Low Newton inspection report 2021
Summary
HMP & YOI Low Newton is a woman’s local and resettlement prison that services the courts across a large swathe of northern England. At inspection, it held 229 women with 45 unsentenced and the rest sentenced to anything from a few months to life. The excellent relationships between staff and the women, many of whom have complex needs, have helped to carry this prison through the last, difficult year. The many examples of notable positive practice that we highlight in this report show the effort that staff members make to provide innovative support for the many vulnerable women, some of whom present a risk to themselves or to the public. The comfortable Achieving Best Evidence Suite was created to allow women, who have been victims of crime, to give evidence in a safe environment without needing to go out to the police station, and the recently decorated adjudications room was a contrast to the spartan environments that we usually see. Video calling had been expanded well beyond the limits of Purple Visits to mean that families living in different households were able to come together on screen.