A&E Attendances from Prisons Highlight Unmet Need and Health Inequality

#ThePrisonOracle The Lowdham Grange IRP published today follows the deeply troubling full inspection of March 2025, at which the Chief Inspector of Prisons found outcomes to be so poor for safety and respect, and not sufficiently good for purposeful activity and preparation for release — that serious consideration was given to issuing an Urgent Notification to the Secretary of State. The picture today is clearly materially better. - Drugs: Fewer prisoners are testing positive. The rate dropped from 41% to 25%. - Staffing: The prison is now fully staffed. New staff are getting support from experienced mentors. - Health care: A new provider is running health care better. Services are more consistent and safer. - Complaints: 87% are now answered on time. Forms are available on wings every day. - Adjudications: The backlog has nearly halved. The process is fairer and better run. - Segregation: Fewer people are being held there. Oversight has improved. - Resettlement: Two dedicated offender managers are now helping prisoners prepare for release. - Education: More prisoners are attending and completing activities. What still needs to improve? - Self-harm has gone up by 50% and is still rising. Serious incidents needing hospital treatment doubled from 46 to 94. This is worse than similar prisons. - Use of force has gone up by 79% since last year. The use of PAVA spray has nearly trebled. - Some prisoners with disabilities are still not getting enough support. - Showers in the segregation unit are still limited to once every two days. - Electronic kiosks on wings are unreliable, making it harder to submit applications. What Inspectors said: - the governor and managers had worked hard and made real improvements. But they also said there is still a long way to go, especially on self-harm and use of force. Full report and analysis on our News Desk https://prisons.org.uk #Prison #Inspection #Progress #Lowdham

New UCLA Anderson research finds that COVID-19 outbreaks inside prisons can extend far beyond prison walls. By analyzing smartphone location and disease-tracking data, researchers found that staff movements from San Quentin during a major 2020 outbreak were associated with increased COVID-19 transmission in surrounding communities. The findings highlight how public health decisions in correctional facilities can have far-reaching consequences for the broader population. #UCLAAnderson #Research #COVID19 #PublicHealth #DataAnalytics #HealthPolicy #CriminalJustice #SocialImpact https://lnkd.in/g8RGGiGW

Last week, Russell Webster published his review of the Dawes Trust – a funder that, over 15 years, invested more than £28 million in research and frontline delivery across the criminal justice sector. As the Trust winds down, we wanted to reflect on what its backing made possible at Catch22. The Dawes Trust funded our Dawes Unit: a specialist team that brought together research, policy and frontline practice to reduce the harm caused by gangs and youth violence. That investment reached young people directly – through pilot programmes in Wolverhampton and Bristol, and prevention work delivered in schools. But the impact didn't end when the research was published; The Dawes Unit's 2014 Gangs in Prison study, conducted with our team at HMP Thameside, went on to underpin Catch22's custodial gang and violence reduction work. A decade later, that research is still shaping frontline delivery across nine prisons – including our R.O.A.D. programme, which supports prisoners most involved in violence to change their behaviour. This means that ten years on, Dawes-funded research is still helping to make prisons safer. We're hugely grateful for this support – it shows what good partnerships make possible for voluntary sector organisations, helping to reduce violence in custody and reduce reoffending. 📖 Read Russell Webster's review of the Trust's work: https://lnkd.in/e7kRdwNK As Matt Randle said "The Dawes Trust has a legacy worth celebrating. Their commitment to research-led, voluntary sector delivery has played a vital role in helping us reduce violence in custody and support people to move away from crime."

A recent federal court ruling upheld a nearly decade-old lower court ruling finding that the Alabama Department of Corrections fails to provide adequate mental health care to incarcerated individuals. However, that same ruling walked back several requirements imposed by the lower court to address mental healthcare in the state’s prisons. A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a 2017 district court finding that conditions within the state’s prisons as it relates to mental healthcare violate the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, reaffirming the lower court’s finding that ADOC’s mental healthcare is “horrendously inadequate.” In their opinion, the judges called suicide rates in Alabama prisons “staggering” blaming “the Department of Corrections’ deliberate indifference to the serious mental healthcare needs of its inmates.” Read more on our website and make sure to subscribe to the Alabama Roundup to get weekly updates on news in our state! https://lnkd.in/epG_AjcS

As well as the Chief Inspector of Prisons, every prison has its own Independent Monitoring Board (IMB).   This week, @Independent Monitoring Boards launched their 2025 Annual Report, which again highlights the damaging impact of drugs in prisons, stating that:   "Illicit drugs remained the single most destabilising factor across the adult estate, fuelling debt, violence, intimidation, self-isolation and life-threatening medical emergencies."   The report cites HMP High Down, where there were 13 emergency call-outs in a single day for prisoners in medical distress following drug use.   @The Forward Trust works in High Down, and I can confirm it has a committed leadership team determined to tackle the problem. But like many prisons, it is operating under the pressures of an overcrowded system.   Our drug and alcohol teams see every day what is driving these harms. Yet the scope of current contracts, and national prison policy, limits our ability to deliver the wider changes needed to disrupt prison drug markets and build stronger recovery cultures.   We can see the problem. We know many of the solutions. But we are rarely allowed to put them into practice.   #PrisonReform #CriminalJustice #AddictionRecovery #DrugPolicy #Rehabilitation

Thank you to the Brennan Center for Justice for convening such an important conversation on improving prison conditions and post-release outcomes. Earlier this month, Beverly Parenti, Chris Redlitz and Kevin McCracken joined leaders from departments of correction, advocacy organizations, researchers, and people with lived experience to discuss what it takes to build safer prisons, stronger rehabilitation programs, and better outcomes after release. The event brought together voices from across the field to explore how successful reforms can be replicated and scaled nationwide. Kevin McCracken also participated in a panel discussing how education, meaningful work opportunities, and improved living conditions can contribute to stronger post-release outcomes while also supporting correctional staff and safer facilities. Conversations throughout the day reinforced an important idea: better outcomes for incarcerated people, correctional employees, and communities are deeply connected. We're grateful to the Brennan Center for creating space for these discussions and for bringing together leaders committed to building a more effective and rehabilitative justice system. Photo credit: Dan Creighton (©Creighton), Courtesy of NYU Photo Bureau.

Over the last six months, we have been continuing our support of work focused on the justice system, and in particular, the wellbeing of people in prisons. We’ve been working closely with Samaritans to develop an evaluation piece for their work in prisons - this being their long-standing Listener Scheme and the more recent Postvention. People in prison are significantly more likely to die by suicide than people in the general population. Recent findings show that this risk is even higher for women. In full recognition of this, Samaritans have been running the Listener Scheme in UK prisons since the 1990s. It is, at its core, a peer-to-peer support scheme. People in prison are trained by Samaritans volunteers to provide confidential emotional support to their peers who are struggling to cope or are in distress. It is now operational in more than 110 prisons across the UK and Ireland, and is making a pivotal contribution to suicide prevention in prisons. In recent years, Samaritans have also introduced Postvention, which serves to support prisoners after a suicide, with the primary aim to minimise the impact of suicide on other prisoners and staff and, in turn, reduce other suicides. Read more about the Listener Scheme here: https://lnkd.in/eBJ3gnqa We’ve been working hard to develop an evaluation piece that enables Samaritans to evidence the impact of both of these schemes, and it has been a privilege to support such an important initiative. Thank you to the contributors from the Afterthought web: 🌱 Maya Sethi 🌱 Javel Watt 🌱 Millie Mensah 🌱 Dr. Otto Wolf ________________________________ Afterthought is a research studio for systemic change. We partner with changemakers to deliver participatory research that drives real-world impact.

Moving Beyond the Colonial Legacy: The Future of Prison Reform. How we perceive justice is often defined by the physical walls that surround it. But as our understanding of penology matures, we are seeing a shift from mere confinement to meaningful rehabilitation. I have been exploring the evolution of the prison system, tracing its path from the rigid, colonial-era focus on suppression to the modern emergence of open prisons. Key Takeaways on This Structural Transformation: The Four Pillars of Confinement: Prisons have traditionally been built on four foundations: Authority, Subject, Condition, and Space. The Global Security Spectrum: Our infrastructure has historically scaled based on threat levels, moving from maximum security—reliant on segregation and closed environments—toward open prisons that prioritize trust and self-regulation. The Pivot to Rehabilitation: The traditional, suppression-heavy model often leads to overcrowding, extreme mental strain, and social stigma. A Systemic Upgrade: The move toward open prisons offers a systemic upgrade, focusing on economic independence through labor, maintaining social ties, and restoring human dignity. The current system faces an urgent infrastructure crisis: Capacity Crisis: The system operates at 230% capacity, holding over 84,000 inmates against a baseline capacity of roughly 36,600. The Under-Trial Epidemic: Over 72% of the prison population—61,020 individuals—are held without conviction. The Path Forward: Experts advocate for "speedy trial" processes to clear judicial bottlenecks, alongside infrastructure upgrades and a shift from punitive warehousing to modern reformatories. The goal of a modern justice system is not just to keep offenders out of society, but to systematically rebuild them so they can return to it. What are your thoughts on the role of open prisons and judicial reform in creating a more humane justice system? #Penology #PrisonReform #JusticeSystem #SocialWork #HumanRights #CriminalJustice #Bangladesh #Rehabilitation #SystemicChange #PublicPolicy

We spend a lot of time talking about rising crime rates, overcrowded prisons, and high recidivism. But we rarely stop to ask a more important question: What brought people to prison in the first place? Yes, people are responsible for the crimes they commit. Accountability matters. But very few people wake up one morning and decide, "Today I want to go to jail." Behind many criminal offences are issues that began long before the crime: Addiction Homelessness Poverty Mental health challenges Trauma Lack of education or employment opportunities These are uncomfortable conversations, but they are the conversations that matter. We often debate prison overcrowding and repeat-offending statistics, yet we spend far less time discussing the conditions that lead people into the justice system, or why so many return after release. When someone leaves prison without stable housing, meaningful employment, access to treatment, community support, or culturally appropriate programming, are we truly setting them up for success? If we want safer communities, we need to invest not only in prisons, but in prevention, rehabilitation, mental health services, addictions treatment, housing, education, and reintegration. Being "tough on crime" is easy to say. Being smart on crime means addressing the root causes that bring people into the justice system in the first place and ensuring they have a real opportunity to build a different future. Until we start talking about why people end up in prison—not just that they're there—we'll continue treating the symptoms while ignoring the disease.

🚨 The Squad welcomes the announcement of the independent review into the safety and security of prisons. Every day, prison officers work in one of the most challenging environments in public service. They face violence, aggression and unpredictable behaviour, often at arm's length, simply for doing their job. We welcome the decision to examine how prisons can become safer and more secure. Over the past year, The Squad has been working with policing organisations across the UK to better understand the reality of close-contact assaults. One finding has remained consistent: many violent incidents happen when officers have no time or space to create distance before they are attacked. This is just as relevant within prisons. If we are serious about reducing assaults on frontline staff, we must be willing to explore every evidence-based solution available. Innovation should sit alongside training, tactics and officer welfare, not replace them. Our goal has always been simple: reduce injuries, protect those who protect us, and give frontline professionals every opportunity to return home safely at the end of their shift. We look forward to the findings of the review and hope it encourages an open conversation about how innovation can play a greater role in protecting prison officers. To every prison officer across the UK, thank you for the work you do every day, often without recognition. #PrisonService #PrisonOfficers #OfficerSafety #PublicSafety #Innovation #TheSquadGroup #ProtectTheProtectors https://lnkd.in/epi2VvCy