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UK Local prison operated by HM Prison & Probation Service. Listed in the GOV.UK Find a prison directory.
Background
HM Prison Wormwood Scrubs (nicknamed "The Scrubs") is a Category B men's local prison, located in the White City area of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in West London, England; nearby Wormwood Scrubs open space. The prison is operated by His Majesty's Prison Service.
Inspectors visited this high-profile, overcrowded London prison during a June found that the healthy prison score for safety had fallen from reasonably good to not sufficiently good and purposeful activity had dropped to poor. Scores for The prison was safer than at our last inspection. Assaults on staff and the use not being used to analyse patterns of violence and create plans to achieve imported from the community. Reductions in violence were at least partly due to touch with family and friends.
— UK IMB Annual Report (2024) —
Safety: Safety data obtained by the Board relies largely on information supplied by the prison and is inevitably a snapshot of a complex picture. 4.1 Reception and induction The reception area is busy (around 500 arrivals a month), including (until October 2024) prisoners allocated temporarily from St Albans Crown Court. It is a clean and orderly space but at particularly busy times such as the evenings, [...]
Respect: 5.1 Accommodation, clothing, food Accommodation Prisoners are accommodated in five residential wings, plus the Conibeere unit (CBU) (mainly for those requiring assistance or assessment for substance misuse issues), the healthcare unit (H3), and the care and separation unit (CSU), where men are kept separate from the rest of the prison population. The three largest residential wings (A, B and C) [...]
Purposeful activity: The prison has provision for 1066 work and learning spaces. Most of these are offered on a part-time basis, a prison policy to try to increase the number of roles on offer, although many are still not filled. Over the reporting period, around 800 men were in education/work activities and around 200 were unemployed (unallocated/on waiting lists). The number actively refusing to engage with any [...]
Preparation for release: The offender management unit (OMU) is responsible for a prisoner’s sentence plan and sentence calculation, among other functions. About 70% of prisoners are unsentenced, and around 10% have been recalled to prison. Most prisoners spend a short period (less than three months) in the prison. The high turnover of prisoners presents its own challenges, and the OMU has, again, been stretched during [...]
Visiting
Inspectors visited this high-profile, overcrowded London prison during a June heatwave. When we last visited, the prison was emerging from the restrictions windows, serveries, the visits hall and showers. Officers were rightly proud of
Mailing
introduction of in-cell telephones had at least allowed them to stay in regular
Practical info
not sufficiently good and purposeful activity had dropped to poor. Scores for and were at the expense of access to work, education and time to socialise. who had not yet experienced anything like a normal regime. Staff training had fallen behind during the pandemic and hard work is needed to make sure that officers are fully prepared when the regime begins to open up.
Known issues
The prison was safer than at our last inspection. Assaults on staff and the use of force had continued to fall, while the rate of prisoner-on-prisoner assaults not being used to analyse patterns of violence and create plans to achieve imported from the community. Reductions in violence were at least partly due to at Wormwood Scrubs it had continued to thrive. Self-harm had reduced
Horatio William Bottomley (23 March 1860 â 26 May 1933) was an English financier, journalist, editor, newspaper proprietor, swindler, and Member of Parliament.
Philip Mairet (French: [mÉÊÉ]; full name: Philippe Auguste Mairet; 27 April 1886 â 9 February 1975) was a British designer, writer and journalist.
Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs (29 December 1911 â 28 January 1988) was a German theoretical physicist, atomic spy, and communist who supplied information from the American, British, and Canadian Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union during and shortly after World War II.
Sir Michael Kemp Tippett (2 January 1905 â 8 January 1998) was an English composer who rose to prominence during and immediately after the Second World War.
David Weitzman, QC (18 June 1898 â 6 May 1987) was a British Labour Party politician.
Weitzman was born in Blackburn and educated at Hutchesons' Grammar School, Glasgow, Manchester Central School and Manchester University.
Source: Wikidata + Wikipedia.
Contact & address
HMP Wormwood Scrubs PO Box 757 Du Cane Road London W12 0AE See map Help us to improve this page. Give us your feedback in this 2 minute survey., London W12 0AE
Inspectors visited this high-profile, overcrowded London prison during a June
heatwave. When we last visited, the prison was emerging from the restrictions
imposed by Covid. This time, although inspectors identified many positives, they
found that the healthy prison score for safety had fallen from reasonably good to
not sufficiently good and purposeful activity had dropped to poor. Scores for
Safety data obtained by the Board relies largely on information supplied by the prison and is inevitably a snapshot of a complex picture. 4.1 Reception and induction The reception area is busy (around 500 arrivals a month), including (until October 2024) prisoners allocated temporarily from St Albans Crown Court. It is a clean and orderly space but at particularly busy times such as the evenings, prisoners can be detained in bare holding rooms for long periods. Members have observed staff in reception working patiently and efficiently with arrivals, many of whom do not speak English as a first language, and some of whom (about 10 to15 per week) speak no English all. There are printed information leaflets in the more common languages, and staff also use online translation services when required. As in the last reporting year, the prison accepted a high number of prisoners with severe mental and other health issues and those exhibiting challenging and often very violent behaviour, some of whom have been transferred from other prisons. Late evening arrivals still cause problems for prison staff who need to access and collect information out of normal working hours, and some prisoners still arrive with inadequate documentation, making risk assessments and other first night processes more difficult. The body scanner in reception it is still not used routinely (4.5). In part to address concerns identified by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO) and others about risk [...]
5.1 Accommodation, clothing, food Accommodation Prisoners are accommodated in five residential wings, plus the Conibeere unit (CBU) (mainly for those requiring assistance or assessment for substance misuse issues), the healthcare unit (H3), and the care and separation unit (CSU), where men are kept separate from the rest of the prison population. The three largest residential wings (A, B and C) have shared cells with bunk beds, originally built for one prisoner. Some cells have a toilet in an adjoining room, but many only have a screened toilet in the cell itself. D and E wings have single- occupancy cells. Four wings each have a Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) approved cell for wheelchair users on the lowest floor and there are additional single cells on the lowest landing of D wing that have had rails installed for wheelchair users. The Board nevertheless considers that the prison’s structure is fundamentally unsuitable for the needs of wheelchair users (5.4, 6.4). Prisoners have access to laundry and shower facilities on each wing. There are, typically, between eight and 10 showers on each landing, though a number are often out of use. Some shower blocks have been modernised, containing a changing area, cubicles and lino floors. The older-style showers have smaller changing areas, tiled flooring and no cubicles for privacy. Capacity pressures have again affected the prison’s ability to carry out routine maintenance (it is harder to free up cells when the prison is [...]
The offender management unit (OMU) is responsible for a prisoner’s sentence plan and sentence calculation, among other functions. About 70% of prisoners are unsentenced, and around 10% have been recalled to prison. Most prisoners spend a short period (less than three months) in the prison. The high turnover of prisoners presents its own challenges, and the OMU has, again, been stretched during the reporting year, reflecting additional external pressures on the wider justice system. Policy changes relating to sentencing and release have also significantly increased staff workloads in these highly specialised roles. Prison offender managers (POMs) support sentenced men, including those recalled to prison for breach of licence. All sentenced prisoners should be allocated a POM on arrival, but increased workloads have again caused delays, and there have been some issues caused by cross deployment of operational POMs due to staff shortages. 28 Prisoners continue to complain to the Board that they have difficulty contacting their POM and that the regular monthly meetings they should have with them do not always take place. Towards the end of the reporting year, plans were in place to strengthen oversight and leadership of the OMU, ahead of further anticipated pressures due to the government’s planned sentencing review. The small group of IPP (imprisoned for public protection) prisoners remaining at Wormwood Scrubs has little support beyond forums, which were inconsistently held [...]
The prison has provision for 1066 work and learning spaces. Most of these are offered on a part-time basis, a prison policy to try to increase the number of roles on offer, although many are still not filled. Over the reporting period, around 800 men were in education/work activities and around 200 were unemployed (unallocated/on waiting lists). The number actively refusing to engage with any activity on offer remained steady, at around 50. The Board reported problems with attendance at activities in last year’s annual report, and this has yet to improve substantially. Over the course of the reporting period, attendance averaged 57% (50% during the previous year). One of the challenges in increasing attendance is the lack of flexibility in timetabling. No mixing between the five residential wings is permitted (4), which greatly complicates movements around the prison and dictates how activities can be coordinated and run. Some activities are available only on certain wings, which creates an inherent unfairness and increases the chances of prisoners being allocated to activities in which they have little interest, so they are not motivated to attend. On the positive side, there was evidence of an improvement in the quality of teaching: early in the reporting year, the head of education told the Board that the Novus (which provides education and training programmes in the prison) regional learning and skills manager had reviewed 10 random review of learning documents (as part [...]
Wormwood Scrubs is a famous, category B, men’s local prison in west London
that held just over 1,000 prisoners at the time of our inspection, of whom a third
were foreign nationals, more than half were black, Asian or minority ethnic and
two-thirds were unsentenced. It has had a troubled recent history culminating in
our 2017 inspection, when we described the ‘intractability and persistence of
failure at this prison’. When inspectors returned in 2019, they found a much-
improved situation and I am pleased to say that this report shows that progress
in many areas has been maintained. The prison feels calm and well-ordered
and inspectors who knew the prison well noted a better atmosphere than in the
past.
The prison was safer than at our last inspection. Assaults on staff and the use
of force had continued to fall, while the rate of prisoner-on-prisoner assaults
was one of the lowest of all local prisons. Data, though routinely collected, was
not being used to analyse patterns of violence and create plans to achieve
further progress in a prison that often saw gang and crime-related issues
imported from the community. Reductions in violence were at least partly due to
the fact that most prisoners had been locked in their cells for 23 hours a day
and were at the expense of access to work, education and time to socialise.
This was compounded for the 118 prisoners who had to share cramped, often
ill-ventilated cells that were designed for one person, though the welcome
introduction of in-cell telephones had at least allowed them to stay in regular
touch with family and friends. Leaders at Wormwood Scrubs had not shown the
ambition that we have seen elsewhere in increasing the amount of time
prisoners were spending out of their cells.
With the support of the prison service, leaders have put much effort into
improving the infrastructure of the prison with ongoing improvements to
windows, serveries, the visits hall and showers. Officers were rightly proud of
the cleanliness of their wings which, considering the churn in prison population,
was mostly good.
It has always been difficult to recruit and retain staff members at this jail and at
the time of inspection there was a large proportion of recently recruited officers
who had not yet experienced anything like a normal regime. Staff training had
fallen behind during the pandemic and hard work is needed to make sure that
officers are fully prepared when the regime begins to open up.
The education provider had been too slow in reopening services and had done
little to communicate with prisoners about the availability or range of courses. A
lack of planning for a return to face-to-face education meant that classrooms
were empty while prisoners were languishing behind their doors. Tutors had not
made enough use of assessments to create in-cell education packs, meaning
these were often of low quality and little use.
Leaders had been working to improve the quality and range of key work in the
prison and, though more vulnerable prisoners were being seen regularly, there
was much more to be done to make sure that every prisoner had meaningful
access. The Listener scheme (prisoners trained by the Samaritans to provide
confidential emotional support to fellow prisoners) was particularly impressive
and, where in some prisons this vital service had withered during the pandemic,
at Wormwood Scrubs it had continued to thrive. Self-harm had reduced
substantially and was already on a downward trend before the pandemic.
Overall, the prison was a much safer, cleaner and better organised prison than
it had been in the past, but prisoners were locked in their cells for too long. The
most important challenge facing leaders is to maintain and improve on the
levels of safety, while significantly increasing the amount of time prisoners are
spending out of their cells in education, training, work, leisure and rehabilitation
activity.
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Horatio Bottomley1860–1933 · politician
Klaus Fuchs1911–1988 · nuclear physicist
George Blake1922–2020 · spy_-_LABW_-_Generallandesarchiv_Karlsruhe_57-3_Nr._10444.jpg)
Michael Tippett1905–1998 · conductor