Prisons and immigration removal centres responded decisively to
keep prisoners, children and detainees safe from COVID-19,
according to Peter Clarke, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, in a
report on findings from visits to 35 establishments in the early
stages of the pandemic.
However, Mr Clarke warned that continued severe
regime restrictions in prisons - at times amounting effectively
to solitary confinement - have created “a real risk of
psychological decline among prisoners, which needs to be
addressed urgently.”
Publishing a review of short scrutiny visits
(SSVs) between April and July, Mr Clarke said: “The restrictions
imposed in March 2020 undoubtedly helped to prevent the spread of
the virus.
“While many of these limitations were extreme,
there was a high level of acceptance and cooperation among
prisoners, supported by generally good communication about the
reasons for such actions by most prison managers. For some weeks,
there was a sense of prisoners, children and staff ‘being in this
together’.”
However, as the Inspectorate’s SSV programme
progressed inspectors identified “increasing levels of stress and
frustration among many prisoners and evidence that prisoner
well-being was being increasingly affected by the continuation of
restrictions.
“Governors of individual establishments in the
public sector were unable to make local adjustments to their
regimes without permission from HM Prison and Probation (HMPPS)
Gold Command, which delayed relaxation of restrictions which had
already served their purpose in individual locations. This meant
that 16 weeks after the restrictions were imposed, most of them
were still in place.”
Children in public
sector custody lost face-to-face education and for some
exceptionally vulnerable individuals in women’s prisons, who
usually benefitted from a range of specialist support services
provided by external providers, the absence of these services was
extremely damaging.
“For these prisoners, the long hours of lock-up
were compounded by the sudden withdrawal of services on which
they depended, and self-harm among prisoners in prisons holding
women has remained consistently high throughout the lockdown
period.”
Mr Clarke noted the hard work over five months
by prison staff to provide decent conditions for those in their
care, “and for the most part they have been successful. Our SSV
reports highlighted much notable positive
practice.”
However, he added, “in some prisons, at certain
times, conditions fell below an acceptable minimum, particularly
in relation to time out of cell, time in the open air and
showers. For example, some quarantined, isolated or shielded
prisoners did not have access to time in the open air for a week
or more and did not have a daily shower.”
If there were to be a resurgence of the virus,
Mr Clarke said, “other means of controlling its spread that would
not carry such a high risk of causing long-term harm to those in
custody, and which would not risk them being held in conditions
that meet widely agreed definitions of solitary confinement,
should be explored.”
Overall, Mr Clarke said:
“In prisons, there is now a real risk of
psychological decline among prisoners, which needs to be
addressed urgently, so that prisoners, children and detainees do
not suffer long-term damage to their mental health and
well-being, and prisons can fulfil their rehabilitative goals. At
the time of writing, HMPPS are in the process of implementing
their recovery plan for prisons, which involves individual
establishments applying for permission to move to a new regime
stage and then implementing (when authorised to do so)
Exceptional Delivery Models (EDMs). This is all set out in the
National Framework for Prison Regimes and Services. This document
also makes clear that ‘progress will be slow and incremental, and
restrictions may need to be re-imposed in the event of local
outbreaks’. In light of the findings in this report, simply
re-imposing the restrictions that were necessarily applied in the
early stages of the outbreak would be too narrow an approach. We
have seen many prison leaders who are convinced that they could
have delivered more purposeful and more humane regimes without
compromising safety, and who are frustrated by the restrictive
approach they have been forced to take. Every establishment is
different. Local initiative, innovation and flexibility which
recognises those differences should surely be encouraged, and not
stifled.”
Notes to
editors
1. A copy of the full report, published on 19
August 2020, can be found on the HM Inspectorate of Prisons
website at: www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprisons/inspections/
2. HM Inspectorate of Prisons is an independent
inspectorate, inspecting places of detention to report on
conditions and treatment, and promote positive outcomes for those
detained and the public.
3. You can read about the development of short
scrutiny visits (SSVs) in response to the COVID-19 crisis on our
website: https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprisons/about-hmi-prisons/covid-19/short-scrutiny-visits/.
4. Between 21 April – 7 July 2020 we visited 31
prisons and young offender institutions and four immigration
removal centres. They are listed on pages 8 and 9 of the
report.
5. Notable positive practice identified in the
SSVs is available on our website: https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprisons/about-hmi-prisons/covid-19/short-scrutiny-visits/.
