Herald Express (Torbay, Brixham & South Hams Edition)
Conditions at prison bleak, watchdog finds
THE Government’s own prison watchdog has released a damning report into HMP Dartmoor after inspectors carried out an unannounced visit.
Inspectors from HM Inspectorate of Prisons found little good about the pre-Victorian era Category C prison in Princetown which was earmarked for closure as far back as 2013 and was expected to shut in 2023, but won a reprieve in 2021 due to population pressures across all the prisons in England and Wales. A new 25-year lease on the prison comes into effect at the end of the year.
In January the Independent Monitoring Board – made up of volunteers who assess every prison in England and Wales – said the impact of staff shortages, uncertainty over the prison’s future, and a slow recovery from Covid restrictions had made the past year challenging at HMP Dartmoor.
In its report the IMB stated: “The length of time prisoners have been locked up in their cells, and the reduced access to activities/education, family communications, showers and association across the year cannot be considered by the board to be other than inhumane.”
The HM Inspectorate of Prisons report was no less damning.
Charlie Taylor, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, in the introduction to the report noted Dartmoor prison was “one of the oldest jails in the country. It was established in 1809 to hold French and American prisoners of war from the Napoleonic and American wars. Owned by the Duchy of Cornwall it received a Grade II status in 1987.
He said many of the problems highlighted “stem from the costly failure by the prison service to plan adequately for this situation and, on this inspection, it was disappointing to see the doubling up of cells that were designed for, and at our last inspection held, one prisoner.”
Given the “older age” of Dartmoor’s population, combined with the “long sentences” many were serving and the “already inadequate numbers of work, training and education places” he said the HMIP would be “very concerned if the number of prisoners increased further.”
He added: “At our last inspection in 2017, we described a prison that was decaying fast with damp cells and buckets strategically placed underneath leaking roofs. This failure to invest in the infrastructure meant the prison had not had some of the improvements that we have seen elsewhere, such as the introduction of fit-for-purpose health, education, or laundry facilities. Given the state of the jail, the leaders had done well to keep the prison clean and there had been refurbishment of some showers.”
Inspectors found there was poor collection and monitoring of accurate data which led to senior staff being unaware of “a decline in the number of social visits”.
They found HMP Dartmoor’s booking line had been out of action, which meant prisoners “were not able to see family and friends, which is already a challenge in such a remote prison”.
Mr Taylor stated: “We were very concerned by the failure of leaders to monitor the regime adequately. It was significantly worse than they thought and was curtailed more than 80% of the time, with ad-hoc decisions to keep prisoners locked up made by individual officers.
The HMIP found that attendance at education was “low” and was not being monitored or addressed and “waiting lists to get work or into education were too long and education staff shortages meant there were a limited range of courses available.”
The inspectors found that one of the jail’s strengths was “peer work” and there had been “considerable improvement” from the HMIP’s 2017 report.
Mr Taylor stated: “Disappointingly, access to specific accredited interventions, which formed an important part of many prisoners’ sentence plans, held back sentence progression as they were not available at the prison. This was a cause of much frustration.”
Regarding health Mr Taylor noted the hand over from the health provider to a new contractor “had proved unnecessarily difficult and staffing levels were not at the right level, although prisoners were generally favourable about their care.”
He added: “It was concerning to find a training prison failing to fulfil its key purpose: there were too many prisoners with not enough to do and an education and training offer which was much too limited. With a reasonable staffing situation and some enthusiastic prisoners and staff, there is the opportunity to make Dartmoor into a much more effective jail, but if the prison service forces further population increases on the jail, then progress is likely to be affected.”
The report also included a section written by Ofsted inspectors who found the prison inadequate across all five areas of the education, skills and work provisions, including overall effectiveness, quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development and leadership and management.
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