Last inspectedFebruary 2025Full inspection, unannounced
Source: HM Inspectorate of Prisons report published 19 May 2025; visiting details from GOV.UK · last checked 29 October 2026
Latest inspection
At its last full inspection (February 2025; report published May 2025), inspectors found outcomes for prisoners were not sufficiently good for safety, respect, purposeful activity and preparation for release. It held 1,087 people at the time, against an operational capacity of 1,123. An independent review of progress was published in November 2025.
Safety: not sufficiently good · Respect: not sufficiently good · Purposeful activity: not sufficiently good · Preparation for release: not sufficiently good Read our story
Christopher Walton, 67, did not receive treatment of the standard expected in the community before he died in February 2025, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman found.
Prisoners will produce more kit for the Ministry of Defence as the UK raises military spending, while trials at five Category C prisons test a 31-hour working week.
Inspectors found a third of men at the category C prison lived in decent conditions with work to do, while hundreds of others faced bleak, drug-ridden houseblocks and little time out of cell.
The inspectorate's report on HMP Ranby, published in July 2022, awarded its top grade for safety but found empty workshops, more than half of prisoners unemployed and some men locked up for 23 hours a day.
Prison News staff
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