HMP Channings Wood – where staff are trying their best, but often it’s not enough

The Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) at HMP Channings Wood highlights in its 2022-23 annual report the detrimental effects of a prison system failing to cope. Despite a committed leadership and hard-working staff, failing infrastructure and a rising prison population hampers the provision of safe and decent conditions for prisoners and the prison’s ability to perform its function as a training and resettlement prison, preparing prisoners for release.

The Board is pleased to note that:

• the ‘Outside the Box’ unit was highlighted for its notable positive practice in the most recent HMIP inspection report and continues to provide an excellent service for prisoners with personality disorders.
• the prison received the annual Shannon Trust award for outstanding contribution to improving levels of prisoner literacy.
• members have observed the compassionate treatment of men requiring palliative care by staff and other prisoners through the peer-to peer support network.

However, the Board also reports that:

• the use of the segregation unit as a place to house prisoners with acute mental health conditions is not appropriate, and those awaiting transfer to secure hospital settings face long delays.
• education and training courses intended to help rehabilitate prisoners are often unable to operate at full capacity because of failing equipment and staff shortages, aggravated by increased demand due to overcrowding.
• the excessive time taken to carry out repairs to key buildings and equipment adversely affects living conditions for prisoners and access to many of the activities which help prepare them for release.

IMB Channings Wood Chair, Robert Jordan said:

“We regularly observe staff doing a difficult job to the best of their ability, but it is quite invidious to expect them to find local solutions to a host of challenges stemming from problems at the national level. These include underinvestment in a neglected prison estate, not helped by a frequently shuffled pack of mostly detached prisons ministers. Since I joined the IMB in 2018 there have been 10 in total. That surely shows the importance the government attaches to our prisons.”