Key concerns 8 items
Key concerns were extracted from the report text by an AI model.
Key concern 1
Resettlement/Release · Repeated from a previous year
The continued detention of prisoners long after they have served the punitive part of their sentence can only be morally justified if they are given all the support they need to become ready for release and if the conditions for such release are clear and objective. This should not be conditional on their being able to demonstrate that they are highly unlikely to be a danger. The burden of proof should be reversed.
Key concern 2
Mental Health · Repeated from a previous year
The prison is not able to provide these prisoners with much in the way of programmes, courses or support to help them progress towards release; instead, these men are, to all intents and purposes, being ‘warehoused’. Talking with IPP prisoners can be heart-breaking, as they report themselves losing hope and fight, seeing their families drift away from them and suffering what amounts, in the view of the Board, to PTSD if they are unable to secure release on licence.
Key concern 3
Regime/Time Out of Cell
The congestion and delays in the criminal justice system are having knock-on effects on the prison. So many prisoners are being held on remand in the category B local prisons that prisoners are being sent to The Mount to serve short sentences. They are not in The Mount for long enough to benefit from any training or rehabilitation, but managing their admission, induction and release on licence takes significant resources. At the other end of the scale, prisoners are being sent to category D prisons very readily. This means the prison no longer has a body of prisoners working towards category D re-categorisation who can be trusted with orderly and other roles that can only be filled by low-risk prisoners (e.g. farms and gardens).
Key concern 4
Overcrowding · Repeated from a previous year
The Mount is overcrowded, with too many prisoners held (9.3%) in double cells that are designed for only one person. As a temporary measure, this could be considered acceptable; as a short, medium, or long-term solution, it is not. A continuing concern is the conversion of 48 single cells to hold two prisoners. These lack any personal privacy and storage space for personal possessions and cannot ever be adapted to hold two prisoners in conditions that the Board would regard as humane.
Key concern 5
Substance Misuse · Repeated from a previous year
Drugs are still rife and while the incentivised substance-free living wing, has helped, there is too little support to help prisoners give up drugs. The delay in the Governor’s initiative to only allow single-use, tamper-free vapes to prisoners, which would have been expected to reduce the opportunities to use Spice, apparently for administrative and/or contractual issues outside of his control, is regrettable. The trafficking of illicit items into the prison remains a huge problem, with drugs and mobile phones being widely available. Much of the prison is not protected by netting. Cells have window grills that can be loosened to allow access for drones or for the ‘fishing’ from cell windows of packages dropped by drones or thrown over.
Key concern 6
Resettlement/Release · Repeated from a previous year
The housing crisis and shortage of approved premises mean that around 50% of the men released will be homeless and end up sleeping rough.
Key concern 7
Education/Purposeful Activity
The prison does not have enough training and education places: about 400 in the morning and again in the afternoon for more than 1,000 prisoners.
Key concern 8
Equality/Diversity
The prison has few facilities for disabled prisoners, wheelchair access across the estate is very poor and there are long distances between some residential wings and facilities such as healthcare, education, the visits’ hall and workshops, which are often open to the elements.