PRT comment: HM Chief Inspector of Prisons’ Annual Report

Commenting on the findings of today’s (10 September) Annual Report by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons Pia Sinha, chief executive of the Prison Reform Trust, said:

“Today’s shocking report by the chief inspector shows the scale of the challenge facing new ministers as they seek to arrest the decline in our jails. We cannot continue to warehouse people in these conditions and expect that things will be better when they’re released. Building safer communities depends on prisons having the resources and political support to provide opportunities for people to get the help they need. That means time spent in education, training and work, rather than sharing an overcrowded cell for 23 hours a day; getting treatment for addiction, rather than developing a new one; and improving access to mental healthcare, rather than accepting the avoidable high levels of self-harm and deaths in our prisons.”