What our prisons get wrong

‘Purposeful activity’ is a phrase often heard in discussions about our prisons. It describes work, training, therapeutic courses and other meaningful activities which improve prisoners’ mental health and make them less likely to behave antisocially in prison or offend after release. In theory our prisons should make sure that most prisoners are spending a significant amount of time out of their cells participating in this purposeful activity. Unfortunately, a report published last Friday by His Majesty’s Inspector of Prisons reveals that the reality falls far short of that. Of 32 closed prisons inspected in 2023-24, 30 of them were rated ‘poor or not sufficiently good’. In practice this means that ‘more than two thirds of prisoners were spending most of their days in their cells with little to occupy them’. In men’s ‘reception prisons’ the picture is even worse. These are the local jails which most remand and newly-sentenced prisoners are sent to before being distributed to ‘training’ or ‘resettlement’ prisons across the country.