Prisoners given ‘soft and gentle’ music at bedtime

PRISONERS are getting calming music piped into their cells to help them sleep at night, a watchdog has revealed.

Offenders held at HMP Humber in east Yorkshire can choose to listen to “soft and gentle” music, which they can tune into from midnight until 8am to lull them to sleep.

They can also take classes to learn to play the ukulele and guitar on the prison’s dedicated In Cell Education/entertainment television (ICE TV) channel.

Two pygmy goats were introduced to be escorted around the jail to aid both prisoner and staff wellbeing.

The moves were part of a strategy by prison bosses to deal with cases of “sleep inversion”, where prisoners stayed up all night and slept all day during lockdown, when they were confined to cells for around 22 hours a day.

Inspectors from the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) reported that staff had “serious concerns about the long periods that prisoners were confined to their cells and how this would affect their wellbeing, and cause boredom, low mood and sleep inversion”.