"Act Now"
In the final Annual Report of his six year tenure as Chief Inspector of Prisons, Charlie Taylor describes how long lock up times and poor regimes – which have barely improved since he first took up the role during the pandemic – are causing frustration, boredom and despair.
In the report, which was laid before Parliament yesterday (6 July 2026) and which is publicly available today, Mr Taylor said that this enforced inactivity is fuelling a demand for drugs and contributing to high rates of rates of violence and self-harm. The Chief Inspector says that, quite simply, too many prisons are failing in their responsibility to make prisoners less likely to reoffend.
Ten key facts and figures
The full report, which is 66 pages long, covers a huge body of work, with 84 different inspections and reports completed in the financial year ending this March. The main themes that the Chief Inspector raises will be familiar to many readers and include:
- The easy availability of drugs in a large number of establishments (including the long term high secure estate) which are increasingly facilitated by Organised Crime Groups.
- The increase in violence and the rise in the use of segregation and PAVA spray as a response by prison staff.
- Frustration at the physical state of many prisons and the Prison Service’s apparent inability to get even basic refurbishments done.
But I have picked 10 facts and figures from the report which give some more detail:
- 70% of the 40 adult prisons inspected in 2025/26 were judged to be “poor” or “not sufficiently good” in terms of their ability to keep people in prison safe.
- Four Urgent Notifications were issued; The conditions at HMPs Pentonville, Swaleside & Woodhill and Oakhill STC were so poor that the Chief Inspector required the Secretary of State to publicly respond to the inspectorate’s concerns within 28 days.
- 46% of prisoners tested at HMP Liverpool had drugs in their system. While the rate at HMP Warren Hill with a strong rehabilitative ethos was just 3%.
- At HMP Swaleside, in 2025, six different prisoners had been assaulted on their first night, and some had been stabbed during these incidents. The attacks were usually motivated by preexisting conflicts. Some of the incidents had happened within minutes of the prisoner arriving on the wing, and some were large in scale; one man was targeted by 14 perpetrators.
- People in reception prisons continued to be worst affected by lack of activity. At HMP Pentonville, for example, 59% of prisoners were unemployed and locked up for up to 22 hours a day.
- In many prisons, leaders did not give sufficient priority to fair treatment and inclusion. Oversight was often weak, consultation tokenistic, and data rarely used effectively to improve outcomes. A small number of prisons demonstrated what could be achieved. At HMP Isis, leaders promoted inclusion through educational and celebratory events, a diverse workforce, mentoring and training. However, this was the exception rather than the norm. Even in prisons where data was collected and used to identify disproportionate outcomes, there was often little action taken to improve them. Confidence in the discrimination reporting system was lacking at too many prisons.
- Homelessness on release remained stubbornly high. Many prisons reported that 20–30% of prisoners had no settled address, with many more relying on short-term accommodation. Prisons did not hold housing data for the increasing numbers released directly from court, creating a significant information gap for establishments such as Wormwood Scrubs, where this group made up about a third of releases. No duty-to-refer referrals were completed for homeless prisoners on remand.
- The level of need among women in prison remained very high. Forty-seven per cent of women told us that they had a drug or alcohol problem and 82% said they had a mental health problem. Many women due to be released in the next three months had specific needs: 73% said they would require help with accommodation, and 60% had needs around previous or ongoing trauma (such as domestic violence). In addition, the number of women remanded or subject to very short, fixed-term recalls had increased significantly, and they were often trapped in a pattern of homelessness, substance addiction, and poor mental health.
- The limited time children in custody spent out of their cells meant there were few opportunities to build trusting relationships with staff. In addition, systems designed to support good relationships were poorly implemented and, in practice, often did not include frontline staff who worked directly with children. Custody support plan officers for example, who were meant to know children best, rarely attended meetings and were often unaware of the contents of individual formulations or plans.
- Inspectors found that positive efforts to raise standards following previous poor inspections of Immigration Removal Centres had been driven by investment in infrastructure and staffing.
Thanks to Andy Aitchison for kind permission to use the header image in this post. You can see Andy’s work here
