Commenting on HM Inspectorate of Prisons Annual Report 2018-19 published today (9 July 2019), Mark Day, Head of Policy and Communications at the Prison Reform Trust, said:

“Mechanisms to ensure greater transparency and accountability are welcome and may help to drive some improvements in our overstretched prisons. But unless ministers are also held to account for decisions which have led to the UK having amongst the highest incarceration rates in western Europe, and a prison system which is chronically overcrowded and where too many establishments are simply not fit for purpose, many of our prisons will continue to fall short of even basic standards of safety and decency.”