Swinfen Hall inspection report 2021
Report for Swinfen Hall Prison
Summary
Swinfen Hall is a category C prison for young adults and adults aged 18 to 28, mostly serving sentences of over four years. At the time of our inspection, it contained 531 prisoners of whom nearly half were from black and minority ethnic backgrounds. Within the prison were two specialist wings for those with emerging or diagnosed personality disorders. This prison continued to wrestle with the challenges that we outlined in our 2016 and 2019 inspections, but had made some noticeable progress despite dealing with the effects of the pandemic. Leaders had set up good systems to analyse data and create plans for the more troubled individuals and significantly more prisoners told us they felt safe than at the previous inspection. However, despite the COVID-19 restrictions on mixing and the limited amount of time prisoners spent out of their cells, levels of violence, often serious, between prisoners were still too high and staff assaults were on the rise.