Headline findings

The report finds a system in crisis, with the safety and security of prisons at risk and HM Prison and Probation Service’s (HMPPS) ability to rehabilitate offenders hampered. The adult male prison estate, at as high as 99.7% occupancy between October ’22 and August ’24, is alarmingly full. HMPPS says it can’t run the estate efficiently at over 95% occupancy. The PAC’s inquiry found that around a quarter of prisoners are sharing cells designed for one person, often with an open toilet. Violence is increasing, with fights between prisoners up by 14%, and attacks on staff up by 19% at September ’24.  

Evidence to the inquiry also showed that the crisis puts barriers in the way of prisoners accessing overstretched education and drug treatment services – both essential to rehabilitation. The PAC also heard that the strain some prisons are under means that prisoners do not always receive required health assessments or safety interviews. This creates significant risks around self-harm and pre-existing health issues.  

To prevent it running out of prison places early next year, HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) is relying entirely on uncertain future changes to how sentencing works. These will be laid out in the Sentencing Review in late spring, with HMPPS further assuming any required changes in the law could be introduced very quickly. The position is worsened by fire safety problems. HMPPS has committed to taking non-fire safe cells out of use by 2027 – around 23,000 cells did not meet safety standards at March 2024.  

Bringing the prison estate into a fair condition will cost an estimated £2.8bn, and will also require headroom in capacity. The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has only received £520m in maintenance funding over the next two years. The PAC has asked MoJ to outline its plans to address the prison estate crisis within two months of the Sentencing Review’s publication.  

Conclusions 

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, Chair of the Committee, summarised the report’s findings:

“This Committee recognises and respects the extraordinary work carried out by prison staff. This work is often done in the most difficult circumstances, even when the system is working at optimal efficiency. But our inquiry has established that severely overcrowded prisons are in danger of becoming pressure cookers. Vital rehabilitative work providing purposeful activity including retraining would help to cut high rates of reoffending – but this work is sidelined as staff are forced to focus on maintaining control of increasingly unsafe environments. Many prisoners themselves are living in simply inhumane conditions, with their health needs often overlooked.” 

Recommendations

The report describes the MoJ as “a Department grappling with the fallout of problems it should have predicted, while awaiting the judgment of an external review before taking any truly radical corrective action”. It makes a number of recommendations, including requiring MoJ & HMPPS to :

• Formally set out what they have learnt from the failures of the prison building programme to date and how that learning will ensure the success of the remainder of the programme.
• Report on how they will monitor the risks around planning permission for new prisons.
• Produce a business case on addressing the maintenance backlog much more quickly.
• Write to the Committee within two months of the publication of the Sentencing Review (expected imminently) to set out:
  • how it plans to improve the rehabilitative environment in prison, for example, by reducing crowding.
    b. what additional funding it requires to increase probation capacity and provision of community support, including substance misuse treatment.
    c. how it will evaluate the impacts of any future changes to probation and community sentencing on reoffending rates.

Thanks to Andy Aitchison for kind permission to use the header image in this post. You can see Andy’s work here