A Prison Inspector Calls

Save

Documentary

Summary

Rex Bloomstein follows a team from the Prison Inspectorate as they investigate why His Majesty's Prison Onley, a category C medium security prison housing 740 inmates, is failing to provide a safe and productive environment in which prisoners can be prepared for release back into society. Governor Mark Allen explains how Onley is one of the worst prisons for incursion of drugs via drones and how many of his staff are too inexperienced to handle the inmates

Review

Anna Jones

It’s not the criminals on trial here but the jail in which they are incarcerated: HM Prison Onley, a Category C facility near Rugby. So many of the windows are smashed — years of poor maintenance combined with vandalism and the desire to access drug deliveries via drones — that one prisoner expresses the heartfelt wish that he had a duvet because it’s so cold, while another shows the visiting team from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons a wall splattered with pigeon faeces.

This documentary is unsentimental and realistic: the investigative team acknowledge from the start that they expect to be met with complaints from the inmates. It is we, the listeners, however, who may be shocked by the conditions they encounter. What chance is there of any meaningful rehabilitation within these walls?

A Prison Inspector Calls

Summary

Review

How to listen

Credits

Crew