A PRISON that aims to rehabilitate high-risk sex offenders has failed to prepare effectively for their release and is plagued by staff shortages, inspectors will warn today. 

HMP Isle of Wight returns one or two prisoners to the community each month, but in a report the prisons inspectorate said that inmates were not always identified or properly discussed before release to ensure “robust risk management plans” were in place.  

Staffing shortages, which are a problem across the austerity-hit sector, were “particularly acute” at the site, which is a specialist “training prison” with a focus on rehabilitation.

The report noted that the issue was contributing to slow progress on delivering offending behaviour programmes, which are often a requirement for parole.

Just over a third of officer posts were “either vacant or the staff were not deployable” when inspectors visited between September and October 2022, leading to some prisoners spending up to 22 hours a day locked in cells, the public body said. 

It noted “declining standards” across the board and rising rates of self-harm and suicides by inmates, some of whom reported a “lack of care” from overstretched staff.

Chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor said yesterday that the prison is “failing” in its duty to prepare potentially dangerous prisoners for release.

“This is frightening — the prison service has to take serious and immediate action to address this,” he said.

Howard League for Penal Reform director Andrew Neilson warned of “severe staffing shortages reaching a crisis point. 

“Prisons with specialist functions are now operating as little more than human warehouses.

“The government must act urgently to manage demand for prison places and properly resource the system to keep the public safe.”

A Prison Service spokesperson told the Morning Star: “We are recruiting up to 5,000 additional prison officers nationally and boosting their pay to at least £30,000, with an extra £3,000 for some of the lowest paid to help us hire and retain hardworking prison officers.

“Alongside this, we’re providing temporary accommodation on release to offenders at risk of becoming homeless to stop them reoffending and keep the public safe.”