PRT comment: HMP Eastwood Park

Commenting on the findings of conditions at HMP/YOI Eastwood Park by HM Inspectorate of Prisons today Peter Dawson, director of the Prison Reform Trust said:

“One fact from this distressing report leaps out from the page — 83% of the women locked up in this prison built for young men had mental health problems, all against a pervasive background of homelessness and substance misuse. The chief inspector can only report about the terrible conditions some of them were experiencing in an understaffed prison. But there must surely be a question for the government about why we continue to allow prison to be the place where all these problems have to be addressed. The money that the government is making available for better community services is welcome, but dwarfed by what it plans to spend building an additional 500 prison places for women. That’s not just a foolish way to spend public money, but a cruelty to the women the system will continue to fail.”