Prison
Cat High Security (A/B)
Key Concerns Identified
Positive Findings
Whitemoor
IMB Annual Report 2021 · Published 5 November 2021
HMP Whitemoor operated under severe COVID-19 restrictions, leading to prisoners spending over 21 hours locked in cells daily, significantly impacting mental health and purposeful activity. Despite this, the prison maintained order and controlled infection effectively. Key challenges include increased substance misuse, persistently high segregation unit occupancy, and the urgent need for in-cell telephones and improved estate maintenance. The IMB commends the prison's efforts in managing the pandemic and establishing a rehabilitative culture, while highlighting critical areas for development.
Positive Findings
HMP Whitemoor maintained a reasonably well-ordered environment and successfully controlled Covid-19 infection, with prisoners appreciating the efforts to keep them safe. The prison's commitment to a rehabilitative culture continued, evidenced by the establishment of a prison rehabilitation culture council and exemplary work by the librarian. The Board noted improved team-working in the segregation unit, increased healthcare staffing, and significant improvements in mental health provision, including weekly visits for segregated prisoners. Progress was made in promoting family contact through Purple Visits video technology, and improvements were seen in the efficiency of the complaints system.
Key Concerns
Mental Health
The impact on mental health and wellbeing is a different matter (due to constrained conditions of lockdown).
Substance Misuse
The use of illegal substances appears to have increased. With the cessation of social visits and the use of the Rapiscan itemiser to screen mail closing (two of the habitual routes for the entry of drugs) it became increasingly clear that there was an issue of staff corruption leading to the suspension of one member of staff.
Regime/Time Out of Cell
The amount of time that prisoners have spent in their cells is a major cause of concern with much valuable activity suspended. The inability to use wing kitchens and gyms has been felt keenly.
Segregation
although seg numbers fell at the very end of the year, for most of the time they have been too high, far in excess of the 18 for which the segregation unit is staffed and impacting negatively on the capacity of the next-door Bridge unit to fulfil its role. Men are kept in segregation for too long.
Staffing
the inevitable monotony of the working day with reduced opportunities for officers to work supportively with prisoners did little to encourage staff retention. Given the recent heavy recruitment into the prison service as a result of government policy changes, the prison is inevitably reliant on less experienced officers who through no fault of their own lack the inter-personal skills and jail craft of more experienced colleagues and this sometimes led to friction with prisoners.
Education/Purposeful Activity
The closure of education classes and workshops during the pandemic has meant significant disruption to men’s learning and the prison will need to make a huge effort to restore these activities and reignite men’s interest in them.
Healthcare
Repeated
The Board has for many years been concerned about the long periods that some prisoners spend in segregation, and the continual difficulty in arranging transfers to other establishments or, in particular, to specialist units.
Healthcare
At times agreed actions were not carried out, or recorded and reviewed; transfers to other prisons or hospitals were very difficult to arrange, with long waits even when agreed; and segregated prisoners who had to be housed in the healthcare unit owing to capacity constraints were not always reviewed.
Regime/Time Out of Cell
It seems that it has been difficult for the Bridge unit to fulfil its potential and role as a national resource to help men prepare for a move to normal location. Its residents sometimes express dissatisfaction with the regime and a number are deselected, returning to be segregated.
Substance Misuse
The prison continues to be short of one drug dog. An itemiser for checking items for drugs would enable staff to improve efficiency but it is a costly machine and there is no budget available.
Overcrowding
Throughout the reporting year, the segregation unit was once again full, causing continuous regime restrictions. Occupancy fluctuated between 34 at the start of this reporting period at the height of the pandemic, reducing at times to 24, but never as low as 18 (its allocated capacity) until the very end of the year, with the overflow occupying cells in the adjacent Bridge unit or the healthcare unit.
Estate/Conditions
Much work is needed to bring the physical state of the kitchen up to an acceptable standard. This has started with the replacement of cladding on the main kitchen walls, though delays with sub-contractors’ security clearances meant that it had to be left unfinished for the whole of Ramadan and it remained unfinished a month after the end of the reporting year. The quality is poor and the cladding that has been fitted is already beginning to crack with pieces of the moulding around its edges breaking off.
Substance Misuse
As last year, the integrated substance misuse team did not attend the prison. The increased use of hooch and drugs of various kinds by prisoners suggests that their intervention will be badly needed as part of the recovery.
Equality/Diversity
The problems encountered by foreign national prisoners trying to phone their embassies remain unchanged, because the PIN phone system does not allow them to enter extension numbers.
Board Commentary
Staffing
The monotony of the daily regime and reduced opportunities for officers to work supportively with prisoners hindered staff retention. The prison is reliant on less experienced officers, leading to occasional friction with prisoners due to a lack of inter-personal skills and jail craft. The key worker scheme was severely impacted by lockdown but saw a considerable increase in sessions delivered, though still below national targets, with consistency, frequency, and staff training identified as main issues for improvement. There was considerable staff turnover during the lockdown period.
Healthcare
Healthcare services are provided by Northamptonshire NHS Foundation Trust, with a new dental provider, Prisoner Centred Dental Care, appointed in April 2021. Healthcare staffing increased, running on average at 7% below complement. GP waiting times averaged five days, comparable to the community, but dental, optical, physiotherapy, and podiatry waiting times were long, some up to ten weeks. Mental health care improved significantly, with 88% of referrals seen within five days and a valued weekly visit introduced for segregation unit prisoners.
Regime & Daily Life
Lockdown conditions severely impacted the regime, with prisoners often locked in their cells for over 21 hours per day, and segregation unit prisoners sometimes for 23 hours. This prolonged cell time, coupled with the suspension of valuable activities, wing kitchens, and gyms, was a major concern, leading to tension and stress. Corporate worship and educational classes were significantly curtailed. The segregation unit remained full, leading to continuous regime restrictions and limited opportunities for showers, phone calls, work, or education for prisoners held there.
Applications to the IMB
Prisoners can apply to their IMB about any aspect of their treatment. This table shows application counts by category.
| Category | Current | Previous | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accommodation (including transfers) | 45 | 38 | |
| Applications to other bodies (e.g. PPO) | 46 | 25 | |
| Assaults | 10 | 10 | — |
| Discrimination | 30 | 18 | |
| Drugs | 3 | 2 | |
| Education | 24 | 17 | |
| Food | 58 | 59 | |
| Healthcare (including mental health and dentistry) | 82 | 68 | |
| IEPS (incentives and earned privileges scheme) | 15 | 22 | |
| Interview requests (IMB) | 184 | 154 | |
| Legal | 17 | 15 | |
| Loss/damage to property | 64 | 50 | |
| Offender Management (OMU) | 36 | 23 | |
| Other | 18 | 9 | |
| Outstanding applications/complaints | 5 | 3 | |
| Regime | 30 | 19 | |
| Requests for information | 12 | 8 | |
| Rule 45/Segregation | 24 | 16 | |
| Safety (including anti-bullying, self-harm) | 11 | 12 | |
| Staff conduct | 23 | 14 | |
| Support | 11 | 13 | |
| Visits/phone calls | 40 | 33 | |
| Work/pay | 13 | 7 |
Recommendations (8)
HMPPS: 6
Governor / Director: 2
2 repeated
Recommendation 1
Will the Minister please give personal attention to ensure: that HMPPS installs the cabling for in-cell telephones as part of the major electrical project currently taking place at Whitemoor?
HMPPS
Regime
Recommendation 2
Will the Minister please give personal attention to ensure: the continuation of Purple Visits technology to allow prisoners to communicate by video conference with their families, both in the UK and, for foreign nationals, overseas?
HMPPS
Resettlement
Recommendation 3
Repeated
Will the prison service please review urgently the use of specialised units in order to ensure that better and speedier arrangements can be made for prisoners whose needs are difficult or impossible to meet in a prison like Whitemoor? This would avoid the sad spectacle of men languishing for months at a time in demoralising and degrading conditions.
HMPPS
Healthcare
Recommendation 4
Will HMPPS please give urgent attention to supporting prison governors in the battle to stop the importing and manufacture of illicit substances including hooch within the prison? These substances endanger the health and wellbeing of prisoners and the safety of officers and their wide-spread use should be a cause of national concern.
HMPPS
Substance Misuse
Recommendation 5
Repeated
Will the prison service please bring to a conclusion the protracted review of a system for managing prisoners’ property, the lack of which causes so much distress and frustration at all levels of the service at present?
HMPPS
Complaints
Recommendation 6
Will the prison service please review its approach to securing value for money in contracts for building works? Yet again a refurbishment project (this time of the main kitchen at Whitemoor) has been delayed by sub-contractors passing work from company to company until the job reached a firm whose staff did not have the necessary security clearance; the cladding appears to be of poor quality and is already breaking up before it has been fully installed.
HMPPS
Estate
Recommendation 7
Will the Governor the Governor please ensure that the key worker scheme which has the potential to make a very positive contribution to staff/prisoner relations is resourced appropriately and supported from the top down to do the job it was created to do?
Governor / Director
Staffing
Recommendation 8
The Board strongly supports the establishment of the prison rehabilitation culture council and would encourage the Governor to continue the positive work she has begun to ensure that it is seen by prisoners as a significant force for the improvement of prison life in Whitemoor.
Governor / Director
Regime
Other IMB Reports for Whitemoor
HMIP Inspections
Recent inspections by HM Inspectorate of Prisons for this establishment.
5 Dec 2022
Unannounced
Safety: 3
Respect: 2
Activity: 1
Release: 2
PPO Fatal Incidents
Prisons and Probation Ombudsman fatal incident investigations for this establishment.