PRISON PERFORMANCE
Ministry of Justice Performance Rating for this prison: 2
This is on a scale from 1 (serious concerns) to 4 (Exceptional) and is worked out by the Ministry of Justice taking into account 34 criteria such as overcrowding, purposeful activities etc. A score of 3 is considered a good performance. Published quarterly.
Average weekly hours of Purposeful Activity: 21.1
This figure is supplied by each prison to the Prison Service. Actual hours are usually dependent on activities etc. and should be taken as the maximum time either in workshops or education over a whole week.
Both of these figures are published retrospectively by the MoJ and HMPS and may have changed since the figures were published but they give a simple comparison between prisons.
VIDEO LINK
This prison has a Prison Video Link to compatible courts
Parliamentary Information
CONSTITUENCY: Birmingham Ladywood
MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT: Shabana Mahmood (Labour)
Prisoners may write to either their ‘Home MP’ or the MP in whose constituency their current prison lies.
The address to write to is:
House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA
EMAIL A PRISONER
This service operates at this prison. Email a Prisoner enables you to send messages to prisoners, in the UK and Irish prisons that operate the service, from any computer, without any of the hassles of writing and posting a letter, and it costs less than a second class stamp!
Your message is delivered to the prison within seconds so that it can be delivered to the prisoner by the prison staff in the next delivery.
It is free to sign up to Email a Prisoner and only takes a few seconds - all you need is an email address (EMaP can help you if you don't have an email address).
Once a member you will be able to send a message to any prisoner in the UK or Ireland, provided you know their prisoner number, from just 25 pence per message.
Click Here for link to Email a Prisoner website
Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP)
Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons for England and Wales (HMI Prisons) is an independent inspectorate which reports on conditions for, and treatment of, those in prisons, young offender institutions and immigration detention facilities. They provide independent scrutiny of the conditions for and treatment of prisoners and other detainees, promoting the concept of 'healthy prisons' in which staff work effectively to support prisoners and detainees to reduce reoffending or achieve other agreed outcomes.
HM Chief Inspector of Prisons (HMCIP) is appointed from outside the Prison Service, for a term of five years. The Chief Inspector reports to Ministers on the treatment of prisoners and conditions in prisons in England and Wales.
The Inspectorate’s programme of inspection is based on a mixture of chronology and risk assessment. Full inspections run on a five or three year cycle; all unannounced follow-up inspections run on a risk-assessed basis.
Full inspections
Prison establishments holding adults and young adults are inspected once every five years. Establishments holding juveniles are inspected every three years. This type of inspection lasts for at least one week. The Inspectorate collects information from many sources, including the people who work there, the people who are imprisoned or detained there, and visitors or others with an interest in the establishment. Inspection findings are reported back to the establishment’s managers. Reports are published within 16 weeks of inspection. The establishment is then expected to produce an action plan, based on the recommendations made within the report, within a short period following publication.
Full follow-up inspections
Follow-up inspections are unannounced and proportionate to risk. In full follow-up inspections inspectors assess progress made and undertake in-depth analysis of areas of serious concern identified in the previous full inspection, particularly on safety and respect.
Short follow-up inspections
Short follow-up inspections are also unannounced and conducted where the previous full inspection and their intelligence systems suggest that there are comparatively fewer concerns.
Escort inspections
Three escort inspections are conducted every year.
Pre-inspection visit
One month prior to each full announced inspection, an inspector will visit the establishment to plan the inspection and request a range of preliminary information. In addition, researchers will attend to conduct a confidential survey of a representative proportion of the prisoner population. Results from the prisoner survey are provided for inspectors prior to the inspection and constitute an important source of evidence.
The inspection
All inspections are conducted against the Inspectorate's published inspection criteria, 'Expectations'. Expectations' are based on international human rights standards, as well as Prison Service Orders and Standards, and over all issues considered essential to the safe, respectful and purposeful treatment of offenders in custody and their effective resettlement.
'Expectations' is the document which sets out the detailed criteria HMI Prisons uses to appraise and inspect prisons. These criteria are used to examine every area of prison life, from reception to resettlement, including;
• safer custody
• health services
• good order
• work
• diversity
• resettlement
The concept of a healthy prison is one that was first set out by the World Health Organisation, but it has been developed by this Inspectorate, and is now widely accepted as a definition of what ought to be provided in any custodial environment. It rests upon four key tests:
• safety: prisoners, even the most vulnerable, are held safely
• respect: prisoners are treated with respect for their human dignity
• purposeful activity: prisoners are able, and expected, to engage in activity that is likely to benefit them
• resettlement: prisoners are prepared for release into the community, and helped to reduce the likelihood of reoffending
Post-inspection action
Inspection reports are published within 16 weeks of the inspection. Prior to publication, the Prison Service (or whoever is responsible for the establishment) is invited to correct any factual inaccuracies within the report. The establishment is then expected to produce an action plan, based on the recommendations made in the report, within two months of publication. A progress report on the action plain is produced after a further 12 months.
HMCIP REPORT
Last Inspection by HMCIP: 2 – 11 December 2009 - unannounced full follow-up
inspection
They said
“Birmingham is a large local prison, spread over an old and a new site. Over the last 10 years, managers have overseen both the physical expansion of the prison and a change in its culture and approach.
“ This full follow-up inspection found that, while some progress had been made, there was still a considerable amount to do to ensure a safe, decent and effective prison. Only two of our 10 main recommendations at the previous inspection had been fully achieved, and we needed to make nine new main recommendations in areas that had not previously been matters for serious concern. While we have not changed our assessment, these included some important aspects of safety
“. Birmingham prison is not helped by its geographical location in the centre of transport links. This means that it is too often treated as a transit camp for prisoners passing through en route to other locations, or as a staging post for London prisoners, with the consequence that, in turn, West Midlands men are moved to Liverpool. Nevertheless, we found that procedures for receiving and inducting prisoners were not sufficiently robust. A high proportion of prisoners said that they felt unsafe at Birmingham, and the violence reduction strategy was not sufficiently effective. Vulnerable prisoners were, however, safer than at the last inspection. There was good senior management attention to safer custody, though some of the operational aspects of support for prisoners at risk of suicide needed strengthening. The segregation unit was well run; use of force was relatively high but well monitored.
“ Staff-prisoner relationships remained a considerable weakness at Birmingham. Personal officer work was underdeveloped, some staff showed little appetite for engagement with either prisoners or visitors on wings, and there was limited involvement by staff in key safety areas, such as suicide prevention and violence reduction, or with some vulnerable groups, such as foreign nationals. Some of the older accommodation was in poor condition, and there was considerable dissatisfaction with the food. There had been progress in diversity and equality work, and survey responses from black and minority ethnic and Muslim prisoners had improved. Health services were well managed, and mental health provision, including day care, had greatly improved, but the shortage of nurses impacted on primary and inpatient care.
“ Learning and skills provision was an area of strength at Birmingham, with a clear strategic direction and an increase in the number and range of educational and vocational opportunities – though there were fewer for vulnerable prisoners. There were still, however, insufficient activity spaces for the population, and we found a quarter of prisoners not engaged in activity during the working day. Exercise and association had improved, though not for all prisoners. PE provided good opportunities, but facilities were too restricted for the current population.
“ Resettlement work lacked strategic oversight and planning. There were some backlogs in sentence planning for those in scope for offender management, and no custody planning for remand and short-sentenced prisoners. Reintegration services lacked cohesion and some resettlement pathways, such as children and families, were underdeveloped. There were interventions for those with drug problems, but nothing for the significant number of problem alcohol users.
“ Birmingham remained a better prison than it was, but it was not yet the prison that it could be, or needed to be. Some of its problems are common to overcrowded local prisons – too few activities, despite some improvements, and too many prisoners who are transient or far from home. But some required much closer management of, and engagement by, staff, not all of whom were sufficiently active in supporting and working with prisoners. There had been some progress in this area, and we saw examples of good practice, and some committed staff. However, this needs to be promoted and extended if Birmingham and its prisoners are to fulfil their potential.”
Anne Owers February 2010
HM Chief Inspector of Prisons
Click here to read the full report
Previous Inspection by HMCIP: February 2007
They said:
“Birmingham is a prison that has seen significant improvement over the last five or six years. Starting from a very low base - in terms of staff-prisoner relationships, safety and decency - a strong and committed management team succeeded in changing both the culture and the outcomes in the prison. They were assisted by a temporary drop in the prison’s population, and a considerable amount of new building, particularly to replace the appalling healthcare wing. Inspections in 2002 and 2004 recorded and commended the changes that resulted.
“This inspection took place at a time of renewed and acute population pressure, which inevitably affected prisoners and staff. During the inspection, Birmingham was receiving overcrowding drafts from London, and displacing the same number of its own prisoners to Liverpool. Procedures to support prisoners in their early days in custody, and to support vulnerable prisoners, were inevitably affected: but they were not always well managed. We found inadequate entries and plans in the documentation for the support of potentially suicidal prisoners; and those new to the prison spent considerable periods in poorly-equipped cells, with a minimal regime. Though there was evidence of support for individual prisoners, and we did not believe that Birmingham was an unsafe prison, those procedures urgently need to be reviewed and closely monitored.
“There were commendably few prisoners held in segregation. However, we were extremely concerned that staff in the segregation unit were able to decide on the level of privileges for segregated prisoners, and in particular that two unfurnished cells were being used for unofficial punishments, without any authorisation. We found that there were high levels of use of force against prisoners, a proportion of which appeared unnecessary.
“Though many staff interacted positively with prisoners, some did not. Only around half the prisoners surveyed said that most staff treated them with respect or could be approached about problems. In structured interviews with prisoners, staff behaviour was cited as the most frequent and serious cause of prisoners feeling unsafe. This, combined with some written staff comments on prisoners, and our own observations, indicated that the old culture at Birmingham had not entirely disappeared. Managers need to monitor this closely, and to ensure that they follow up any inappropriate comments or behaviour. Residential staff also had little positive role in prisoners’ progress or resettlement: the personal officer scheme, criticised at the last inspection, remained ineffective.
“The responses of black and minority ethnic prisoners, in relation to safety and staff relationships, were worse than those of white prisoners; though more positive in some other areas. But it was striking that the responses of Muslim prisoners were in the main extremely negative. None believed complaints were sorted out fairly: fewer than a third believed staff treated them with respect; half said they had been victimised by staff; a third said they had been victimised by other prisoners; nearly two-thirds said they had felt unsafe. These findings came as a surprise to prison managers, and appeared to indicate a considerable chasm between staff and a particular group of prisoners. This is the second report which has found this to be the case, and the National Offender Management Service needs urgently to find mechanisms for supporting staff and enhancing relationships in this very sensitive and important area.
“Like most local prisons, Birmingham struggled to find sufficient work and activity for its prisoners. A third were unemployed, and only around a quarter were able to engage in activity that led to qualifications – and many were unable to complete courses because they did not stay long enough. The prison’s reported figures disguised the true extent of this problem, claiming an average time out of cell of nine hours. In reality, employed prisoners had around eight hours out of their cells, while unemployed prisoners spent over 22 hours locked up.
“Resettlement work at Birmingham was in a period of transition, with new offender management arrangements having recently been introduced. There was considerable fragmentation in provision, with three separate strands – offender management, OASys assessment and resettlement – in three separate locations. The offender management unit was working well with those prisoners dealt with under the new system. But outside this minority of prisoners, sentence planning and resettlement work was poor. OASys work was chaotic, and a number of dangerous and vulnerable prisoners, including some lifers, had been missed. There were 116 indeterminate-sentenced prisoners, for whom there was very little provision. Nor was there any custody planning for short-term prisoners; and there was no specialist on-site help with such essential components of resettlement as accommodation, finance and employment.
“Overall, this is a disappointing report. Birmingham was suffering from many of the pressures of an overcrowded prison system. Those pressures made it much more difficult to deliver safe, decent and purposeful outcomes for prisoners. It was a credit to staff and managers that the prison remained a much better place than it had been in 2000, and the scale of that task should not be underestimated. But this inspection found that the prison was not responding sufficiently proactively and robustly to the challenges it now faced, and indeed that some of the old culture was reasserting itself. We do not underestimate the difficulty of sustaining progress, with increased pressures and increased expectations of delivery. The fact that Birmingham was not performing sufficiently well against three of our four key tests is a measure of the challenge facing its managers.”
Anne Owers June 2007
HM Chief Inspector of Prisons
Click here to read the full report
Independent Monitoring Board
By law every prison and immigration removal centre must have an Independent Monitoring Board. IMBs in prisons derive their responsibilities from the Prison Act 1952 (Section 6). Prison Rules dealing with IMDs are numbers; 74 to 80
IMBs were known as ‘Boards of Visitors’ and are still referred to in the legislation under their old titles, although this is likely to change in the near future.
The Independent Monitoring Board for each establishment is made up of independent and unpaid volunteers from the local area. They monitor the day-to-day life in the establishment and ensure that proper standards of care and decency are maintained. Members have unrestricted access to all areas of the prison at all times and can talk to any prisoner they wish, out of sight and hearing of a members of staff. They visit all areas such as; kitchens, workshops, accommodation blocks, recreation areas, healthcare centre and chaplaincy.
If a prisoner or detainee has an issue that they have been unable to resolve through the usual internal channels, they can place a confidential request to see a member of the IMB. Problems might include concerns over lost property, visits from family or friends, special religious or cultural requirements, or even serious allegations such as bullying. In addition, if something serious happens at the prison, for example a riot or a death in custody, IMB members may be called in to attend and observe the way in which it is handled.
IMB members sample food, can attend adjudications and should visit people held in the segregation unit. They must also be kept informed on such issues as the use of restraints.
The IMB meets regularly, usually once per month, and has an elected Chair and Vice Chair. Members work together as a team to raise any matters of concern and to keep an independent eye on the prison.
Click Here for IMB Website
Click Here for the latest published Annual IMB Report for this prison
Information in this section has been provided, primarily, by the prison. This information is supplemented with information from the various prison service websites; Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons; information and quotes from recent IMB/Visiting Committee reports; and specialist departments within the Prison Service, government, and regional assemblies/parliaments. Performance and population data is provided by the Ministry of Justice.
Some of the data is published retrospectively: IMBs/Visiting Committees publish their reports up to 6 months after the end of the reporting period and at different times throughout the year, HMCIP publish their reports up to 6 months after the inspection. Population and performance figures can be up to three months out of date.
The information on our website is regularly checked but if you have additional information, or if you believe that any of our information is incorrect, please click on ‘Contact’, below.
Updated: July 2010
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