Winchester urgent notification 2024
Report for Winchester Prison
Summary
Urgent Notification for HMP Winchester issued on 23 October 2024. 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: 23 October 2024 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, 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 Winchester between 7th and 17th October 2024. 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 fourth time we have inspected Winchester since 2016 and it is a prison that has persistently underachieved. At this inspection, the jail attracted our lowest healthy prison assessment in three of our four tests – safety, respect and purposeful activity – with many of the concerns raised at our previous inspection in 2022 still to be addressed. Despite reporting some encouraging indications following our independent review of progress (IRP) in November 2022, we found that outcomes had now deteriorated in many critical areas.