PRT comment: HMP Wandsworth

Commenting on the findings of conditions at HMP Wandsworth by HM Inspectorate of Prisons today (6 January), Peter Dawson, director of the Prison Reform Trust said:

“In 2016, this government announced the ‘biggest shakeup of prisons since Victorian times, as first six reform prisons named, including one of Europe’s largest prisons, HMP Wandsworth’. Five years on, the chief inspector describes that prison as ‘crumbling, overcrowded, vermin-infested’. The human cost of that failure is seven suicides in less than two years. And now the governor, praised by the inspector for his leadership, must prepare for 300 more prisoners to be crammed into his already grossly overcrowded prison.

“There is little point the government making ever more ambitious statements about prison reform when the reality on the ground is so disgraceful. It’s time to stop promising and start delivering.”