Walton Prison Critisised As 'Dirty And Overcrowded'

Despite pockets of good work, HMP Liverpool had deteriorated, said Nick Hardwick, Chief Inspector of Prisons.

Today he published the report of an unannounced inspection of the local prison in Merseyside.

HMP Liverpool is an old, inner-city prison which was last inspected in late 2013. Inspectors then described a well-led prison doing a reasonable job despite the very great challenges of working in a 19th-century infrastructure and managing the risks and complexities of its population. Liverpool remains a tough prison to run successfully and this more recent inspection found that outcomes were not sufficiently good across all four tests: safety, respect, purposeful activity and resettlement. The very poor quality of the environment remains a fundamental challenge.

Inspectors were concerned to find that:

· Outside areas had litter strewn on the ground and the accommodation was dirty, overcrowded and poorly equipped;

· the quality of health provision had deteriorated dramatically during 2014 and was now the subject of interventions by the commissioners, the prison and a new primary care provider;

· newly arrived prisoners were received well, but overcrowding meant that some did not make it to the first night centre and could therefore miss out on vital assessments;

· although levels of violence were lower than at comparable prisons, there had been a worrying three-fold increase in the number of assaults on staff;

· nearly half of prisoners thought it was easy to get drugs in the prison and random testing suggested illicit drug usage was comparatively high;

· disciplinary procedures were applied proportionately, but the use of force was nearly double that seen at similar prisons and oversight and accountability was weak;

· there had been 10 deaths in the 14 months prior to the inspection, three of which were self-inflicted, and although the prison was addressing recommendations from the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, the quality of case management for those at risk of self-harm was inconsistent;

· the prison’s daily routine was chaotic and unpredictable and too many prisoners (44%) were locked in their cells during the working day; and

· co-ordination between offender management work and the new community rehabilitation company was very new and half of eligible prisoners did not have an offender supervisor.

However, inspectors were pleased to find that:

• the prison was working on some good initiatives to tackle violence, including some useful joint work with police to tackle gang culture; - security measures were proportionate; - the range and quality of education was good and although too few prisoners completed their courses, success rates among those who did were high; and - outcomes across various resettlement pathways – notably accommodation and support for children and families – were reasonable.

Nick Hardwick said:

“Throughout this report we have noted a series of backward steps. The prison has many longstanding problems to deal with and we acknowledge that urgent issues concerning health and to an extent, the numbers of deaths in custody, were being addressed. We did not think that HMP Liverpool was a fundamentally poor prison and we saw pockets of really good work. Managers and staff needed, however, to get a better grip on issues – such as providing enough space on the first night centre; better supervision of force, sorting out the chaos that was the daily routine so that prisoners could properly access what was otherwise a reasonable provision of activity; and a determined effort to clean the place up – and focus on outcomes and delivery. We have made a number of recommendations that we hope will aid this process.” Michael Spurr, Chief Executive of the National Offender Management Service, said:

"The Governor and staff at Liverpool are determined to improve the prison and action is already being taken to address the recommendations made in this report.

"We are working closely with Lancashire Care NHS Trust to improve the healthcare provision. More prisoners are out of their cells in work, training or education, and a range of initiatives are also in hand to reduce violence and tackle drug supply.

"The Victorian environment is challenging but as the Chief Inspector makes clear - Liverpool is 'not a fundamentally poor prison' and I'm confident the action being taken will deliver real progress over the coming months".

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