Buckley Hall inspection report 2024

Summary

Opened during the 1990s, Buckley Hall is a category C training prison in Rochdale, with capacity for 469 adult men. The prison was full at the time of our inspection. With about 30 new arrivals each month, and just a few releases, the population of mainly long-term prisoners remained fairly stable, although most men were considered to pose a high risk of harm to the community. This was our first inspection of Buckley Hall since 2019, when we found some exceptional outcomes, and judged it to be good, our highest score, in safety, respect, and preparation for release. Only in purposeful activity were we more critical, describing outcomes in this test as not sufficiently good. Despite the challenges of recent years our assessments at this inspection remained encouraging.

Inspection ratings