Prison criticised as ‘one of the most overcrowded in the UK’
SWANSEA Prison has come under fire for having more than twice as many inmates as it should and sub-standard facilities – including showers “not fit for purpose.”
The Independent Monitoring Board also highlighted concerns about prisoners’ access to health professionals, problems with drugs like spice and toilets having a lack of privacy, in their latest report, published yesterday.
A smoking ban is in place at the prison, but since its introduction, the report said, inmates had taken to making their own cigarettes from tea and nicotine patches.
“It’s a Victorian prison and it was designed in that era,” said Paul Baker, chairman of Swansea Prison Independent Monitoring Board.
“Despite some modernisations it is still a Victorian prison. I am not entirely sure what can be done. That is in the hands of the Government.”
He said the new governor was making “strides.”
There are currently 515 prisoners at HMP Swansea. There should only be 219, making the jail one of the most overcrowded in the UK.
“Swansea Prison and its prison officers are doing a good job under very difficult circumstances with a lack of resources to cope with twice as many people as it is designed to hold,” said Geraint Davies, MP for Swansea West.
“That inevitably means more risk to prison officers and prisoners in terms of violence and self-harm, and makes it much more difficult to expect prisoners to become reformed and go back into society and not reoffend.
“Our primary focus should be to try to give prisoners the skills and resources to get jobs and live normal lives after they leave prison, and not create conditions where they are more likely to reoffend.
“By penny-pinching and cutting corners the Government is putting prisoners at risk.”
Drugs in jails continued “to be a big problem,” he added.
“The scourge of new psychoactive substances provokes more violent behaviour and we need to address that. Clearly there need to be effective ways of stopping drugs getting into prisons in the first place.”
Rob Preece, campaigns and communications manager at the Howard League for Penal Reform, said there was a “dire situation” that “illustrates the scale of the overcrowding crisis engulfing the prison system. Overcrowding has a huge impact on how a prison is run and what it can achieve,” Mr Preece said. “Caging people in squalor is never going to help them to become lawabiding citizens on release.
“This report underlines the need for ministers to take bold action.
The MoJ were contacted for a comment, but had not responded at the time of writing.