A DAMNING review of Jersey’s prison service has revealed a series of failings at La Moye, including the near collapse of education and training opportunities, no monitoring of phone calls or letters from the prison and inadequate support for those leaving custody.
The HM Chief Inspector of Prisons also highlighted that almost all prisoners – including those who pose a high risk of harm to others – were being released without any probation supervision in a critical report about the Island’s only prison published last Monday following a visit to HMP La Moye in November.
Responding to this finding, both the government and Probation Service confirmed that current laws do not require probation supervision for adults over 21 upon their release – but the JEP was told that introducing such a system is being considered to provide additional protections, although it would require additional staff.
The external reviewer, Charlie Taylor, wrote in the report: “There was no mandatory post-release probation supervision for most adult prisoners, which potentially undermined public protection.
“Island laws meant that almost all prisoners, including some who posed a high risk of harm to others, were released without probation supervision. This had the potential to limit efforts to manage risks in the community.
“Risk management planning for the release of high-risk prisoners was also undermined by the continuing lack of post-release probation supervision for most.”
In response, chief probation officer Mike Cutland said: “There is currently no legislation to provide for mandatory post custodial supervision for adults over the age of 21. This is now being considered by a multi-agency working group. Additional probation officers will be required to undertake the extra work involved in supervising prisoners.”
He added that while making this a legal requirement for over-21s could provide “an additional safeguard”, there are some existing protections in place.
These include restraining orders and notification requirements for some offenders to register with authorities.
The Island also has teams from different agencies – including probation, police, mental-health services and victim support – working together to help manage offenders considered a risk to the public.
He added: “All prisoners who are resettling in Jersey are currently offered ongoing voluntary support by their probation officer.”
Home Affairs Minister Mary Le Hegarat added that high-risk offenders, including sex offenders, were already monitored through Jersey’s Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements and that probation supervision is available on a voluntary basis.
She said: “There is already a requirement for post-custodial licenses in place for prisoners under the age of 21, and work to introduce post-custodial licences for all offenders serving prison sentences of six months or more, over the age of 21, is ongoing.
“Colleagues from the prison, probation, police and courts meet on a regular basis to ensure the delivery of the new legislation and policy.
“These conditions attached to these licences will intend to prevent them reoffending, protect the public and reintegrate them into the community.”
Elsewhere in the report, external reviewers also found that “poor facilities”, “insufficient resources” and a“serious failure in leadership” have resulted in the “near collapse” of the facility’s work and education provision over the past seven years.
The external reviewers criticised the “near collapse of work and education provision” since the last inspection in 2017.
“We found a deterioration in outcomes in education, skills and work which evidenced a serious failure in leadership, hampered further by
poor facilities and insufficient resources,” they said.
Since the last inspection, the range of activities offered to inmates had “substantially reduced”, with “decisions taken by previous leaders” ending accredited training in carpentry, industrial cleaning, cookery and bricklaying.
The prison was not providing training to help prisoners gain employment on release, with a survey showing that “significantly fewer” prisoners were attending education or vocational training than in 2017.
The report found that about a quarter of prisoners were released homeless last year – including some “high-risk men” – which reviewers described as a “concern”.
There is an “urgent need” to offer a provision that usefully occupies and incentives prisoners to behave while in custody, the report said.
Reviewers acknowledged that the prison’s new management team was “striving to restore and re-establish the provision”, but found that leaders were “hampered by poor facilities, insufficient resources and staff absences”.
Prison data indicated that 67% of planned workshop sessions had been cancelled in the ten months preceding the visit due to staff sickness.
No prisoners achieved qualifications in English, mathematics or English as a foreign language during 2024 due to a lack of teachers, the report said.
However, a new cohort of learners was due to sit examinations shortly after the inspection.
Arrangements to support prisoners with additional learning needs were found to be “poor”, with “too many prisoners” working in “menial” and “poor quality” jobs that occupied only a small part of the day.
The report found that there were often delays of “several weeks” between a prisoner’s arrival and starting an activity, “during which time they were locked up for most of the day”.
Reviewers found that there was no facility for monitoring prisoners’ phone calls or letters, “even if intelligence suggested that they might have resumed their offending behaviour, such as harassing a former partner”.
The report also revealed that about 10% of the prison population were not residents of Jersey, but they were unable to transfer to a UK prison after a previous agreement with HM Prison and Probation Service “collapsed”.
The Government of Jersey has been asked if it intends to respond more fully to the findings of the report.
