My Time with HM Inspectorate of Prisons

One of our Rotary members, Jane Mackay gave us a fascinating talk about her work within a part of the UK Justice system that few of us have any experience of. For four years from 1999 to 2003 Jane was a member of the Prisons Inspectorate under the leadership of Sir David Ramsbotham, and latterly Dame Anne Owers. Its function was to provide independent scrutiny of prisons and detention centres in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. With Jane’s medical training and background, her focus on the inspections was often on the welfare and social aspects of prison life, and brought her into direct contact the inmates. With over 80,000 people in custody, there are 141 prison facilities across the UK, with 92 being for males, 15 for women, and a number of other institutions for young offenders and immigration detention. The prison estate is designated into categories. Category “A” being high security, which housed male prisoners that posed the greatest risk to the population, should they escape, through to category “D” open prisons. Inspections took place on average every five years and lasted approx five days. They could be announced or unannounced. Jane’s involvement included visits up and down the country to most types of institutions, and she spoke about some of the situations they encountered on these visits. Personal security was an important element for women visiting many of the institutions, and Jane outlined that the members of the Inspectorate were given training to ensure they did not put themselves at undue risk. Rapt attention was paid to Jane’s presentation, with most of us thankful that we had no experience of the environment in which this important work was undertaken by Jane and the Inspectorate team!! A vote of thanks for this excellent presentation was given by Derek Brown.