Inspector lays bare grim state of Wales’ deteriorating jails

The Chief Inspector of Prisons has laid bare his concerns about overcrowding, safety and drug use in Welsh jails.

Peter Clarke told MPs of how there had been “some deterioration” in the quality of prisons and gave a scathing account of how HMP Swansea had failed to make recommended improvements.

Describing its response as “particularly poor”, he said: “I think it was probably the worst I’ve seen anywhere.”

Mr Clarke also warned of “slight deterioration” at HMP Cardiff and HM Prison Parc in Bridgend.

All three prisons suffered from overcrowding but he said Swansea was the “most extreme”.

Figures for December show that the prisons had more inmates than the “certified normal accommodation” (CNA) levels.

Swansea has a baseline CNA of 268 inmates but housed 411. Cardiff had 706 inmates instead of 539, and Parc had 1,736 despite a normal level of 1,559.

Mr Clarke made the case that poor conditions make it more likely people will use drugs.

He told the Welsh Affairs Committee: “[If ] people are confined in their cells for inordinate lengths of time, what do they do to pass the time? Sadly, all too often, they turn to drugs, and that’s certainly an issue at Swansea, where 40% of the prisoners there told us that it was easy or very easy to get drugs...

“Seventeen per cent of prisoners at Swansea told us that they had actually acquired a drug habit since being in the prison. So that gives an indication of the sorts of things that people will turn to when conditions are poor.”

In prisons across Wales and England, he warned, prisoners are rarely out of their cells for the recommended length of time.

He said: “There is no argument for people being held 22 hours a day in their cell... Our expectation is very clear that every prisoner should have at least 10 hours per day out of cell.

“Sadly, we find that that is rarely the case... In recent years the lack of staff has contributed to it.”

Mr Clarke described prisoners being kept in conditions that are not “decent”.

He said: “When two people are kept in a cell which has an unscreened lavatory and they have to eat all of their meals in there and the lavatory is inches from the bed where they have to eat their meals, that from my perspective is not decent.”

The Chief Inspector also voiced concern about people with opiate problems coming from England to prisons in Wales.

He said: “In England they would be given opiate substitutes such as methadone. In Wales they’re not unless they are on prescription.

“And so there’s a disparity in what they would expect and there are risks because what we’re told is if you only treat the symptom and don’t put in the substitution with psychosocial interventions there is a risk of you increasing the demand for illicit drugs and also reducing the patient’s resistance if and when they gain access to illicit drugs in the future, so there is a greater risk of overdose.”

A Prison Service spokesman said: “HMP Swansea has taken significant steps to improve safety and reduce selfharm and substance misuse, including through new educational and support mechanisms which use family relationships to assist in changing behaviours.

“A new senior operational manager has also been recruited to focus on safety, and enhanced suicide and self-harm prevention training is being given to staff to increase support for vulnerable prisoners.

“We know more must be done, though, and the prison continues to work to implement the recommendations of the Inspectorate.”