HMI Prisons report on inspection of HMP Wealstun: Ready availability of drugs undermining good work
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HMP Wealstun, a men’s training and resettlement prison in West
Yorkshire, presented a contrasting picture of good work undermined
by significant weaknesses, particularly the failure to tackle
drugs. The prison – which holds 820 men, including many short-stay
prisoners and a third under the age of 30 – was last inspected in
2015, when inspectors found it to be good or reasonably good in all
four of HM Inspectorate’s healthy prison tests. Peter Clarke, HM
Chief Inspector of...Request free trial
HMP Wealstun, a men’s training and resettlement prison in West
Yorkshire, presented a contrasting picture of good work undermined
by significant weaknesses, particularly the failure to tackle
drugs.
The prison – which holds 820 men, including many short-stay prisoners and a third under the age of 30 – was last inspected in 2015, when inspectors found it to be good or reasonably good in all four of HM Inspectorate’s healthy prison tests. Peter Clarke, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, said the inspection in October 2019 “showed there had been a decline in safety and purposeful activity, in which we found that outcomes were now insufficiently good.” By contrast, Wealstun was again assessed as good, the highest grade, for respect and its rehabilitation and release work was again reasonably good. Mr Clarke said: “The ready availability of illicit drugs undermined much of what the prison was trying to achieve… 69% of prisoners told us it was easy to obtain drugs, and nearly a quarter of all prisoners said they had acquired a drug habit since entering the jail – a remarkable figure given the short time that many prisoners stayed there.” The report noted that psychoactive substances (PS) remained a serious problem and 200 of the 211 ambulance call-outs to the prison in the six months before the inspection were PS-related. Wealstun was part of the ’10 Prison Project’ set up in August 2018 by the Prisons Minister Rory Stewart, eventually getting a body scanner and other technology to keep drugs out. Mr Clarke added: “We were told that although the project had been set up in August 2018, support at a local level had not materialised until March 2019, and it could well be that the longer-term benefits of the project have yet to be felt.” The positive impact of technology and physical security improvements was compromised by the lack of an effective drugs strategy. “Until such time as there is a comprehensive action plan in place, that not only requires an effective response to intelligence but is also proactive in seeking out incoming supply routes, the harms caused by the ready availability of drugs will not be reduced,” Mr Clarke added. Levels of self-harm had increased six-fold since the last inspection. Mr Clarke commented that until the prison analysed what sat behind the huge increase “it will not be possible to know whether the excessive amount of time that prisoners spent locked in their cells was a contributory factor or not. For a training prison such as Wealstun to have 28% of prisoners locked in their cells during the working day, as we found during this inspection, was simply counter-productive and unacceptable.” Far too many prisoners failed to attend their allocated activity, though those who did attend generally had a positive attitude to learning and work. Though rehabilitation and release work was overall reasonably good, inspectors found weaknesses in the assessment of prisoners’ progress and public protection measures. Overall, however, Mr Clarke stressed that there had been much that was good at Wealstun, adding: “I have deliberately focused on a number of key weaknesses, because they inevitably undermined much of the very good work that was being carried out at Wealstun. The relationships between staff and prisoners were generally very good, although at times we did see poor behaviour going unchallenged. Healthcare was good, and in many cases living conditions had improved considerably. Overall, we judged that outcomes in our respect test were good, our highest grade, and that is to the credit of the establishment, given the challenges they face in so many areas. I have little doubt that if the key areas of illicit drug supply and failure to assess risks were to be addressed, Wealstun could recover from the decline in grades since the last inspection, and indeed move on to better serve the needs of its prisoners.” Phil Copple, HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) Director General for Prisons, said: “The Governor and her team are working hard to address the issue of drugs at HMP Wealstun. The new X-ray scanner is bolstering security, and the prison is working closely with the police to catch those responsible. Since piloting PAVA, we have improved procedures for its use and improved staff training both locally and as part of the national roll-out. More staff have enabled a fuller regime, giving prisoners greater access to work and education programmes.” END -
Notes to editors |