Salford MP Rebecca Long-Bailey and Salford Mayor Paul Dennett have written to the Justice Secretary calling for an urgent investigation into worrying allegations identified in a report into HMP Forest Bank
The report in the Manchester Evening News earlier this week raised very grave concerns about how HMP Forest Bank is being managed and a current prison guard, one of the report’s sources, was quoted explaining: “Managers don’t have control over staff and staff definitely don’t have control of prisoners… Prisoners are able to do almost anything they want”.
The report suggested a culture of lawlessness and severe under resourcing within the prison which cannot deliver justice for the victims of crime, cannot protect frontline prison staff trying to do their important work properly, and cannot serve to support rehabilitation for the eventual safe release of prisoners after justice is served.
The report found a lack of control in wings of the prison, where managers have lost control of staff and staff have lost control of the prison, and that prisoners ‘do almost anything they want’ because staff ‘don’t care or aren’t sufficiently experienced and are not supported by managers.
There was a highh staff turnover, resulting in inexperienced staffing, inexperienced manager promotion, unconstructive relationships between managers, staff and inmates, and a subsequent impact on the way inmates are managed.
There were high rates of violent incidents, which guards do not have experience handling and are not adequately equipped to deal with and violence is commonplace and inmates ‘run the wings’.
One allegation suggested that a a desperate father paid off a drug dealer on his addict son’s wing because ‘staff didn’t protect him’.
There were allegations that inmates brewing their own alcoho and that it was ‘unrealistic’ and too dangerous for staff to collect drugs thrown into the yard.
In the letter the two point out that
“Previously, in May 2022, the independent HM Inspectorate of Prisons concluded the prison is unable to “fulfil its role successfully”. On inspection, it was operating above baseline capacity, education provision received the lowest possible Ofsted grading of inadequate’, additional needs were not being supported, and the prison at the time remained the fourth most violent prison in the country, with the violent incident adjudications process being overwhelmed by the number of cases.
Indeed, the inspection last year resulted in an action plan requiring urgent implementation with many of the concerns mirroring those recently highlighted by the M.E.N investigation.
The letter asks for an urgent investigation into these reports of mismanagement with a resultant report to be made publicly available and a formal response on how much of the action plan referred to above has been implemented and if it has been fully implemented a detailed explanation as to why these issues seem to persist?
They also say that if the recent reports are indeed confirmed by the investigation, then it would in our view be prudent for the prison to brought,curently run by Sodexo to be brought under Government control with immediate effect.
