Inmates in a “crumbling, overcrowded, vermin-infested prison” in south London have told inspectors they have been forced to go for days – and sometimes weeks – without time in the open air.
One group of prisoners at HMP Wandsworth were described as walking “blinking into the sunlight” after spending more than a week indoors, officials found during an unannounced inspection in September.
The experience appears widespread in the Victorian-era prison – with nearly three quarters of inmates surveyed during the inspection saying they had been locked in their cells for more than 22 hours on weekdays in the run-up to the inspectors’ visit, rising to 91 per cent during weekends.
With some prisoners complaining of spending as little as 45 minutes out of their cell on some days, HM Inspectorate of Prisons warned “there were not enough staff to make sure prisoners received even the most basic regime”.
According to inspectors, this left inmates forced to choose between exercising, having a shower and using the electronic kiosks through which they are able to access vital services and information, including ordering food, requesting health appointments, and joining rehabilitation programmes.
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Despite the 170-year-old facility’s inmate population reducing by 300 in recent years, Wandsworth remains one of the most overcrowded prisons in England and Wales, inspectors said – with nearly three-quarters of the 1,364 prisoners in September doubling up in cells designed for one.
Only this reduction in the prison’s population, and steps taken by its “dynamic and experienced” governor, had prevented the jail from being overwhelmed by its many challenges, according to the inspectors’ report published on Thursday.
But HM chief inspector of prisons, Charlie Taylor, warned that a planned increase in prisoners, scheduled for April, threatens the “limited progress” made since the last inspection in 2018.
During this period, the prison has seen nine inmates take their own lives, and the rate of self-harm had doubled in the 12 months prior to the visit, although was among the lowest for the type of prison.
“The inpatient mental health unit, due to be refurbished, was not a fit place to care for seriously unwell patients,” Mr Taylor said, adding: “The infrastructure of the jail needed a lot of work: cells and landings were often tatty, some of the showers were awful and outside areas were strewn with rubbish.
And despite efforts to control vermin, there was still a major problem with rats, mice and pigeons, Mr Taylor warned.
But, according to the report, the problem in living conditions that prisoners felt most acutely was the lack of clean clothing and sheets, with only 45 per cent of inmates surveyed reporting normally having enough clean and suitable clothes for the week.
Violence at Wandsworth prison had been on an upward trend in the 12 months before the inspection, with assaults on staff much higher than in similar prisons.
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And Mr Taylor warned “the prison, education staff and, in particular, Home Office staff, were not doing enough to support” foreign inmates, who comprised around 45 per cent of the prison’s population.
With the prison serving Westminster Magistrate’s Court – where all European arrest warrant extradition hearings in England and Wales are heard – some 37 inmates were being held under immigration powers beyond the end of their sentence.
Noting that these prisoners should have been held instead in immigration removal centres or in the community, the report warned of a “growing backlog” of prisoners seeking asylum who were still waiting for their cases to be assessed, adding: “Detainees spent far too long in the prison with their cases unresolved.”
While local charity, BEST, had remained on-site during the coronavirus pandemic, doing “invaluable work in supporting foreign national prisoners” Home Office staff had “inexplicably” absented themselves from the prison for more than a year, the report said.
It added: “In the meantime, prison officers and other staff had to deal with the consequences of their inaction. Even since Home Office staff had returned, working what appeared to be limited hours, they were not running surgeries on the wing and prisoners were lucky if they got a phone call.”
Inspectors said essential resettlement and sentence progression work was unable to take place because prison offender managers were deployed on the wings to backfill staff absences.
The prison’s education block had sat unused since March 2020, inspectors found, adding that “most of the very limited” education provision for the “desperately bored” population at Wandsworth came in the form of work packs.
But Mr Taylor suggested that, as some of the concerns about the pandemic begin to reduce, prison leaders will have the opportunity to focus on developing longer-term plans for the jail, meaning some of inspectors’ more complex concerns could be addressed – including the disruption to prisoners’ daily regimes and their access to work and education, and the alleged failures in support for foreign inmates.
He concluded: “Leaders in this crumbling, overcrowded, vermin-infested prison will need considerable ongoing support from the prison service, notably with the recruitment and retention of staff, improving the infrastructure of the jail and making sure that external agencies such as the Home Office and the education provider pull their weight.
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“It is hard to see how HMP Wandsworth’s limited progress can be sustained if prisoner numbers in this jail are allowed to increase as they are scheduled to do next April.”
The Independent has approached the Home Office for comment.