Latest news with #SwinfenHall
BBC News
13-08-2025
- BBC News
HMP Swinfen Hall showers and drinking water affected by leak
A water leak at a prison in Staffordshire has affected the supply to showers and cells, according to relatives of have been in touch with the BBC and said their sons at HMP Swinfen Hall, near Lichfield, have been unable to shower for several days.A spokesperson for the Prison Service said there had been access to clean drinking water at all were stopped as a precautionary measure while the issue was addressed, but the water supply to cells was not compromised, they added. "The situation is resolved and the water supply to HMP Swinfen Hall has been reinstated," a spokesperson said on Tuesday. One woman, who said her son was an inmate at the prison, said prisoners had been given a 500ml bottle of water to last through the night and had not able to shower."The whole wing was stinking because people weren't able to have showers," she said."I was disgusted, in this heat as well. They're locked up and they've got no drinking water - they've basically just given them a little supply," she said."It shouldn't be happening. They should be supplying them with basic needs."She added that she had to top up her son's account for use in the canteen to buy extra drinks. Follow BBC Stoke & Staffordshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
The Guardian
27-05-2025
- General
- The Guardian
The Guardian view on young offenders: amid rising violence, they need support to change
The recent deterioration of conditions for young offenders has been overshadowed by the wider crisis engulfing prisons in England and Wales. But the accounts given to the Guardian by three mothers of sons who are currently in HMP Swinfen Hall, in Staffordshire, offer a disturbing insight into the exceptionally high levels of violence that have become normalised. Their descriptions of 'constant fear', casual knifings and 'drugs and knives everywhere' are chilling. Two of the women said that they agreed with the decision to jail their sons. But reading their testimony, which echoes the findings of a recent prison inspectorate survey, it is impossible to believe that any rehabilitative purpose is being served. The suggestion by one of the women that her son is becoming more violent rather than less due to the conditions rings alarmingly true, and is in line with the conclusion of David Gauke's independent review of sentencing that prisons are failing to reduce reoffending. Men's prisons are often dangerous places, with last month's attack on prison officers by Hashem Abedi at HMP Frankland just one example of the risks faced by staff as well as inmates. In parts of the youth justice estate – which holds those aged up to 21 in young offender institutions (YOIs), secure training centres and council-run secure children's homes – the problem is particularly acute. The state's special responsibility towards children, and the importance of providing second chances to those convicted when young, means this failing system requires an action plan of its own. Of the current youth custody population, 53% are minority ethnic and 63% have spent time in care. Ministers agreed in March that girls would no longer be held in YOIs, following another report. But as 97% of young people in jail are male, they are the bigger problem. Overcrowding is not an issue in youth prisons as it is in adult ones. But the lack of suitable educational provision for a group of young men who desperately need it, more than half of whom have special needs, is nothing short of tragic. So is the amount of time that many spend locked in their cells. Staff shortages are one reason why violence is so out of control that ministers recently agreed to the use of pepper spray in some circumstances. The rate of assaults on staff, which is 14 times higher than in men's prisons, can partly be explained by the fact that more than two-thirds of those in YOIs are there for violent offences. But it is clear from recent inspection reports that the number of 'keep-aparts', who are not allowed to mix due to the risk of fights, is unsustainable. The youth custody population is less than a quarter of what it was 15 years ago, so there has been progress as well as decline. Since the threshold for custody has been significantly raised, these institutions are bound to be challenging places. But Mr Gauke's review noted that young people's impressionable natures mean that they have both a higher rate of reoffending than adults and also higher potential to desist. As ministers plan their sentencing reforms, boys in custody must not be written off.
