A riot at Bedford prison that led to two wings being “totally trashed” was fuelled by frustration over “disgraceful conditions” including a failure to provide basic items such as soap, cleaning materials and toilet paper, an official watchdog has concluded.
The report by Bedford’s independent monitoring board says that before the riot in November 2016 prisoners were not being treated humanely and were being locked up for 23 hours a day, and that just 55 out of a complement of 110 officers were available for duty.
The watchdog says the prisoners’ anger at being locked up for most of the day boiled over when they were let out on a Sunday afternoon. Prisoners armed themselves with improvised weapons, started fires and ransacked offices.
Order was restored after six hours, leaving two wings “totally trashed with broken furniture, fittings and doors,” says the IMB report. “The segregation unit [was] severely attacked and most of the prisoner records stored there totally destroyed. It was a sad picture of devastation … Neatly handwritten notes were stuck to the walls saying: ‘This was caused by 23-hour lock-up. Peace,’ and ‘We need to be treated like human beings.’ The message was clear.”
It continues: “Whilst the issue of staffing levels was more deeply rooted and difficult to address quickly, the inability to supply, on a consistent basis, basic requirements such as toilet paper and cleaning materials, was simply shameful.”
The watchdog says it is a disgrace that prisoners had to wait for four weeks for letters to be sent home because there were no envelopes, and that new prisoners did not always have pillows.
The watchdog says there have been clear improvements in the running of Bedford prison since the riot nearly a year ago but there remain concerns about the underlying conditions, especially the need to develop a rehabilitative culture that would provide prisoners with hope.
The prison service said in a statement: “Transforming prisons into places of safety and reform is our top priority and we are tackling the challenges we face head-on.”
Separately, the chair of the parole board, Prof Nick Hardwick, has highlighted to MPs a new “revolving door” affecting the 3,300 prisoners still serving the now abolished indeterminate sentence of imprisonment for public protection.
He told the Commons select committee that 50% of IPP prisoners who were released had been recalled to prison for what he described as minor breaches to their licence conditions.
Hardwick said 760 IPP prisoners had been recalled to prison in the past year because of licence breaches and 60% of them had subsequently been released again when the circumstances of their recalls were examined.
He said recalls were now the biggest problem relating to IPPs. Figures show that more than 50% of the remaining IPP prisoners have served more than five years beyond their minimum tariff, and 15% have served more than eight years extra.
The prisons minister, Sam Gyimah, said he agreed with a previous justice secretary that the IPP issue was “a stain on a system”, but said it was “a lawful sentence”. He told MPs that work was being done on the “revolving door” highlighted by the parole board chair.
He said an action plan to cut delays in considering the possible release of IPP prisoners was “bearing fruit”, but he reminded MPs that there would be a significant number of prisoners who may never be released because they continued to pose a risk to the public. He cited examples of unreformed paedophiles and arsonists as among those IPP prisoners who may not be released.
