A Thematic Review of Weekends in Prison

By U.K. Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons

Our inspections usually take place from Monday to Friday, but prisoners are, of course, detained for seven days a week. Alarming findings from our surveys over the past year indicated that their treatment and conditions in prisons at weekends required closer scrutiny. For some time we have been reporting on the excessive amount of time prisoners still spend locked in prison cells despite the lifting of pandemic restrictions. But this post-COVID torpor is most acute at weekends. Of more than 6,000 prisoners surveyed in 2022–23, 60% of men told us that they spent less than two hours out of their cell on a typical Saturday or Sunday, compared with 42% during the week. This was more than double the proportion in the year before the pandemic (28%). The effect on women in prison was even starker; they were now four times more likely to say that they received less than two hours out of their cells at weekends. Two-thirds of women were unlocked for less than two hours on Saturdays and Sundays, compared with 36% on a typical weekday. To find out more about the experience of prisoners at weekends, we carried out 11 unannounced day-long visits on either a Saturday or a Sunday to 11 adult prisons in England and Wales. The sites were chosen so that a range of different geographical locations and functional types of prison were represented. At each establishment, we asked for regime and staffing information, inspected the different areas of the prison, carried out wing roll checks, conducted focus groups where possible and spoke to prisoners about their experience of the weekend regime. We 2 found that most prisoners were spending at least 21 hours a day locked in their cells at the weekend – in 10 of the 11 prisons we visited, most prisoners could expect to be out of their cells for a maximum of just 2.5 hours a day. In the worst cases, prisoners received only 45 minutes to an hour and, in one prison, were not unlocked at all for one of the two days except to collect their meals. Libraries were closed at weekends, and many prisoners had little to no time at all in the fresh air and could not even have a shower. Even when prisoners were unlocked for a period of association, recreational equipment was broken and out of use, and there were too few activities to engage prisoners constructively. Combined with the severely limited time out of cell on weekdays, prisoners told us that their mental health and well-being was affected. For prisoners who were struggling, there were few opportunities to get the attention of a member of staff without pressing their emergency cell call bell.

London: Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons (UK), 2023. 20p.