Violence, self-harm and 1,000 calls in one month to Samaritans at women’s jail

PRISON UNDER FIRE AS IT GETS LOWEST SAFETY SCORE

INMATES at Foston Hall Prison made 1,000 calls a month to the Samaritans, a report has revealed, as the women’s jail is criticised for high levels of violence and self-harm, and inadequate care for its vulnerable women.

Prison inspectors also found levels of self-harm at Foston Hall were the highest in the women’s estate and two women had taken their own lives since 2019.

The inspection by HM Inspectorate of Prisons also found that despite the very high number of women contacting the Samaritans, the prison had no strategy to reduce self-harm or improve the care for those in crisis.

Messages left on the prison’s crisis hotline had not been checked for six weeks and women had not had access to listeners, who are prisoners trained by the Samaritans, since March 2020, a report said.

Many women were segregated while there were concerns about their selfharming behaviours. The segregation unit was a poor environment and the regime was limited.

Prisons Minister Victoria Atkins has called the issues at Foston not acceptable.

The finding at HMP & YOI Foston Hall in Derbyshire is the first score of poor – the lowest – for the safety of women prisoners since the Inspectorate developed its current framework of healthy prison assessments more than a decade ago.

Foston held 272 women when inspectors visited in October and November 2021 and Chief Inspector of Prisons Charlie Taylor has published their report on that inspection.

He said: “The response to women in crisis was too reactive, uncaring and often punitive… It was no surprise that in our survey nearly a third of women told us they felt unsafe.” Mr Taylor said Foston was last inspected in 2019, when inspectors found outcomes to be reasonably good against all four tests of a healthy prison.

The 2021 inspection, however, proved less positive and, in common with many establishments emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic, inspectors found a deterioration in the daily regime and the provision of purposeful activity.

He said: “Of greater concern, however, were the safety outcomes which we judged to be poor, our lowest assessment. This is a rare and unexpected finding in a women’s prison… The evidence for this judgment was compelling. Neither the prison’s assessment of vulnerability, nor the support offered to newly arrived women were good enough.

“The unpredictability of the regime was contributing to tensions on the wings and, we suspected, increased violence, particularly against staff. Violence was now very high.”

The use of force by staff had doubled since the last inspection and was the highest in the women’s estate.

A new governor had been appointed a year ago. A priority for prison leaders “must be new thinking, followed by action, about how to make a women’s prison safer,” inspectors said.

Prisons Minister Victoria Atkins said: “While we needed to take decisive action to protect prisoners and staff during the pandemic, the issues highlighted by the inspection at HMP Foston Hall are not acceptable and we have put in place more senior staff and created a new safety team to address them rapidly.

“Across the wider women’s prison estate, our staff have worked hard to ensure women receive extra support to deal with mental health issues during the pandemic, overseen by a taskforce at national level, and we are starting to see a decrease in the number of selfharm incidents across the estate.”

The response to women in crisis was too reactive, uncaring and often punitive.

Charlie Taylor