Kirkham inspection report 2024
Report for Kirkham Prison
Summary
Kirkham has had a difficult two years, with interventions to reduce the national prison population crisis having disrupted the normal running of this Lancashire open jail. The temporary presumptive recategorisation scheme (TPRS), which saw a large influx of category C prisoners with only a few months to go on their sentence (a proportion of whom were not suitable for open prison) had, in particular, contributed to the challenges we identified on this inspection. At 25% the rate of prisoners testing positive for drug use was by far the highest in the open estate. Kirkham was, in fact, in the top third of all adult male prisons in the country and inspectors frequently smelt cannabis around the jail. Although leaders had worked hard to reduce the supply and had found large quantities of illicit items in searches, they had not done enough to reduce the demand. We were surprised that prisoners returning from work in the community were not routinely searched when they entered the prison.