Pentonville urgent notification 2025
Report for Pentonville Prison
Summary
Urgent Notification for HMP Pentonville issued on 16 July 2025. Inspection debriefing paper HMP Pentonville debrief paper ( PDF, 250 KB ) ( PDF, 250 KB ) HM INSPECTORATE OF PRISONS 3rd floor 10 South Colonnade Canary Wharf London E14 4PU Tel: 020 3334 0353 E-mail:[email protected] HM Chief Inspector of Prisons CHARLIE TAYLOR Date:16 July 2025 The Rt Hon Shabana Mahmood MP Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State Ministry of Justice 102 Petty France London SW1H 9AJ Dear Secretary of State, Urgent Notification: HMP Pentonville In accordance with the Protocol between HM Chief Inspector of Prisons and the Ministry of Justice dated October 2019, I am writing to you to invoke the Urgent Notification process following our unannounced inspection of HMP Pentonville between 30th June and 10th July 2025. The protocol sets out that this letter will be placed in the public domain, and that the Secretary of State commits to respond publicly within 28 days. This is the fifth time we have inspected Pentonville since 2015 and, as the table below shows, it is a prison that has a record of poor performance. At this most recent inspection, the jail attracted our lowest healthy prison assessments in three of our four tests – safety, purposeful activity and preparation for release – with many of the concerns raised at our 2022 inspection still to be addressed.