Female jails now deal with self-harm more compassionately, say inspectors

Female jails are becoming more compassionate in the way they treat vulnerable women in their care, according to inspectors.

A year after HM Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) raised concerns about inadequate support for women, it praised the Prison Service for listening to its criticisms and said: “We have seen clear signs of improving practice and important cultural change.”

Newly-recruited prison officers are now being asked if they want to work in the female estate, with those who choose this career route being offered specialist training. 

Control and restraint training has been updated to include techniques for dealing with women as well as with men. Prison clothing now includes a range of women’s clothes, rather than women being expected to wear tracksuits designed for men – although the inspectors said this was in short supply. 

And a rule which prevented women from washing their underwear in prison washing machines, forcing them to hand-wash it in their cells instead, has been scrapped after inspectors branded it ‘bizarre’. 

The rate of self-harm among women in prison remains eight-and-a-half times higher than among male prisoners. Often when staff discover a woman self-harming, they use force to restrain her, undress her, and force her into anti-rip clothing which cannot be made into ligatures. Inspectors had previously criticised this practice, saying it increased the distress of already-vulnerable women.

In response, the Prison Service has recruited a use-of-force specialist who is advising on the retraining of staff to deal with such situations in a more sensitive way. Sandra Fieldhouse, the inspectorate’s head of female prison inspections, said: “I think it’s really having an impact on how staff are responding to prisoners. It’s early days and I’m not saying it’s the solution to everything, but what we’re seeing in prisons of late is that the response to women in crisis is becoming a bit more compassionate.”

Describing a recent incident she had witnessed, Ms Fieldhouse said: “We saw a very experienced member of staff with a woman who’d self-harmed, where they did use force and it was appropriate. She spent an hour with that woman – not just … leaving her and shutting the door, but actually had a cup of tea with her, asked what the problems were, and got to a state where they emotionally de-escalated her so she was less likely to self-harm again.”

Based on women’s prisons it had recently inspected, HMIP praised progress at Eastwood Park, Send, Low Newton and Foston Hall. It said the use of anti-rip clothing across the women’s estate had declined from 493 instances in 2024 to 88 in 2025.

Surveys of women in prison carried out by HMIP showed that maintaining family ties was their top priority. HMIP praised Eastwood Park for using video calling to help women in prison attend their children’s school parents’ evenings, Send for offering a ‘Relationships Matter’ course, and Low Newton for having a dedicated family worker who helps women during their first two weeks in custody.

Ms Fieldhouse said: “I’ve been really impressed with the commitment shown by the women’s group which is part of HM Prison and Probation Service and oversees the 12 women’s prisons in England. I’ve been very impressed with their willingness to take our concerns seriously. I’ve been very impressed with the way they’ve developed plans and started building ways of delivering those plans.”