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Dartmoor Prisoners 'Caged Like Animals'
Friday, February 01, 2002
By Richard Ford
The Times

Richard Garside, of the crime reduction charity Nacro, said: “Offenders are sent to prison as punishment, not for punishment. The conditions that the Chief Inspector found at Dartmoor prison are completely unacceptable on humanitarian grounds. Prisoners respond best when they are treated with dignity, humanity and respect.”

The new Chief Inspector of Prisons has condemned Dartmoor jail after finding that some prisoners had been held in cages more appropriate for dangerous animals.

Anne Owers, the Chief Inspector, today says that prisoners were routinely abused and degraded by officers at the Devon jail, which she describes “as the prison that time forgot”. She found that inmates were exercised in tiny pens and forced to use a “walk of shame” route as they were taken to the segregation unit.

Her hard-hitting report is a serious embarrassment for the Prison Service which holds its annual conference on the theme of “Delivering Decency” next week.

Martin Narey, the Director General of the Service, has already told staff at Dartmoor that the prison’s role is not that of a punishment block. He will bluntly tell prison staff at the conference that the kind of culture and attitudes found at Dartmoor will not be tolerated in future.

Ms Owers details a catalogue of complaints about conditions at the prison which has a “hard” reputation and for 200 years has been viewed as the end of the line for the most difficult offenders.

The Chief Inspector and her team were horrified to discover that some prisoners in the segregation unit had been held in an “appalling” wire mesh cage despite an order from the governor that the practice be ended.

Inspectors said that they discovered the cage with disbelief and described the practice as ritual humiliation.
(More: The Times News Source)
2002 © News International Newspapers Limited.

Dan