Prison
Cat B, C, D, local, YOI
Key Concerns Identified
Positive Findings
Norwich
IMB Annual Report 2020 · Published 8 July 2020
The IMB report for HMP/YOI Norwich (2019-2020) highlights a deterioration in many areas, including safety, decency, and purposeful activity, a view endorsed by HMIP. Key concerns include chronic understaffing, high levels of violence and self-harm, a prevalence of illicit substances, and substandard accommodation. Positive aspects noted are improved staff-prisoner relationships, better cleanliness, and enhanced resettlement support, but the prison remains under significant pressure in its multifunctional role.
Positive Findings
The Board notes positive staff performance and novel initiatives, with positive relationships between most staff and prisoners. The establishment is cleaner than in previous years, and resettlement functions, key worker support, and offender management have improved. Family ties are well-supported by Spurgeons, and the chaplaincy effectively supports all religious beliefs and cultural events.
Key Concerns
Mental Health
Increasing numbers of prisoners with complex needs, including severe mental health issues, but severe limitations to the appropriate help and resources available.
Regime/Time Out of Cell
Insufficient resources to provide a rehabilitative environment.
Other
Long-term remands, often to the detriment of prisoners' wellbeing, due to delays in court proceedings.
Segregation
No functioning national strategy for the management of exceptionally disruptive prisoners who are long-term segregated.
Safety
The design of the piloted ACCT document is not user-friendly, cohesive, or easy to follow, leading to inconsistent quality of entries.
Other
Repeated
The loss of prisoners’ property and its movement between establishments continues to be a major and perennial issue.
Resettlement/Release
IPP prisoners and lifers held in local prisons like Norwich have no offending behaviour programmes to aid progression towards release.
Resettlement/Release
Lack of offending behaviour programmes available at HMP/YOI Norwich.
Staffing
Lack of experienced staff and insufficient scope/comprehensiveness of prison officer entry-level training.
Estate/Conditions
Insufficient cell furniture available to issue to prisons.
Estate/Conditions
Repeated
Difficulty in maintaining focus on decency and the provision of ‘basics’ (e.g., furniture, cleaning materials, soap, toilet roll).
Food/Catering
Repeated
Issues in the serveries, including cleanliness and supervision at mealtimes.
Equality/Diversity
Repeated
Embedding diversity and inclusion into the ethos of the prison.
Safety
Ensuring that prisoners and staff feel safe on the wings, given high levels of violence.
Safety
Controlling high levels of violence (prisoner-on-prisoner and on staff).
Mental Health
Swift provision of a Listener or a Samaritans telephone for prisoners in need of immediate support is often lacking.
Safety
Lack of a 24-hour safer custody hotline that is a well-advertised and reliable means of speaking to a member of staff.
Complaints/Property
The IMB is denied access to observe healthcare meetings or receive minutes, contrary to the memorandum of understanding.
Board Commentary
Staffing
The Board maintains there are insufficient staff to manage the overcrowded prison safely, with approximately 60% being inexperienced. This leads to routine duties being affected and frequent regime restrictions due to staffing shortages and cross-deployment. While the key worker scheme has been constructive, its time demands impact other officer work, highlighting a need for improved staff retention and training.
Healthcare
Healthcare provision is generally understaffed in reception, leading to delayed assessments. The quality of dentistry has declined, with significantly increased waiting lists, and GP clinics are often cancelled. Mental health services are provided by Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust, but prisoners with complex needs are often inappropriately housed. Phoenix Futures delivers drug and alcohol support, though intermittently understaffed, and supervision during medication dispensing is inadequate.
Regime & Daily Life
The regime is significantly impacted by staff shortages, leading to frequent restrictions and cancellations of activities, including key working and enhanced association. Attendance at purposeful activities, which are sometimes monotonous, is unsatisfactory. Overcrowding means double cells offer minimal privacy for toilet facilities, and the Board notes that regime restrictions negatively affect prisoners who self-harm.
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 | — | |
| Complaints | 23 | — | |
| Diet/food | 2 | — | |
| Disciplinary matters | 10 | — | |
| Discrimination | 0 | — | |
| Employment/Education/Activity | 17 | — | |
| Family contact/visits | 11 | — | |
| Finance | 4 | — | |
| Healthcare | 35 | — | |
| Legal | 19 | — | |
| Other | 54 | — | |
| Property | 30 | — | |
| Religious matters | 3 | — | |
| Rule 45 | 1 | — | |
| Safety | 7 | — | |
| Staff conduct/treatment | 10 | — |
Recommendations (26)
Ministry of Justice: 4
HMPPS: 11
Governor / Director: 11
5 repeated
Recommendation 1
What are the minister’s plan for those prisoners with complex needs, including severe mental health issues? Despite the various strategies introduced following the Bradley Report, there are increasing numbers of prisoners with complex needs but severe limitations to the appropriate help and resources available. The minister is quoted as saying: ‘It is really important that we are clear about whether or not prison is the appropriate setting in each individual case’. Professor Wessely's report is equally clear that: ‘…remand to prison should never be considered as a viable option when seeking a place of safety for a person in crisis’.
Ministry of Justice
Mental Health
Recommendation 2
How can prisons provide a rehabilitative environment without sufficient resources?
Ministry of Justice
Regime
Recommendation 3
How does the minister plan to address the injustice of long-term remands, and to hasten prepared cases into the courts? Many prisoners who are innocent until proven guilty are held on remand for substantial periods, frequently to the detriment of their wellbeing; this is partially due to restrictions on Crown Court sitting days, delaying their trials.
Ministry of Justice
Other
Recommendation 4
What is the minister's vision for the future of the IMB?
Ministry of Justice
Other
Recommendation 5
What are the Prison Service’s future plans regarding continuously disruptive prisoners? There appears to be no functioning national strategy for the management of exceptionally disruptive prisoners who are long-term segregated.
HMPPS
Segregation
Recommendation 6
How does the Prison Service plan to improve the design of the recently piloted ACCT document, to make it more user-friendly, cohesive, and easier to follow the journey and needs of the individual at risk?
HMPPS
Safety
Recommendation 7
Repeated
Prev. unaddressed
Why is the issue of property continually prominent in the majority of IMB and HMIP reports, without a viable solution having been found? The loss of prisoners’ property and its movement between establishments continue to be a major and perennial issue for prisoners. No noticeable improvement in the management of prisoners’ property between establishments is evident.
HMPPS
Other
Recommendation 8
How are prisoners serving indeterminate sentences for public protection (IPP) and lifers expected to progress towards release? Some IPP prisoners and lifers are held in the closed conditions of local prisons, such as HMP/YOI Norwich, where there are no offending behaviour programmes, designed to help reduce reoffending, offered.
HMPPS
Resettlement
Recommendation 9
Does the Prison Service plan to finance any offending behaviour programmes for HMP/YOI Norwich, following reconfiguration?
HMPPS
Resettlement
Recommendation 10
What plans does the Prison Service have to rationalise and streamline reporting information and assurance? Mandatory paperwork is excessive for staff and the SMT, cutting down their time for hands-on management and interaction with prisoners.
HMPPS
Staffing
Recommendation 11
What plans are there to boost the retention of experienced staff and improve the scope and comprehensiveness of prison officer entry-level training?
HMPPS
Staffing
Recommendation 12
Why are alerts stating that a prisoner should not be transferred to a specific establishment not adhered to? (See section 6.12)
HMPPS
Segregation
Recommendation 13
Why is there not sufficient cell furniture available to issue to prisons?
HMPPS
Estate
Recommendation 14
Is it acceptable for the originals of prisoners’ personal mail to be destroyed if they cannot be handed out on visits? (See section 4.22.)
HMPPS
Other
Recommendation 15
Is the Prison Service analysing the repercussions of the replacement of tobacco by vapes, and what are the conclusions?
HMPPS
Substance Misuse
Recommendation 16
Repeated
maintaining the focus on decency, and particularly the ‘basics’
Governor / Director
Estate
Recommendation 17
Repeated
addressing the issues in the serveries
Governor / Director
Food
Recommendation 18
Repeated
embedding diversity and inclusion into the ethos of the prison
Governor / Director
Equality
Recommendation 19
ensuring that prisoners and staff feel safe on the wings
Governor / Director
Safety
Recommendation 20
controlling violence
Governor / Director
Safety
Recommendation 21
developing resettlement support and expanding the role of the key worker without detriment to the regime
Governor / Director
Resettlement
Recommendation 22
Securing the ethos of enabling environments
Governor / Director
Regime
Recommendation 23
Repeated
managing prisoners’ property effectively, especially during cell clearances
Governor / Director
Other
Recommendation 24
swift provision of a Listener or a Samaritans telephone for those prisoners in need of immediate support
Governor / Director
Mental Health
Recommendation 25
provision of a 24-hour safer custody hotline that is ‘a well-advertised and reliable means of speaking to a member of staff – such as a duty governor or orderly officer – where there is an imminent risk’ (Robert Buckland, 25/02/2020, IAP Keeping Safe Conference). This statement from the Minister implies that the system at Norwich, whereby the hotline is operated by screened but convicted category D prisoners from Britannia House does not meet the required.
Governor / Director
Safety
Recommendation 26
The Board has been told that it cannot observe healthcare meetings and has not received copies of the minutes. The memorandum of understanding agreed with Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service allows Boards access to contract documents (see section 8.2).
Governor / Director
Complaints
Other IMB Reports for Norwich
PPO Fatal Incidents
Prisons and Probation Ombudsman fatal incident investigations for this establishment.
Prevention of Future Deaths Reports
Coroner PFD reports issued to this establishment.