Swansea inspection report 2023

Summary

HMP Swansea is a category B reception prison which for some time has been one of the most overcrowded in England and Wales. A cramped 19th century site in an inner-city location, it faces all the limitations common to such establishments. Yet despite these challenges we found that leaders had worked effectively over the previous 18 months to improve outcomes across all four of our healthy prison tests. At the heart of this progress was a positive culture focused on encouraging prisoners to attend education, skills and work provision. In our survey, prisoners at Swansea were more positive. They told us they were more likely to report having a member of staff to turn to if they had a problem, they were receiving help to meet their sentence plan targets, and they were being encouraged to attend education, skills and work.

Inspection ratings