Prison inmates used buckets as toilets

6:41am Thursday 8th May 2008

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A PRISON for sex offenders came under fire today as being "unacceptable" in the 21st century after inmates were forced to use buckets instead of a toilet.

Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers said the sanitary system on five wings at HMP Albany on the Isle of Wight was "unacceptable in a 21st century prison".

The criticism came in a report published today following an announced inspection between November 12 to 16 last year at the specialist category B men's training prison.

Other criticisms included "distant and mistrustful" relationships between staff and prisoners, particularly for black and minority ethnic inmates.

Public protection work was good, and offending behaviour programmes were run to a very high standard, but too few prisoners were accessing them, the report said.

The range of activities provided was good with plenty of time out of cell but there were insufficient workplaces.

Systems to protect prisoners against bullying and self-harm were also criticised as "not sufficiently robust".

The report also revealed a "serious and chronic shortage of staff" which meant that only basic health interventions could be delivered.

Ms Owers said: "Albany has an important, difficult and specialist role. This inspection found that it was in general a safe prison with well-run and effective treatment programmes.

"However, the prison as a whole was not taking a sufficiently proactive and coherent approach to its task.

"It was not helped by national policies which failed to properly allocate prisoners, or by needing to use accommodation which is not fit for purpose.

"It is also facing the disruption of being merged into a cluster with the other two, entirely different, training prisons on the island.

"It will be essential that the merger reinforces Albany's specialist national role, and does not dilute it."

HMP Albany's role is to hold sex offenders and work with them to reduce the chance that they will reoffend.

It had an operational capacity of 529 at the time of inspection.

Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, blamed overcrowding for HMP Albany's failings.

She said: "Albany's work is vital for public safety and needs to be properly resourced.

"It is therefore extremely worrying to learn that relationships between staff and prisoners were distant and mistrustful; many prisoners had nothing to do during the day; nearly one-in-five sex offenders required a programme not run at the prison; there was no systematic strategy for dealing with prisoners who were denying their offence; and buckets had to be issued to prisoners on five wings because of a night sanitation system that is unacceptable in a 21st century prison.

"The knock-on damage of a chronically overcrowded prison system is clear to see at Albany prison."

In 2006, at least 60 people at the high-security jail launched legal action claiming their human rights were breached and demanding thousands in compensation because they did not have 24-hour access to toilets.

Instead, they have to press a button to leave their cell and use the toilet but if this fails they are issued with lidded buckets.

Phil Wheatley, director general of the National Offender Management Service, said: "Over the past year, the amount of purposeful activity for prisoners has already increased, and further work is under way to maximise the number of places available to ensure the greatest number of prisoners possible have access to activity."