The Independent Monitoring Board has today released its report on HMP Pentonville. The report highlights how population pressures and poor infrastructure at HMP Pentonville are contributing to dire living conditions and increasing levels of violence and self-harm. You can read the full report here.
Responding to the IMB Report on HMP Pentonville, Nacro CEO, Campbell Robb said:
“The most recent IMB Report on HMP Pentonville reveals the distressing reality of life for people inside a prison system on the brink of collapse. It is of serious concern that the widespread and systemic failures documented in this report are inhibiting efforts to rehabilitate people in prison. This report ought to serve as an urgent reminder that if we want to reduce crime and create safer communities for us all, rehabilitation must be the focus for people sentenced to prison.
“Alarming rates of overcrowding at HMP Pentonville have caused cramped and inhumane living conditions, and a concerning increase in levels of violence (up by 28% from the previous year) and self-harm incidents (have increased by 13% over the same period). The failings of the prison extend to the most basic standards of decency. It is shocking to read of rats and cockroach infestations in HMP Pentonville and yet such findings are becoming more frequent across the prison estate. The fact that people in prison are kept in such abhorrent conditions ought to be a damning indictment of our criminal justice system.
“In light of the recent launch of the Government’s Sentencing Review, reports such as these serve to reinforce the pressing need for a substantial rethink of our current sentencing framework and the purpose of imprisonment. The discrepancy between the Government’s ‘tough on crime’ approach and the levels of funding needed to meet the needs of the growing prison population must be interrogated. Ahead of the budget, it is clear that we need real investment in a safer, more effective criminal justice system that better serves us all.”
Learn more about our work
We operate in more than 40 prisons and provide services across England and Wales. We help 28,000 people across our services each year and run the CAS-2 service for the Government housing people coming out of prison on bail or licence. We work with people at every stage of the criminal justice system, from liaison and diversion services in police custody and courts, to resettlement into the community after prison. We use the insights from our services and the experiences of the people we support to campaign together for a criminal justice system which better serves us all. We’ve been working in this field for more than 50 years.