HMP Wandsworth – A failing prison says the Independent Monitoring Board

The Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) at HMP Wandsworth today (22 August 2024) publishes its 2023-24 annual report. This was another very difficult year, with prison management again constrained by staff absence and hindered by underfunding and lack of support from the prison service. Acceptable levels of decency were not met and exercise, education and meaningful activities were curtailed. For much of the reporting year, men had to choose between exercise, showering, or other housekeeping during the brief periods each day when they were allowed out of their cells.

The IMB notes:

• The prison was not safe – there were close to one thousand assaults either between prisoners or on staff. Additionally, levels of self-harm were an increasing problem, with 998 incidents across the reporting year.
  
• Access to contraband remained alarmingly easy with cell searches often finding phones, drugs, improvised weapons and illicit alcohol.

• Living conditions remained inhumane – most of the men continued to share cramped, squalid cells, built in 1851 for single occupancy, with broken furniture, insufficient kit and appalling shower facilities.

• The shortage of experienced staff (nearly half had less than a year in the job) undermined attempts to make the prison run effectively. Furthermore, staff absence often reached 50%, resulting in an already much reduced regime being curtailed at short notice.

IMB Chair, Matthew Andrews said:

“For HMP Wandsworth and the men whose treatment we monitor, this year has been as bad as any in our memory and, by many measures, worse. The recently released report from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons was highly critical but said little that surprised us. Many of the same issues had been raised in previous IMB annual reports and ignored by the Ministry of Justice”.