Rochester prison given urgent notification after ‘systemic failure and decline’

A Kent prison has become the first of its kind to be issued with an urgent notification after a decade of “systemic failure and decline”, the chief inspector of prisons has confirmed.

HMP Rochester is the seventh prison to have received such a notification since November 2022, but has become the first category C prison, which focuses on training and resettlement, to receive one. The urgent notification process was introduced in 2017 and is a means of raising immediate concerns following an inspection and requires a response and action plan from the secretary of state within 28 days.

In a letter to the justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, on Friday, Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons for England and Wales, set out a long list of identified failings after a damning unannounced inspection from 12 to 22 August found decrepit conditions, rising violence and self-harm, widespread illicit drug use and a dearth of activity to prepare men for release. It was the latest in a series of poor and declining inspections over the last decade.

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HM Inspectorate of Prisons found Rochester was fundamentally failing to get inmates into education, work and training to increase their chances of employment on release, with fewer than a third of those it held being engaged in such programmes, and a “woeful provision” of public protection work. The offender management unit was ineffective and critically short of trained probation staff to manage high-risk prisoners.

Conditions at Rochester were squalid, with decrepit buildings and infestations of rats and mice in the older buildings. Prisoners made cardboard barriers to fill gaps under cell doors to try to keep vermin out of their cells.

Wings were chaotic and inspectors found that safety was deteriorating. The rate of prisoner assaults had increased by 67% in the past year and there was more self-harm and two self-inflicted deaths. Use of force was also high and inspectors found some instances that were inappropriate.

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Drugs were endemic, with 42% of prisoners testing positive in random tests and more than half of men telling inspectors that it was easy to get drugs, including those prescribed to other prisoners. More than half of the prisoners posed a high or very high risk of serious harm, but just under half of those released in the last 12 months were sent to sustainable accommodation.

Taylor said: “Rochester has been a prison of concern for many years, with consistently poor outcomes which stem from failures in leadership, both locally and nationally, and a lack of investment in a crumbling institution. This decade of decline, which has accelerated in the past 18 months, shows a shocking level of neglect.

“It is particularly concerning that a category C prison, the workhorse of the Prison Service, should require an urgent notification for our concerns to be taken seriously.”

The Ministry of Justice has been approached for comment.