A Labour MP labelled Wormwood Scrubs prison as “not conducive for the rehabilitation of prisoners” in Parliament last week, as part of a debate on His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service.
Hammersmith MP Andy Slaughter described his constituency’s prison as an “unsuitable institution in the 21st century, particularly for the rehabilitation, or indeed the punishment, of offenders.”
The 62 year-old claimed it has remained a struggling institution for the 30 years he has worked in and represented the area.
Making a visit to Wormwood Scrubs, Slaughter claims he observed prisoners spending as much as 23 hours a day in their cells with no purposeful activity available to them.
He also took issue with the Ministry of Justice (MOJ)’s failure to keep record of prisoners out-of-cell time.
Slaughter said: “How does the MOJ hope to have an overview of the wellbeing of the prison population in its care if it does not know what each prison’s time-out-of-cell regime is?”
The MP also claimed that despite Wormwood operating above capacity, with 10% of inmates being forced to share single occupancy spaces, according to government data, the governor was asked to increase operational capacity.
Overcrowding can increase rates of violence and self harm in prisons.
Moreover, in its annual report His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons found that out of 36 prisons visited only one prison’s ‘rehabilitation and release planning outcomes’ system was considered ‘good’ with 21 others awarded either ‘not sufficiently good’ or ‘poor.’
In addition, 64% of previous recommendations made to prisons concerning rehabilitation and release had not been achieved, with a further 10% only partially achieved.
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “While HMP Wormwood Scrubs remains safely within capacity, we are delivering 20,000 extra prison places – the biggest expansion in over a century – to make sure we have the space needed to rehabilitate offenders, help cut crime and protect the public.
“At the same time, we are recruiting up to 5,000 more prison officers and creating a Prisoner Education Service to ensure offenders have the support and skills they need to turn away from crime for good.”
Featured image credit: Chmee2 via Wikimedia Commons under a CC BY-SA 3.0 licence
