Featherstone inspection report 2022
Report for Featherstone Prison
Summary
Featherstone is a category C training prison near Wolverhampton that contained 661 prisoners at the time of our inspection. The impressive work leaders had undertaken to reduce the supply of drugs had led to large falls in violence, despite the regime being far more open with more prisoners in activities and work than we have seen in recent inspections of similar prisons. The effective and well-respected governor had come into post at the beginning of the pandemic and had, alongside her strong and supportive deputy, taken on some of the challenges that had dogged this prison in recent years. In our survey, a far larger proportion of prisoners told us that they felt safe than at our 2018 inspection, and ambulance call outs and general alarms on the wings were becoming much rarer than in the past. Senior leaders, however, had not paid enough attention to offender management and the unit was not operating effectively. There were examples of poor leadership in the unit and a staff group that lacked direction or support.