Exeter scrutiny visit 2021
Report for Exeter Prison
Summary
HMP Exeter is a category B local and resettlement prison which holds prisoners remanded or sentenced by the courts in south west England and those resettling in the region. At the time of this visit, about 430 prisoners were held in the prison. The last full inspection of Exeter took place in May 2018. On that occasion outcomes for prisoners were so poor in the area of safety that we issued an Urgent Notification to the Secretary of State for Justice. At our subsequent Independent Review of Progress in 2019 we found, despite some progress, that improvement against the majority of key recommendations was ‘too little too late’. Since then, further progress has been hampered by high turnover of staff at all levels.