HMIP Inspections of Isis

The prison was given an inspection in the summer of 2022, 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:

“Isis is a modern, category C prison in south-east London that held 595 young men at the time of our inspection. There was a high turnover of prisoners with an average of 80 arrivals each month, but in spite of this instability, the prison retained a good atmosphere with generally positive relationships between prisoners and staff. This was in part driven by some excellent work on equality and diversity that sought both to understand and respond to the experiences of prisoners, and to use data to make sure that there was fair and proportionate treatment of different groups.

The energetic and well-liked governor was behind much of what was effective at Isis; she knew her jail well, had advocated for the prison to return to its original mission of housing young adults, and had personally driven through her priority to improve understanding among staff of the needs of prisoners. In the areas where she had paid most attention, good progress had been made, resulting in our highest score for the healthy prison test of respect. Ongoing improvements to the living conditions were taking place, although parts of the prison were not clean enough. Elsewhere there were some disappointing findings: both rehabilitation and release planning and purposeful activity received our lowest score.

Due to the nature of the prison population, with a large proportion of prisoners involved, at some level, in London gangs, there was an understandable focus on reducing violence. This had partially been successful in that prisoners’ feelings of safety in our survey had improved since our last inspection, and levels of violence had remained broadly similar, despite the change in the age profile of the population. The prevention and reduction of violence pervaded every part of the prison, including the organisation of education, work, training and even family visits, yet there was no coherent plan for tackling the problem. This had led to a regime that had similar restrictions to those imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic, with many prisoners only out of their cells for 2.5 hours a day. The regime was designed to prevent prisoners from different parts of London from mixing and there was consequently much too little activity for this group of energetic, young men.

Education was restricted to a session a week in the classroom, while those in workshops such as painting and barbering were offered two. The aim was for prisoners to complete additional work in their cells, but we found scant evidence of this and most prisoners behind their door were either sleeping or watching television. While the limited and restrictive regime might be leading to a slightly safer prison, it was failing to give the young men in its care either the education or the motivation to stop offending and find employment when they were released.

The arrangements for sentence progression and public protection were not good enough. Although some of the failings were due to some fundamental problems with external agencies, prison staff were not doing the work for which they were accountable. We came across one man who had repeatedly broken a restraining order with no follow up, sentence plans that were uncompleted, and prisoners who were frustrated by their lack of progression because of delays in recategorisation and the limited accredited programme places on offer. We were disappointed to see that the issues we raised in this area were not reflected in the leaders’ priorities in the self-assessment report.

The lack of sufficient staff in some important positions such as a head of education and a senior probation officer were hampering progress and consistency of delivery, and at officer grades there was a high turnover of staff and many were inexperienced. This meant that key work sessions were not happening for a population which, if not given the right support, could continue to be a burden on the criminal justice system for many years.

This inspection resulted in an unusual set of scores that reflected a mixed inspection. The challenge will be for the governor and her team to continue to improve levels of safety while providing a much more suitable regime and education offer for the population. There will also need to be a concerted effort from leaders to improve public protection arrangements and make sure that sentence progression and key work are at the heart of the offer at Isis.

Charlie Taylor

HM Chief Inspector of Prisons
October 2022

 

The inspectors also provided a list of their major concerns

 

What needs to improve at HMP/YOI Isis

 

During this inspection we identified 17 (the report only lists 15) key concerns, of which six 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

  1. The level of violence was too high. Measures to tackle violence were largely restricted to limiting the regime offer which was not sustainable.
  2. Most prisoners had too little time out of their cells.
  3. The curriculum did not meet the resettlement needs of prisoners, with the range of activities too narrow to lead to sustainable employment on release.
  4. Prisoners were not supported to progress through their sentence plans. There was too little contact with prison offender managers, hardly any key work and not enough places on interventions to address offending behaviour.
  5. Release planning was not reliable, timely or effective.

Key concerns

  1. Leaders did not have strategies or action plans to monitor progress in areas of key risk such as safety and reducing reoffending.
  2. The incentives policy was not applied consistently, and many prisoners felt the scheme was unfair and had lost confidence in it.
  3. Cleaning standards were poor in residential areas and cells needed redecoration.
  4. Pharmacists were not available to consult with individual prisoners about their medication, oversight of stock medicines was insufficient, and delivery of in-possession medicines at the cell door was not in line with safe and effective practice guidance.
  5. Too many prisoners did not achieve their qualifications, and workshop time was insufficient to achieve the practical aspects of their course.
  6. Prisoners did not complete the education work set for them to do in their residential wings and tutors were not active in supporting them to progress with their learning.
  7. Careers education, information advice and guidance for prisoners were insufficient.
  8. There was too much variation in the quality of teaching across education, skills and work.
  9. The public were not always protected from prisoners held at Isis. Monitoring to identify risks was unreliable, breaches of court orders took place without consequences, and there were no routine assessments and restrictions on prisoners who potentially presented a risk to children.
  10. Not all prisoners had reliable support to manage their finances, benefits and debts

Return to Isis

To read the full reports, go to the Ministry of Justice site or follow the links below:

  • HMP/YOI Isis (827.58 kB) , Report on an unannounced inspection of HMP/YOI Isis (3-13 May 2016)
  • HMP/YOI Isis, Unannounced inspection of HMP/YOI Isis (17 – 28 February 2014)
  • HMP/YOI Isis, Announced inspection of HMP/YOI Isis (12-16 September 2011)

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