Manhunt underway after prisoner escapes from west London hospital | UK News

Manhunt underway after prisoner escapes from west London hospital | UK News

Another day, another bad headline in UK prison crisis

By Mollie Malone, Press Correspondent

It’s almost every day that a new prison headline hits the headlines. And it’s not a good one. Today is no exception.

This will be a new headache for the government as it struggles to tackle the prison crisis.

Wormwood Scrubs is not one of the worst prisons in terms of conditions, but it is an overcrowded prison with a high remand population. Prisoners are not supposed to be held on remand (awaiting trial) for more than six months, but there are currently huge backlogs, meaning that around 2,000 offenders have been held for over a year.

HMIP’s latest inspection report noted improvements in how Wormwood Scrubs was run – but still referred to “insufficient staff capacity” and “staffing shortages”, as well as “poor cell ventilation, overcrowding and minimal time out of cell” for offenders, making conditions “difficult”.