HMP Durham, a 19th century prison in the centre of the city, was found to have improved in key areas of safety related to drugs and violence, which were highlighted by a troubling inspection in 2018.

Durham, a ‘reception’ prison with more than 100 new prisoners each week and a very high turnover, had been assessed in October 2018 as ‘poor’, the lowest grading, for safety.

Peter Clarke, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, said that in 2018 very high illicit drug use had fuelled debt and violence. The prison was immensely frustrated by the lack of modern technology available to them to help stem the flow of drugs into the prison. Several prisoners had committed suicide while at Durham in the two years before the 2018 inspection and there had been five suspected drug-related deaths in eight months. However, the prison’s response to Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO) recommendations after investigations into the deaths was weak.

At an independent review of progress (IRP) in July 2019, inspectors found reasonable progress had been made in improving the initial safety checks on new prisoners – though the very large number of prisoners going through reception each day often made it difficult for staff to complete these checks thoroughly. The very recent introduction of checks on new prisoners throughout the first night was a positive step.

Levels of violence were similar to those at the 2018 inspection, but the proportion of serious incidents had reduced, which was positive.

Good progress had been made in tackling the supply of illicit drugs, with a body scanner now proving effective in deterring drug supply and finding illicit items. Mr Clarke said: “Many other steps had been taken or were in progress to reduce the supply of drugs, which was promising. Staff and prisoners… felt safer and our experience reflected this as we walked round the wings.”

However, three prisoners had committed suicide in the nine months before the IRP and inspectors found that “attention to reviewing the implementation of PPO recommendations from previous reports was still insufficient.” Mr Clarke said: “More multidisciplinary planning and working were required to safeguard prisoners in crisis who had complex personal needs or were repeatedly self-harming.”

Staff were assessed in 2019 as better able to establish appropriate boundaries and challenge poor behaviour and managers and leaders now gave appropriate oversight of the quality of education, skills and work.

On a more negative note, inspectors assessed that not enough progress had been made to tackle weaknesses in rehabilitation and release planning. Some improvements had been made to the allocation of cases, staff training and support, but the quality of offender management in the cases inspectors reviewed remained weak. This was particularly concerning, Mr Clarke said, “in the high-risk cases where we found no recorded evidence of release planning with the community offender manager.”

Overall, however, Mr Clarke said:

“The outcomes of this independent review were positive. Senior managers had taken the recommendations from our last inspection seriously. Evidence suggested that the prison was becoming safer. Making it more difficult for drugs and other illicit items to enter the prison was having the desired effect and the prison was now better controlled and supervised. However, weaknesses in the suicide and self-harm prevention measures remained a significant concern and required urgent attention. Durham needed to give priority to improving the quality of risk management planning if we are to be confident that the public are protected when prisoners presenting a risk of serious harm are released.”

– End –

Notes to editors

1. A copy of the full Independent Review of Progress report, published on 6 August 2019, can be found here.
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. HMP Durham dates from the early 19th century and is located close to the centre of the city. It had, since May 2017, been designated as a reception prison, taking large numbers of new receptions from a huge geographical area across the north-east and Cumbria, resulting in well over 100 receptions a week. The majority of prisoners were on remand, recalled or serving very short sentences which presented challenges similar to local prisons, including significant pressure on reception and work undertaken in the first few days of custody.
4. At this IRP visit, we followed up 10 of the 54 recommendations made at our most recent inspection and made judgements about the degree of progress achieved to date. Ofsted followed up three themes. We judged that there was good progress in three recommendations, reasonable progress in three recommendations and insufficient progress in four recommendations.
5. Read the full 2018 inspection report of HMP Durham here.
6. Independent Reviews of Progress (IRPs) are a new type of prison visit, which began in April 2019. They were developed because Ministers wanted an independent assessment of how far prisons had implemented HMI Prisons’ recommendations following particularly concerning prison inspections. IRPs are not inspections and do not result in new judgements against our healthy prison tests. Rather they judge progress being made against the key recommendations made at the previous inspection. The visits are announced and happen eight to 12 months after the original inspection. They last 2.5 days and involve a comparatively small team. Reports are published within 25 working days of the end of the visit. We conduct 15 to 20 IRPs each year. HM Chief Inspector of Prisons selects sites for IRPs based on previous healthy prison test assessments and a range of other factors. Find out more about IRPs here.
7. This IRP visit took place between 1 and 3 July 2019.
8. Please contact John Steele at HM Inspectorate of Prisons on 020 3334 0357 or 07880 787452, or at john.steele@justice.gov.uk, if you would like more information.