This Annual Report, the first from Chief Inspector Charlie Taylor, covers a year of the COVID-19 pandemic. HMI Prisons was able to report on life in detention in this unprecedented period, Mr Taylor said, “because we were determined, in the early weeks of the pandemic, to find a safe way to enter and inspect places of detention.”

Mr Taylor warns that some longstanding problems remained as daily regimes have eased in the post-COVID-19 period. These included not only violence, drugs and self-harm but also inconsistency in delivering purposeful activity and rehabilitation.

Read the 2020-21 Annual Report (7 MB)