Lewes inspection report 2024
Report for Lewes Prison
Summary
In 2022, our unannounced inspection of HMP Lewes was concerning enough for us to return for an independent review of progress (IRP) in February last year. Disappointingly during that review, we found that things had got even worse, with some prisoners routinely getting less than an hour out of their cell a day, a shortage of frontline officers and a staff team with low morale. Unusually therefore, I decided that we would conduct an announced inspection, giving the prison six months’ notice to prepare. A new governor arrived at the jail in August 2023 and I am pleased to report that he had begun to make some good progress with the many challenges that faced this run-down, overcrowded Victorian prison. He had worked on improving the capability and confidence of his staff team, of which a high proportion had fewer than two years’ experience, and we were pleased to see noticeably better staff-prisoner relationships than during our last two visits. The attrition rate of staff was still high but was lower than at our IRP.