HMP Usk and HMP Prescoed rated good for safety and respect, inspectors found in 2021

HMP Usk and HMP & YOI Prescoed continued to deliver positive outcomes for prisoners, inspectors found. Their report, published in October 2021, praised the prisons’ leadership and resilience during the pandemic.

HM Inspectorate of Prisons visited between 14 and 25 June 2021. Inspectors rated outcomes good, their highest mark, for safety and for respect.

HM Chief Inspector of Prisons Charlie Taylor wrote: “These are excellent results.” He said leadership seemed key to this continued success, with a genuine sense of community. The achievement also stood out because the prisons were still emerging from the effects of the pandemic.

Usk had faced very real challenges in responding to COVID-19. It held a generally older and more vulnerable population, and it suffered the tragic loss of two members of staff and a prisoner. The report said: “The prison had, in our view, shown remarkable resilience in its response.”

Two prisons, one management team

Usk and Prescoed are two distinct prisons, managed as a single entity. Usk is a small category C prison built in a traditional 19th century style. It held 220 men, almost all serving sentences for sexual offences.

Prescoed is an open prison in a deeply rural setting about three miles away. It focuses on resettlement and held 231 men during the inspection.

Inspectors judge prisons against four healthy prison tests: safety, respect, purposeful activity, and rehabilitation and release planning. Purposeful activity covers education, work and time out of cell.

Our records list the grades as good for safety and respect, and reasonably good for purposeful activity and for rehabilitation and release planning. Inspectors made separate assessments for each site. They judged safety and respect good at both, and the other two tests reasonably good or better at both.

Outcomes at both prisons had stayed the same in all four areas since the previous inspection in 2017.

These are excellent results made more noteworthy in that they were achieved while the prisons were still emerging from the effects of the pandemic.

Charlie Taylor, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons

Safe and respectful

Peer workers gave new arrivals good support, although men at Usk could not always make a phone call on their first night. Levels of violence at both sites remained extremely low. Use of force was rare, and oversight was good. Security systems were proportionate and staff managed information well. However, strip-searching still took place routinely after social visits at Usk.

Levels of self-harm stayed very low in both prisons. There had been one self-inflicted death at Usk since the previous inspection. Access to Listeners, prisoners trained by the Samaritans to give confidential emotional support, was good.

Most prisoners in the survey reported respectful treatment and said they had a member of staff they could turn to. Inspectors saw friendly and helpful interactions. Usk had gained formal endorsement as an Enabling Environment during the pandemic. Consultation at both prisons was good, and complaints were fewer than the average for similar prisons.

Social care arrangements were excellent. In the survey, 95% of patients rated the overall quality of health services as very or quite good. External areas at both sites impressed inspectors.

Opening up after the pandemic

Both prisons had moved quickly to open up their regimes as the pandemic eased. Inspectors heard that they were among the first to reach the HMPPS stage 2 designation.

Prescoed had kept release on temporary licence (ROTL) going during restrictions for prisoners defined as essential workers. By the time of the inspection, some 60% of Prescoed prisoners were benefiting from various forms of ROTL.

Prisoners at Usk averaged two hours and 45 minutes a day out of their cells. Inspectors said this was not as good as they had hoped but represented progress. Work and education still needed to become fully operational.

At the 2017 inspection, inspectors made 29 recommendations, four of them about key concerns. The prisons had achieved the key recommendation on purposeful activity. Of three on rehabilitation and release planning, they had achieved one and partly achieved two.

Areas for improvement

Inspectors noted a small number of issues. Some accommodation at Prescoed needed refurbishment, and too many men at Usk shared cells designed for one.

Very few prisoners absconded from Prescoed, but more returned to closed conditions than from most open prisons. Inspectors linked this to a ‘zero-tolerance policy’ that sent men back immediately without appearing to consider mitigation. Men awaiting return sat in a holding room with an unscreened toilet and no chair.

Prisoners at both sites could wait up to nine days for their first full shop order. Equality work needed an effective plan.

Since this report

Inspectors have reported on the prisons again since, with a full inspection report published in August 2025.