Belmarsh inspection report 2024

Summary

Located in south-east London and opened in the early 1990s, Belmarsh is one of the most important prisons in the country. As well as a reception prison where most men are on remand or unsentenced, it is also the high security prison for the capital and much of southern England. At the time of our inspection 717 men were being held. This included 98 who were category A, 12 of whom were housed in the prison’s high security unit, effectively a prison within the prison. We last inspected Belmarsh in 2021 when we highlighted deficiencies in safety outcomes for prisoners and assessed the provision of purposeful activity as poor, a longstanding and repeated criticism we have made. Outcomes in our healthy prison tests of respect and rehabilitation and release planning were, in contrast, reasonably good.

Inspection ratings

Findings

Priority concerns

Purposeful activity remained poor. Only 22% of spaces in the sampled activity places were allocated, attendance was poor, a third of prisoners were locked up during working hours, and some had as little as 90 minutes a day out of cell.

Other key concerns

Purposeful activity; time out of cell; use of force; care planning for prisoners in crisis.

Notable positive practice

A focus on tackling gang affiliations had helped promote positive behaviour, and recorded violence was similar to other reception prisons.

Progress since the previous inspection

Safety improved from not sufficiently good to reasonably good; respect and preparation for release remained reasonably good; purposeful activity remained poor.