PRT comment: HMP Wandsworth

Commenting on today’s HM Inspectorate of Prisons report on HMP Wandsworth, Peter Dawson, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said:

“For decades Wandsworth prison has looked after the very short stay prisoners — many of them unconvicted — that ministers now recognise should not be in prison at all. That does not excuse the terrible conditions which the Chief Inspector describes, but it does show where the solution lies. The government must turn its aspiration to make prison a last resort into reality.

“In the meantime, there is no choice but to invest in the people and physical environment that this report shows are urgently needed. No-one—least of all people still waiting to be tried—should be expected to live in such dismal and dangerous surroundings.”