28/07/2023
Police Oracle
More dreadful news today with the Chief Inspector of Prisons Charlie Taylor invoking the Urgent Notification process for HMP Bristol which he described as a prison with “apparently chronic and intractable problems”.
Urgent Notifications are the inspectorate’s last resort when a prison is, frankly, dangerous to live and conditions and very poor. They are used very rarely. There was only one issued in all of 2022 but this is the second to be issued in the last three months (HMP Cookham Wood was the last incidence). It is also the second time that an Urgent Notification has been invoked for HMP Bristol, the previous one was in June 2019.
The Urgent Notification Protocol requires the Secretary of State to respond in public within 28 days with plans to improve a prison where Mr Taylor has significant concerns over the treatment and conditions of prisoners.
Mr Taylor identifies no fewer than 10 reasons for invoking the protocol. Regular readers will be familiar with the main concerns which include under-staffing, prisoners locked up for most of the day and poor and inconsistent leadership. Tragically seven prisoners have taken their own lives in the last ten months.
The reasons in full are:
1. Bristol remained one of the most unsafe prisons in the country. The levels of recorded violence including serious assaults on both staff and prisoners were higher than most other adult prisons.
2. There had been 8 self-inflicted deaths since our last inspection and another suicide immediately after the inspection. This means that 7 prisoners have taken their lives in the last 10 months. One man had also recently been charged with murdering his cellmate.
3. In our survey, 46% of prisoners said it was easy to get drugs in the prison, and it was clear to see the physical effects of long-term drug misuse in the population.
4. The strategies employed to reduce these high levels of violence, self-harm and drug misuse had not been effective. leaders had failed to set high enough standards of behaviour, sanctions were ineffective, and prisoners were not being motivated to behave. Low-level poor behaviour often went unchallenged.
5. The prison was overcrowded, with almost half the prisoners living in double cells designed for one man. A significant minority were in single cells with no internal sanitation. Despite this, the capacity of the prison had been increased on several occasions since the last inspection.
6. The majority of prisoners were locked up for almost 22 hours a day. The proportion of men allocated to education, skills and work was too low and attendance was poor.
7. The health provision was not sufficient to meet the needs of prisoners many of whom were struggling with mental health problems. There were long delays in transferring the most unwell prisoners to secure hospitals and some of these acutely unwell men were being managed in segregated conditions.
8. There was no key work, and busy officers struggled to forge good relationships with prisoners to motivate them to make progress. Emergency cell bells were often left unanswered, a significant risk in a prison with so many self-inflicted deaths.
9. Leaders had neglected work to reduce reoffending or planning for future release. Work to support family ties had also deteriorated since the last inspection, and a quarter of prisoners left homeless on the day of release.
10. Many of the senior team were new to post which continued a pattern of instability in key roles. Leaders at all levels had consistently overestimated performance and did not have a firm grip of the many challenges facing the prison.
The Chief Inspector concludes by noting that, despite this litany of failure, there were many excellent, dedicated staff in the prison who were doing their best to provide a decent service to the men in their care.
Mr Taylor said: “It will take long-term concerted effort from leaders at the jail and from the prison service to make Bristol into a safe and decent prison.”