Independent Monitoring Board highlights significant concerns across places of detention in 2023 National Annual Report

In her first year as National Chair of the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB), Elisabeth Davies brings together the findings of IMBs across both the prison and immigration detention estates in the 2023 IMB National Annual Report, published today (22 May 2024).

You can find out more in the associated press releases on the prison estate and the immigration detention estate.

IMB National Chair, Elisabeth Davies said

“As the eyes and ears of the public, the value of local IMBs monitoring places of detention is clear. During 2023, over 37,700 visits were carried out by 132 IMBs. Yet over recent years their concerns have often gone unaddressed, with Boards posing the same questions over and over again to ministers. IMBs in prisons have been providing direct evidence to ministers on where change needs to occur for prisons to provide effective rehabilitation and, in turn, protect the public, something they are currently failing to do. Existing capacity and crowding pressures are forecast to increase and will only exacerbate the concerns highlighted in our 2023 National Annual Report.

In the immigration detention estate, it is shocking that Home Office policy continues to deny some detained people of their prescription medication, and that we continue to see vulnerable individuals detained, despite the processes in place intended to prevent this.

It is time that ministers saw the value of the IMB members they have appointed and start listening to what is being reported to them from prisons and immigration detention facilities across the United Kingdom.”