Portland inspection report 2022
Summary
Portland is a medium sized category C training and resettlement prison in South Dorset, which at the time of our inspection held 512 prisoners. The jail had a young population of which 14% were under 21, and nearly half were under 30. When HMI Prisons last inspected Portland in 2019, we found a prison that had lost its way, struggling with high levels of violence, poor living conditions and a lack of purposeful activity. The current governor, who took over in 2020, had begun an impressive transformation. He and his senior team were visible around the jail and comments in our staff survey were positive. This was reflected in the prison’s excellent selfassessment report (SAR), which showed that the senior team had a very good understanding of the prison’s strengths and weakness alongside credible and impressive plans to make improvements.