Women’s jail most violent of its kind

A WOMEN’S prison near Ashbourne has been described as the most violent of its kind in the country following an inspection from HM Prisons bosses.

Following their visit, the institution was also given the lowest possible rating of “poor”.

Around 300 women live at Foston Hall, with seven units holding up to 60 women each.

Officials said after a visit between August 15 and 17 this year: “The rate of violence was far too high and the highest in the female estate. While data for the last four months showed a reduction in the rate of assaults against staff, there had been an increase in assaults between prisoners.”

More than 1,000 calls a month from prisoners were made to Samaritans.

Adequate support was also not provided by staff, and many former inmates were released homeless.

HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, Charlie Taylor, said: “Case management for those at risk did not always identify or deliver meaningful interventions or support to address the underlying causes of distress.

“Violence had increased and was now at the highest level for all women’s prisons. More needed to be done to understand the causes of this and take action to reduce it.”

This was exacerbated by a lack of trust in officers, he added. Inspectors said: “Women told us that they resorted to using the applications system to report their concerns about bullying on the wings because of a lack of trust in officers to take forward their concerns.”

After a 2021 visit, inspectors noted that there was a lack of deployable staff. This meant inmates had fewer hours than required outside their cells, which resulted in, the report states, high levels of self-harm by inmates, as well as tensions developing between those detained and those working at the institution.

This year, inspectors said: “Despite a slight reduction in the rate of self-harm incidents since our inspection, it remained very high and was still among the highest of all women’s prisons. A total of 87 women had self-harmed in the previous eight months, but four women were responsible for 75 per cent of all incidents in the last three months.”

The report added that, despite the prison implementing a strategy to improve care, “it needed to be based on more comprehensive data”.

Therefore, officials said: “The reasons for self-harm by other women were not well understood. The prison had made insufficient progress against this recommendation as the care given to all women in crisis needed to be more active and therapeutic.” Inspectors observed only one example of a “notable positive practice” – “trauma-informed yoga had been introduced”.