Pentonville prison overcrowded and drug use rife, says watchdog (original) (raw)

One of Britain’s oldest jails is overcrowded, crumbling and porous to drugs, weapons and mobile phones, a watchdog has warned.

Monitors at HMP Pentonville found old windows had not been replaced, vermin was rife and prisoners went weeks without exercise in the fresh air.

The assessment by Pentonville’s independent monitoring board (IMB) came days after the scathing findings of an inspection at Birmingham prison led to the government temporarily taking control away from its private operator, G4S.

Prison officers, reform campaigners and politicians said the shock discoveries at Birmingham reflected a wider prisons crisis with violence, drug use and self-harm prevalent across jails in England and Wales.

Pentonville’s IMB said the north London prison, which hit the headlines two years ago when two prisoners staged an audacious escape, remains “porous”.

Windows flagged up in 2016 are still insecure and compromise the safety of staff and inmates, according to the board’s annual report for 2017-18. It found that, despite a recommendation, not a single external window grille had been replaced.

Elsewhere, the report said there had been an increase in gang-related incidents during gatherings for prayer. On one occasion, a fight erupted and ministers had to run for cover.

The board said Pentonville had energetic and committed staff but there were too few officers for most of the year. Wings were shut down for three or four half-days a week, activities and association time were restricted and some prisoners went weeks without exercise in the fresh air.

The report said: “Pentonville is in the ‘Top 10’ of prisons most in need of investment. Twelve hundred men live in a building certified to hold nine hundred. Vermin is rife.

“Persistent overcrowding and the crumbling physical environment are incompatible with maintaining prisoners’ humanity and dignity.”

Opened in 1842, Pentonville is one of the country’s busiest prisons, with about 33,000 movements a year through its reception.

At the end of last month, the state-run jail was holding 1,215 men.

Safety and conditions behind bars in England and Wales have been under the spotlight since the chief inspector of prisons, Peter Clarke, warned that HMP Birmingham had fallen into a state of crisis.

In a report published on Monday, Clarke detailed “appalling” squalor and violence at the privately managed prison, which the government has now taken over.