"Despite a high-profile escape from the south London jail only months earlier, conditions were so chaotic at the time of the inspection that most staff could not reliably say where all prisoners were during the day, Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons, reported with obvious near disbelief. There was no reliable roll that could assure leaders that all prisoners were accounted for, he wrote."
"Supposed to hold no more than 963 men, Wandsworth generally has about 1,500 kept in cramped and often dirty conditions, at times locked in cells for 22 hours a day. Adding to the chaos is the transient status of many of the prisoners. According to another report on the jail, published this month by one of the independent monitoring boards that go into prisons to look at conditions, only 15% of Wandsworth's inmates were serving sentences."
HMP Wandsworth held about 1,500 men despite a capacity of 963, with cramped, often dirty conditions and prisoners sometimes locked for 22 hours a day. Most staff could not reliably say where all prisoners were because there was no reliable roll. The escape of Daniel Khalife, who strapped himself to the underside of a delivery van, followed months after a high-profile escape and exposed delivery-area vulnerabilities. Only about 15% of inmates were serving sentences; the rest were on remand, awaiting sentence, recalled, or immigration cases. Around 85 staff oversaw the prison, with a third off frontline duties due to sickness or training, leaving many inexperienced officers on wings and high annual turnover.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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