HMP & YOI Eastwood Park – some safety concerns

Eastwood Park had made good progress, but needed a renewed focus on safety, said Nick Hardwick, Chief Inspector of Prisons, publishing the report of an unannounced short follow-up inspection of the Gloucestershire local women’s jail.

HMP & YOI Eastwood Park serves the courts of the South West, Wales, the West Midlands and some London courts. It holds a complex and vulnerable population including women, young adults and mothers and babies. Many women are a significant distance from their homes which impacts on the levels of support available from families and professionals and increases their feelings of isolation. The average length of stay for most women is 29 days. It is therefore a significant task for the prison to assess women arriving with high levels of need, often severe drug and mental health problems, and respond effectively in the early days of custody to ensure their safety.

This inspection found the prison was making sufficient progress in three of the four areas – respect, purposeful activity and resettlement, but a renewed focus was needed on safety.

Inspectors were pleased to find that:

  • the prison had opened a detoxification and maintenance unit and services to drug users in the unit were good;
  • there was little indication that bullying was a major problem and women said they felt safe;
  • women described relationships with most staff as supportive and respectful;
  • good progress was being made to improve health care;
  • shorter courses had been introduced which were more appropriate to prisoners’ length of stay, and retention and achievement rates had improved; and
  • around 70% of recommendations in resettlement had been achieved in whole or in part, although offender management still required improvement.

However, inspectors were concerned to find that:

  • reception procedures focused too much on information-giving rather than listening to prisoners’ immediate needs and more could be done once women were on their first night unit, rather than in reception;
  • there had been no self-inflicted deaths since the last inspection, but some previously good support services for women at risk of self-harm had been lost with a reduction in psychology services;
  • young adults were now integrated with other prisoners and their specific needs were not identified and addressed in a number of areas;
  • some shared cells were very small, meaning  some women had to eat meals sitting on bunks next to an unscreened toilet;
  • the lack of custody plans for remanded or short-sentenced women was a serious omission; and
  • as so many women were held a long way from their homes, the poor facilities for visitors needed significant improvement.

Nick Hardwick said:
‘A short follow-up inspection such as this focuses on the progress the prison has made in implementing recommendations made at the last inspection, and does not provide a complete picture. Nevertheless, despite some good progress in many areas, it is a real concern that the prison was making insufficient progress on safety. Eastwood Park holds an exceptionally transient population of women with high levels of need. The loss of counselling, psychology and crisis interventions is therefore particularly regrettable. The new governor must move quickly to address the lack of progress on safety this report identifies.’

Michael Spurr, Chief Executive Officer of the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), said:

‘I am pleased that the Chief Inspector records progress in three of the four healthy prison tests. We are committed to managing prisoners safely and the Governor will ensure that the areas of concern identified in the report are properly addressed.’

Notes to Editors:

  1. Read a copy of the report. (312 kB)
  2. HM Inspectorate of Prisons is an independent inspectorate, inspecting places of detention to report on conditions and treatment, and promote positive outcomes for those detained and the public.
  3. This unannounced short follow-up inspection was carried out from 21-23 February 2012. Short follow-up inspections focus on recommendations made at the last full inspection and so do not provide an assessment of the prison as a whole.
  4. HMP & YOI Eastwood Park is a local/remand women’s prison for adults, young adults and girls of 17. A small unit for 17-year-old girls, the Mary Carpenter Unit, was inspected separately and not included as part of this inspection.
  5. Please contact Jane Parsons in HMI Prisons Press Office on 0207 035 2123 or 07880 787452 if you would like more information or to request an interview with Nick Hardwick.