Prison inspectors have put HMP Woodhill into special measures under an ‘Urgent Notification’ after an inspection in early March. Meanwhile, Swaleside has become the third prison in the long-term high security estate (LTHSE) to be issued with an Urgent Notification; besides Manchester and Woodhill.
HM Chief Inspector of Prisons Charlie Taylor said: “The LTHSE holds dangerous offenders serving very long sentences. Category B training prisons should play a vital role in working with these men to reduce their risk to the public when they get out. Instead, men are languishing in their cells and criminal behaviour is going unchecked by often inexperienced officers, the dealing and use of drugs is rife and there are frightening levels of violence, including some very serious assaults on both prisoners and staff.”
Swaleside, a category B training prison on the Isle of Sheppey, was ‘a prison in disarray’, according to inspectors. Due to ‘chronic’ lack of staff, ‘enhanced gate security to prevent the ingress of contraband was inconsistent’. As for staff, some ‘appeared to have become disassociated from the chaos around them. Amongst staff and prisoners, the constant fear of violence had a corrosive effect on many aspects of prison life’. In the name of safety, Swaleside had curtailed prisonersโ time out of cell temporarily, which frustrated prisoners.
Drugs and violence
As for violence, the report stated that ‘work to understand and manage potential gang conflicts was inadequate’. Oorganised crime group members fuelled the prison’s illicit economy. Inspectors heard that perhaps half of prisoners were taking drugs, more than according to testing, ‘because many prisoners refused testing’. Drones remained the main route for smuggling drugs and weapons. Plans to replace windows and grilles and install anti-drone wire had been agreed; although no date had been set.
Maidstone
Meanwhile, availability of illicit drugs at Maidstone Prison and the weakness of security infrastructure to challenge this is ‘a significant operational challenge’ according to an official inspection report. Among the ‘priority concerns’ raised by the inspectors were weaknesses in physical and procedural security, such as insufficient gate security and minimal CCTV coverage, which ‘provided the opportunity for the entry and use of illicit drugs’. Inspectors saw open rule-breaking ‘and even witnessed prisoners pushing through searching lines of officers’. National resources were sent, including dogs ‘to try to restore order’.
As found elsewhere in UK prisons, inspectors found ‘prevalence of drugs, especially cannabis, and mobile phones’. They reported: “Whilst we sensed some staff saw these problems as almost incidental in an otherwise settled prison, senior leaders quite rightly did not, and were determined to bear down on them through security measures, for example, an experienced senior leader had recently been appointed to lead on drug strategy.”
About HMP Maidstone
Maidstone, in the county town of Kent, is one of three jails in the country that specialises in housing foreign national prisoners. Many of the men held were nearing the end of their sentence, and likely to be removed from the UK. Echoing what’s been said about other prisons, Charlie Taylor pointed to ‘the poor condition of much of the estate’ at Maidstone, built in the 19th century; such as ‘obsolete windows’, making some parts ‘barely fit for purpose’, according to the inspectors.
Drugs
While the positive random drug test rate was high at 27 per cent for the year so far –ย the (unannounced) inspection was in December 2025 – only a third of drug tests requested as a result of intelligence had been carried out, ‘through lack of staff availability’. The inspectors found that the security department generally functioned well, processing and acting promptly on a daily flow of intelligence. In the previous 12 months, 83 per cent of requested cell searches had been completed within five days and had yielded many finds, including over 200 mobile phones.
Drones
As at other prisons, drone incursions (to deliver contraband) were described as a ‘growing problem’. The security team had done more searching, with support from regional HMPPS [Prison Service] teams and the police, ‘but the programme to replace vulnerable windows had been delayed’.
HMP Parc
Meanwhile the Welsh Affairs Committee of MPs reported on HMP Parc, a privately-run (by G4S since opening in 1997) prison in south Wales, built under the Private Finance Initiative (PFI). MPs noted that in April 2025, HM Inspectorate of Prisons published ‘a highly critical inspection report relating to an unannounced inspection of the prison in January 2025’. Inspectors cited problems including ‘high levels of violence, high availability of illicit drugs and high rates of drug use, high levels of self-harm, under-resourced mental health and substance misuse services, and inadequate staffing’. The deadline on a ‘window replacement programme to tackle the ingress of drugs via drones’ was last year put back to October 2026. MPs complained of a lack of urgency.
Photo by Mark Rowe: Maidstone Prison perimeter wall.
