Sex offenders' behaviour not challenged at jail

Inspectors visited the jail, on the Isle of Portland, in July

High-risk prisoners at a jail for sex offenders could spend years there without any challenge or support towards them changing their thinking or behaviour, inspectors found.

HMP The Verne, in Dorset, was visited by HM Inspectorate of Prisons in July, where it found there was “much work to be done” to improve.

Two of the four ratings used to score the prison’s performance in 2020 declined, while the other two stayed the same.

A prisoner told inspectors that the prison was “letting society down” by “not getting anyone to address the reasons” men are detained there.

The report, published on Monday, found the prison’s offender management unit was “seriously understaffed and stretched” and the “worrying weaknesses” in getting prisoners to address their behaviour.

Many of the 600 prisoners complained to inspectors that they were bored. A shortage of teachers and tutors meant many had only part-time access to education.

Other availability issues led the inspectorate to conclude "the definition of full-time work used by the prison was not one that would be recognised by anyone who worked outside the jail".

The Verne site, on the Isle of Portland, had been used as a category C jail for sex offenders since July 2018.

It was used as an immigration removal centre between 2014 and early 2018. It was earlier used as a jail between 1949 and 2013.

Only 2% of the prison’s staff completed an online training program for working with prisoners convicted of sex offences in the year prior to the inspection. Just 57% of staff and partners had completed that program at all.

But the report found staff-prisoner relationships were good and staff were generally visible.

About 70% of The Verne’s prisoners are serving more than 10 years in jail or a life sentence.

The report rated safety at the prison as good and that purposeful activity was not sufficiently good, the same ratings it scored in a previous inspection in 2020.

But the rating for respect and preparation for release were scored as reasonably good and not sufficiently good, respectively, a decline on previous ratings four years ago.