HMP Rye Hill’s long term commitment to meaningful outcomes paying off

In its 2023-24 annual report, published today (13 September 2024), the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) for HMP Rye Hill has found that the priority given to building a long-term community amongst prisoners has enabled the prison to continue the progress made over recent years and improve outcomes for prisoners.

The IMB notes that:

• Many additional enrichment and education events were organised each month to support a sense of community. These were organised by prisoner-led committees and recorded and broadcast by the prisoner-run media hub.
• The ‘making sense of a longer sentence’ initiative has been rolled out to all prisoners. This programme involves keyworkers supporting prisoners to understand where they are within their sentence and helping them collate evidence portfolios of their progression.
• 90% of prisoners across the establishment were employed, and attendance / successful completion rates in education were above target.

However, the Board remains concerned that:

• There was no centrally directed, long-term solution for prisoners serving imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentences. These sentences have lasting impact on prisoners’ mental health and wellbeing.
• The accelerated time frame for the opening of the new building and subsequent migration to an all-category C establishment means some prisoners will need to be relocated. This could cause distress to some more complex category B prisoners.
• Incidents of self-harm rose by 40% during the reporting year, although this related to a relatively small number of people and effective steps were taken to reduce the severity of these incidents.

Rye Hill IMB Chair, Pete Griffiths said:

“Despite significant internal and external challenges, the whole prison community is committed to changing lives for the better. The Board is pleased that through the  ‘making sense of a longer sentence’ initiative, the prison empowers men to create evidence packs to record their progression, enabling them to see the positive consequences of their decisions and actions over the course of their sentence.

Monitoring in the coming reporting period will focus on the support provided to category B prisoners to help them progress before it becomes necessary for them to move to a new establishment.”