HMP Lewes: Regime "Declined Further" Says Mixed Inspectors' Report

An independent inspectors' annual report into conditions inside Lewes Prison has highlighted what it calls "extensive periods" of lockup, and some poor standards of accommodation.

But members of the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) also noted a "welcome" reduction in violence and self-harm among prisoners.

The report's main concerns are frequent regime restrictions or lockdowns, and poor accommodation which often "fails to be decent".

Going into detail, the board's report claims the daily regime offered to prisoners had declined over the course of the reporting year, and did not allow prisoners to be unlocked for sufficient amounts of time.

The numbers of planned and unplanned lockdowns increased — and from March 2019 there were frequent weekend lockdowns too.

This meant that prisoners who do not go to work or education (for any reason) were likely to be locked up for more than 22 hours a day.

The IMB regularly observed dirty wings of buildings, mouldy showers and filthy toilets, much of which, being ingrained dirt, were uncleanable with the available products.

Also, at times, the prison or the national prison service failed to provide the prisoners with their basic entitlement, including shoes, blankets, furniture and crockery.

The Board said it was concerned at the number of prisoners seen over the year who are seriously mentally unwell and kept in conditions, be it accommodation standards or the regime, which are entirely unsuitable for their care or rehabilitation.

The same criticism and concern applied to many of the prisoners with learning or other disabilities.

But the IMB was encouraged by an overall reduction in violence and in the number of incidents of self-harm during the year.

The number of recorded assaults (prisoner on prisoner and prisoner on staff) was 236 which is 15 percent lower than the 278 recorded in 2018.

The recorded number of self-harm incidents fell by 40 percent to 369 in 2019 compared with 600 in 2018.

Concerns remained about about the safety of the prisoners at HMP Lewes.

Inspectors believed the availability of drugs, mobile phones and other illicit items affected the stability of the wings, with bullying and debt the main reasons for violence.

However, positive steps have been taken by the prison in introducing improved equipment and increasing the numbers of dogs used to detect drugs.

These, together with an increase in intelligence-led cell searches, resulted in 1,397 finds of illicit items in 2019.

Selena Bevis, Chair of the IMB at Lewes, said:

“We are also concerned that the delivery of the Offender Management in Custody model has not being successfully implemented so far.

“This model is supposed to ensure each prisoner is allocated a key worker on arrival who then supports them through the custodial period.

"However, the percentage of delivered key worker sessions was averaging only 15 percent."

She added:

“This report covers the first year of the new Governor and the IMB recognises she has worked hard to improve the prison.

"Recently the Governor and her team have had to manage around the Covid-19 virus and this has been done effectively with no cases reported at HMP Lewes so far.

“We also support a number of new initiatives, introduced during this virus period, around communications, telephony, pay and letters which, although small, have improved life for the prisoners when they are locked up for such long periods.

"We hope that as lockdown is eased in the community it will also be eased for prisoners.”

You can read the full report by clicking here.