were “well supported and those on Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork case management received well-being self-help packs”.
Information in the pack explained techniques and exercises that prisoners could use to understand better and control their feelings of distress. Prisoners that spoke to HMIP said that this pack was “useful and helped them when they were becoming low in mood”.
Of the 13 areas it raised last year, HMIP judged that there was good progress in four concerns, reasonable progress in five concerns, insufficient progress in two concerns and no meaningful progress in two concerns.
Population
The report found that the island’s prison population has grown by 50% in the last year, with 132 prisoners, 10 of whom were women held on the separate D wing.
New Prisoners
HMIP found that regardless of risk, prisoners were handcuffed in transit from the prison to the court, which it said “remained a concern as it would be dangerous in the event of an accident”.
However, improvements were noted in the engagement with new prisoners which included an end to 24 hour camera surveillance on arrival and better privacy for safeguarding interviews on arrival.
Despite this, the 30 minute check ups had led to complaints from some inmates who said they were “regularly woken during the night checks” and HMIP found that along with other issues outstanding, the prison had not made sufficient progress in this area.
Disproportionate actions
In 2023, the inspectorate found that “many security procedures were disproportionate to the risk posed and were needlessly restrictive”. This included strip- searching of some prisoners being “unjustified and excessive”, and “certain items were banned for reasons not based on any sensible analysis of risk”.
The 2024 inspection found that “no meaningful progress” had been made in this area as prisoners moving being wings or working in the internal prison gardens and works departments were still being strip searched twice a day, which HMIP said “remained unjustified and excessive”.
The report found good progress was made in area including assessing literacy and numeracy or prisoners, but no meaningful progress had been made to improving inclusivity and diversity, while it found that insufficient progress had been made to improve education and employment inside the prison, with many inmates spending less than a normal working working in either area.
You can read the full report here.
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