Rat-infested jail needs urgent measures - report

The jail had seen a decade of successively poor and declining inspections

A rat-infested jail where prisoners face rising violence and self-harm needs urgent improvement, the chief inspector of prisons has told the justice secretary.

Rochester Prison in Kent had squalid conditions, decrepit buildings, widespread illicit drug-use and a “dearth of activity” to prepare men for release, inspectors said.

Infestations of rats and mice were found in older buildings and prisoners were creating cardboard barriers to fill gaps under cell doors to try to keep vermin out.

Prisons Minister Lord Timpson said it was a deeply concerning report and "yet another example of the dire state the last government left the prison system in".

Charlie Taylor, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, has written to Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood to invoke an urgent notification process, after the inspection last month.

He said the jail has seen a decade of successively poor and declining inspections and received a warning after a review in 2022.

'Shocking neglect'

“Rochester has been a prison of concern for many years with consistently poor outcomes which stem from failures in leadership, both locally and nationally and a lack of investment in a crumbling institution," he said.

“This decade of decline, which has accelerated in the past 18 months, shows a shocking level of neglect.”

Leaders were not visible enough, inexperienced staff were not sufficiently supported, wings were chaotic and safety deteriorating, inspectors said.

Prisoner assaults had increased by 67% in a year and there had been two self-inflicted deaths since the previous inspection.

Healthcare failings meant men missed or faced delays in receiving medicine, and clinical appointments were cancelled too frequently, leading to considerable risk for patients.

Inspectors said the Category C training and resettlement prison should be focused on getting men into education, work and training to increase chances of employment on release and reduce reoffending risks, but Rochester was “fundamentally failing”.

Lord Timpson said: "We owe it to our staff, doing their best in squalid conditions and under the threat of violence, to drag the system out of this chaos.

"This started with the immediate action the new Lord Chancellor took to end the overcrowding crisis in our prisons in July.

"In the 20 years I’ve worked with the Prison Service, I’ve never seen things so bad.

"This new government will grip this crisis and ensure that prisons like Rochester, that have been left to decay, stop breeding crime and start cutting it.”