Portland prison inmates need more contact with 'outside world' (From Dorset Echo)

Portland prison inmates need more contact with 'outside world'

10:00am Saturday 5th September 2009

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A PRISON report has called for young offenders to spend more time in the community.

The Independent Monitoring Board of Portland’s Young Offender Institution recommended more involvement with the ‘outside world’ and praised the prison’s improvements.

The report also criticised problems with ‘substandard’ cells, gangs and mentally ill offenders being kept in inappropriate conditions.

But the board’s chairman Sir Philip Williams wrote that ‘another good year’ has been helped by more opportunities for training and the prisoners’ rehabilitation.

He wrote that if a new penal policy emerged, the Young Offender Institution (YOI) could be re-invented as ‘rather more of an open prison’.

He wrote: “The advantages of its extensive estate could once again help towards the rehabilitation of some if not all of its inmates.”

The areas used in the days of the borstal include the pig farm, sports fields and other land that ‘lies idle’.

He continued: “Is there still the potential here for a new regime which would enable a real re-integration opportunity for suitable prisoners into the life of the outside world?”

The report also said Rodney and Hardy wings – the two without toilets or sinks – are ‘unsatisfactory’ and ‘sub-standard’. Hardy Wing has been shut and the Rodney wing is expected to close early next year.

The Dorset Echo previously reported prisoners throwing excrement out of windows as they are forced to wait to leave their cell for the toilet.

The report said increasing numbers arrive with mental health problems and are being sent to segregation units used for disciplinary or self-protection reasons.

Sir Williams wrote: “The more seriously disturbed, often aggressive prisoners have soon ended up in segregation for extended periods.

“If they are then sectioned under the Mental Health Act, their removal to a suitable place for treatment has taken an unacceptable time and too often they have been shortly taken off this category and returned to the YOI.

“Such moving around has caused them undue distress, a deterioration in their condition and an increase in self-harming.”

But Sir Philip praised officers for their ‘considerate and appropriate treatment’ and ‘inexhaustible patience’ – calling for ‘more secure hospital places and better intervention’.

He wrote that three posts for mental health nurses are rarely filled by Dorset Primary Care Trust.

The board found the loyalty of staff continues to be strained by the levels of colleagues’ short and long-term sickness absence.

Staff are aware of gangs and to reduce violence they removed glass from the canteen.

The report commended conferences that addressed gang- related knife and gun crime.

Steve Holland, governor of the YOI, welcomed the report and said strong contacts are already being developed with the community.

He said many of the negative points are out of the prison’s control and that the segregation unit is the most suitable place for mentally ill prisoners as staff watch them 24 hours a day on CCTV.

A Dorset Primary Care Trust spokesman said she is confident two mental health nurse vacancies will be filled. A new lead nurse has been appointed.

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