Official inspectors found ‘chaos on the wings’ at Wandsworth Prison in south London, according to HM Inspectorate of Prisons. According to their report, ‘staff across most units were unable to confirm where all their prisoners were during the working day’. The prison had ‘no reliable roll check that could assure leaders that all prisoners were accounted for’.
Charlie Taylor, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, said: “The level of chaos we found at Wandsworth was deeply shocking. The prison population crisis has undoubtedly compounded the pressures on the jail, but the appalling conditions at Wandsworth did not appear overnight and are the result of sustained decline permitted to happen in plain view of leaders in the jail, HMPPS and the MoJ whose own systems clearly identified the prison as struggling.
“There was a degree of despondency amongst prisoners at Wandsworth that I have not come across in my time as Chief Inspector. Many well-meaning and hard-working leaders and staff persevered at Wandsworth, but they were often fighting against a tide of cross-cutting, intractable problems that require comprehensive, long-term solutions. This will not be a quick fix. For this troubled prison to begin to recover, Wandsworth needs permanent experienced leaders at all levels who are invested in the long-term future of the prison to improve security, safety and guide their less experienced colleagues. We will be watching closely to see whether this is the case.”
In a foreword, he pointed to ‘systemic and cultural failures’. The unannounced inspection, according to a report, found Wandsworth ‘still reeling from a very high-profile escape that occurred in late 2023’. Security remained a ‘significant concern’, inspectors said, ‘although failings were evident in almost all aspects of the prison’s operation, a fact reflected in our healthy prison test scores which were poor for safety, respect and purposeful activity and not sufficiently good in preparation for release.’
Since the escape, HM Prison Service had invested almost £900,000 extra on safety and security. Despite this, leaders ‘had not got the basics of security right’, according to the report. The prison had seen five security managers in the 18 months before the inspection, ‘which contributed to a lack of consistency’.
In a survey by inspectors, most prisoners said they had felt unsafe at Wandsworth. Half (51 per cent) of prisoners surveyed said it was easy to get illicit drugs, ‘and the smell of cannabis was everywhere’. Although leaders had identified this issue as presenting the highest level of security risk, they had suspended drug testing between August 2023 and January 2024, the inspectors reported. They described the prison’s strategy to reduce the supply of, and demand for, drugs as ‘failing’.
Going into more detail, as on a visit in 2021, inspectors found security fencing around the segregation unit ‘still strewn with prisoner clothing and bed sheets’. Before the escape, security procedures had been ‘neglected’; a plan after a 2019 escape wasn’t completed or reviewed.
At the time of the inspection in April to May 2, the prison held 1,521 men, while the ‘baseline operational capacity’ of Wandsworth is 979 men. As a result of the inspection, the inspectorate issued an ‘Urgent Notification‘, partly due to ‘significant weaknesses’ in security.
