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Wormwood Scrubs inspection

01 August 2002

On 6 September 2002, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, Anne Owers, reported on an unannounced inspection at HMP Wormwood Scrubs over a 10 day period in December 2001, following the appointment of a new governor and the jailing of prison officers following serious assaults on prisoners.
The report notes that inspectors found evidence of good and carefully supervised practice in the segregation unit (where the assaults had taken place) and no evidence of a culture of brutality towards prisoners. However, the inspectors note that "Wormwood Scrubs may have instituted systems which make prisoners safe from staff, but it had no effective systems to make them safe from one another or themselves." First night and induction procedures were entirely inadequate. Allegations of prisoner-to prisoner assaults had trebled since the last inspection. Nearly one in three prisoners reported that they felt unsafe sometimes, often or most of the time. Forty-four percent of recorded injuries to prisoners were as a result of self-harm; a further 34% resulted from fights and assaults. Health care was worse than on previous inspection - no clinical manager had been appointed; the condition of in-patient wards was described as appalling and patient regimes (particularly detoxification regimes) were entirely inadequate.
Purposeful activity had declined. In February 200 only 17% of prisoners reported that they were out of cells for less than 4 hours per day. On re-inspection the number had risen to 44%.