Dovegate inspection report
HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, Anne Owers, has published her report into Dovegate prison.
In response to the report Wyn Jones, director of Dovegate, said:
“We have clear evidence to show Dovegate is improving as a prison, although we acknowledge we still have further to go. In the five months since this inspection random drug testing rates have fallen significantly and are now at 12%- this compares favourably to other similar prisons and meets the Home Office target set for Dovegate. Assaults are also down significantly to an annual average of 2% of the prison’s population. This reduction in assaults is also pleasing given that Dovegate holds dangerous, often violent men convicted of serious offences including murder, drug trafficking and armed robbery. These men generally come to our prison at the beginning of very long sentences in an overcrowded prison system where they may be held far from their families.
“Following the inspection report we are taking the following further steps to improve prisoner safety:
- Our drug prevention strategy has been overhauled and the reduction in drug availability will, in the long term, reduce bullying though can be expected to trigger a negative reaction initially
- More staffare being deployed to residential areas and the most experienced staff, who often graduate to specialist roles elsewhere in the prison, are being rotated back to the wings.
- A new ‘zero tolerance’ approach to low-level bad behaviour is backed up by a new Anti Social Behaviour Unit to temporarily house prisoners who refuse to play a positive part in prison life. The incentives scheme whereby privileges like access to TV are earned by good behaviour has also been toughened up.
- The ‘personal officer’ scheme – which gives every prisoner an individual officer he can talk to about any concerns he may have – has also been strengthened.
“We were pleased that the report commends Dovegate’s handling of self-harm risk, race relations and the management of life sentence prisoners. A separate Inspectorate report was published at the same time into Dovegate’s pioneering Therapeutic Community – a separate unit which allows 200 serious, often repeat offenders to undergo individual and group therapy. This process has been proven to reduce the reoffending rates of these prisoners and we are pleased the report confirms the contribution to society our unit makes.”