Wormwood Scrubs and Pentonville are now safer, say inspectors

When HM Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) visited Wormwood Scrubs and Pentonville in 2025, it issued scathing verdicts. Inspectors went back to the two London jails this year to assess progress in putting right the faults, and have published latest findings.

Charlie Taylor, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, said the Scrubs had focussed on safety and made considerable strides. He praised the prison’s success in stemming the spread of illegal drugs in the jail and said that drug testing was demonstrating that this new approach was working. He particularly praised the Incentivised Substance-Free Living unit. He also added that the use of body-worn cameras had improved and more incidents were properly recorded, but that use of force was unacceptably inconsistent.

However, time out of cell and purposeful activities were still unacceptable. The policy restricting mixing between wings had not changed, and caused tensions and unhappiness among residents. The regime, he says, remains poor, with around 40 per cent of prisoners locked up during the working day. Living conditions in the prison had improved, but progress to upgrade the vital emergency cell call system was slow. 

Supervision of medication had improved. Despite better support from housing providers, homelessness on release had increased instead of reducing, and plans to help those released early were still in development.

At Pentonville, inspectors who went back in March found that prison leaders had taken their previous report seriously. HMIP found good progress in leadership, early days, and sentence management, with reasonable progress in improving prisoner safety and staff/prisoner relationships.

Reception and first night processes were better organised and supervised, and quality assurance checks had improved leadership control of sentence management. However, time out of cell had not increased at all sufficiently. Despite a new core day system, too many men remain locked up for long periods.

Suicide and self-harm prevention processes were inconsistently applied. Far too many men had no activities to attend, and attendance at classes was inconsistently recorded. Inspectors noted the recently-opened training kitchens and found that working with third-sector organisations both provided new opportunities and improved the environment.

HMIP felt that the Governor has clearer direction and stronger oversight of critical systems, and detected clear improvements where the prison leadership team had focussed their attention. Warnings were given that this will not be maintained unless time out of cell is more consistent and more people participate in the activities on offer.