The prison was given an inspection in February 2023, the full report can be read at the Ministry of Justice web site, just follow the links below. In their latest report the inspectors said
HMP Swansea is a category B reception prison which for some time has been one of the most overcrowded in England and Wales. A cramped 19th century site in an inner-city location, it faces all the limitations common to such establishments. Yet despite these challenges we found that leaders had worked effectively over the previous 18 months to improve outcomes across all four of our healthy prison tests.
At the heart of this progress was a positive culture focused on encouraging prisoners to attend education, skills and work provision. In our survey, prisoners at Swansea were more positive about staff than in similar jails. They told us they were more likely to report having a member of staff to turn to if they had a problem, they were receiving help to meet their sentence plan targets, and they were being encouraged to attend education, skills and work.
Leaders had rightly incentivised engagement with education and work, which is essential in all prisons, but especially in reception prisons like Swansea, where most prisoners were on remand and not compelled to work. Rather than the tokenistic incentives we often find, those who worked could access regular evening association, two additional gym sessions and some self-cooking facilities. Prisoners we spoke to valued these activities and were much more likely to engage with the regime as a result. In our roll check we found just 8% of the population locked up during the working day, far less than in other prisons.
Although our colleagues in Estyn still identified some weaknesses in the provision of education, skills and work – most notably that there were not enough spaces for all prisoners, and not all available work places were swiftly filled – it was to the credit of leaders and staff that while time out of cell and access to activity had increased, the prison remained a fundamentally safe environment. Violence against staff and prisoners were, for example, much lower than at the time of the previous inspection and among the lowest of all reception prisons.
Work to rehabilitate prisoners and help them to reintegrate back into the community had also improved. Prisoners received good support to maintain contact with their family and friends, as well as help with employment and their finances. However, too many prisoners had no sustainable accommodation to go to when they were released.
Leaders had responded well to the 2017 inspection of HMP Swansea and had worked hard to rectify the deficiencies we identified. The prison was now safe and respectful and the new governor, appointed a month before our inspection, had a solid foundation on which to build further progress.
Charlie Taylor
HM Chief Inspector of Prisons
April 2023
The inspectors also listed the main action points arising from their inspection
What needs to improve at HMP Swansea
During this inspection we identified 13 key concerns, of which three should be treated as priorities. Priority concerns are those that are most important to improving outcomes for prisoners. They require immediate attention by leaders and managers.
Leaders should make sure that all concerns identified here are addressed and that progress is tracked through a plan which sets out how and when the concerns will be resolved. The plan should be provided to HMI Prisons.
Priority concerns
- There was no formal induction process. Induction was sporadic and unmonitored, and we were not confident that prisoners had been seen by all relevant agencies during their early days in custody.
- Too many prisoners were living in overcrowded cells originally designed for one.
- he weekend regime was too limited at only 90 minutes out of cell each day for most prisoners.
- A lack of workshops and poor organisation of induction and allocation affected the breadth and quality of education provision. There were inconsistencies in prisoners’ access to education induction and the allocation of spaces, delays in opening new workshops relevant to the local labour market and insufficient access to assessment tools and curriculum provision.
- Leaders did not understand the causes of non-attendance at education, skills and work so could not plan improvement effectively.
- Too many prisoners were released without accommodation on the day of release.
Key concerns
- The regime in the segregation unit was too restricted. Segregated prisoners spent long periods locked in their cells with little to do, limited access to the telephone and only 30 minutes in the open air each day.
- The key work scheme was not operating effectively. Most prisoners did not have regular key work sessions and the sessions that did take place did not support sentence progression.
- Despite improvements in strategic governance structures and risk management, staffing pressures in health care had pulled local leaders into clinical work, reducing their ability to assure these structures were improving safety and outcomes.
- Professional record keeping required improvement across all health care teams. Information was sparse and the diagnosis, treatment plans and rationale for prescribing were not always evident.
- Learners with additional learning needs were not supported effectively. The assessment of prisoners’ additional learning needs relied too heavily on self-disclosure.
- Classroom support for emergent readers was underdeveloped.
- Prisoners on full monitoring for public protection did not have all calls monitored, a significant omission in protecting the public
To read the full reports, go to the Ministry of Justice site or follow the links below:
- Inspection report (1 MB), Report on an unannounced inspection of HMP Swansea by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons (21 February – 10 March 2023)
- HMP Swansea – report (PDF) (532 kB), Report on a scrutiny visit to HMP Swansea by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons (25 August and 2-3 September 2020)
- HMP Swansea (733.04 kB), Report on an unannounced inspection of HMP Swansea (7, 8, 14–17 August 2017)
- HMP Swansea, Report on an unannounced inspection of HMP Swansea (6 – 10 October 2014)
- CEM Abertawe, Arolygiad dilynol byr dirybudd CEM Abertawe (17–19 Rhagfyr 2012)
- HMP Swansea, Unannounced short follow-up inspection of HMP Swansea (17–19 December 2012)
- CEM Abertawe, Arolygiad lle rhoddwyd rhybudd CEM Abertawe (8-12 Chwefror 2010)
- HMP Swansea, Announced inspection of HMP Swansea (8-12 February 2010)
- HMP Swansea, Unannounced short follow-up inspection of HMP Swansea (18-21 February 2008)