Ranby Prison ‘not operating properly’
PRISONERS MUST GET INTO CLASSES, SAY INSPECTORS
INSPECTORS say Nottinghamshire’s Ranby Prison fails to provide purposeful activity for inmates, despite making some safety improvements.
Over half of the 948 prisoners at the time of the inspection were unemployed and spending up to 23 hours a day behind their cell doors.
Well-resourced workshops sat empty, as did the library, and few prisoners attended classes.
A substantial number of prisoners had poor English and mathematics skills but received no help to improve them, and low literacy skills were not addressed.
Charlie Taylor, Chief Inspector of Prisons, said: “The prison must break out of its Covid-19 inertia and provide meaningful, well-planned, and structured activities.”
However, there had been improvements across every aspect of HM Inspectorate of Prisons’ safety test.
The flow of drugs into the jail – a category C training and resettlement prison – which had been a chief cause of violence there on previous inspections in 2016 and 2018, had been stemmed with improvements to perimeter security, the use of dogs, and the introduction of body scanners.
Violence had reduced significantly – assaults against fel- low prisoners had reduced by almost half, and against staff by 39 percent.
Inspectors judged the prison to have improved its safety score from “not sufficiently good” to “good”.
But leaders struggled to provide adequate resettlement provision for Ranby’s inmates.
The prison was out of step with its remit as a training prison with 65 percent of its prisoners having been transferred there for resettlement purposes. Prisoners were also frustrated over how little they were able to communicate with their offender manager.
Mr Taylor said: “At the time of our inspection, Ranby was not operating as a category C training prison. “Just being safe is not good enough, and if it is to fulfil its essential function in giving prisoners the skills, knowledge, confidence and work ethic to support them on their return to the community, then leaders urgently need to get them into the workshops and classrooms which should be a thriving part of this jail.”
At the time of our inspection, Ranby was not operating as a category C training prison Charlie Taylor