NEWS RELEASE

Commenting today on the report from HM Chief Inspector of Prisons Juliet Lyon, Director, Prison Reform Trust, said:

This report from Anne Owers of an unannounced inspection of HMP Pentonville reveals the stark reality of life in an overcrowded Victorian local prison. It describes a filthy, vermin-infested jail, where even a prisoner’s basic requirements of a pillow, toothbrush or cooked meal cannot be guaranteed. Many felt unsafe and use of force by staff was high. Inactivity, victimization and illegal drugs are rife. The Pentonville of this report would be more in place in Hogarth’s Gin Lane than Islington today.

This impoverished, chaotic prison is clearly not fit for purpose. For many people time spent in Pentonville will be a brutalizing, damaging experience that does nothing to contribute to public safety. The Home Secretary must now decide whether Pentonville can be hauled into the twenty first century or if he should cut his losses and use this as an opportunity to sell up and divert funding into bail provision, mental health, drug and alcohol treatment and more effective community penalties for petty offenders.

NOTES FOR EDITORS:

1. The prison population on 22 September was 79,285. A year earlier it was 76,950, a rise of well over 2,000.

2.    Eighty eight out of 142 prisons are now over the Prison Service’s Certified Normal Accommodation: “the good, decent standard of accommodation that the Service aspires to provide all prisoners”.

3.    Eighteen jails across England and Wales have been forced beyond their operational capacity - “the total number of prisoners that an establishment can hold without serious risk to good order, security and the proper running of the planned regime”.