The prison was given a full inspection in March 2026, the full report can be read on the HM Inspectorate of Prisons website, just follow the links below. In their latest report the inspectors said:
HMP Isle of Wight is a category B training prison for adult men near Newport, Isle of Wight, run by HM Prison and Probation Service, formed from the merger of HMP Albany, HMP Camp Hill and HMP Parkhurst, and predominantly holding men convicted of sexual offences assessed as high risk of harm. It held 961 prisoners against an operational capacity of 968, reduced by 131 places for fire-safety works. Inspectors rated safety and respect both Not Sufficiently Good, unchanged, purposeful activity Not Sufficiently Good, an improvement from Poor, and preparation for release Reasonably Good, also improved from Poor.
Ninety-one per cent of prisoners aged 50 or over said staff treated them with respect, and 91% said they were treated well at reception. Over 80% of prisoners knew their sentence-plan targets, and nearly 10,000 video calls were used by a third of the population over 12 months. Only 8% of probation-supervised releases were homeless on their first night. Inspectors praised an inclusive reading strategy, a jointly staff- and prisoner-delivered induction programme, an impressive seven-day gym timetable, and a dedicated resettlement course for long-sentence prisoners.
Inspectors raised six priority concerns. Governance of segregation and adjudications was weak, with 138 unresolved adjudications at the time of inspection. Self-harm was high, at 1,162 incidents per 1,000 prisoners, the fifth highest of any adult male prison, though down from 1,614 at the last inspection; a quarter of prisoners felt unsafe and 56% said drugs were easy to get, up from 29%. Infrastructure was failing across both the Albany and Parkhurst sites, with night sanitation on the Albany site rated not decent. Health service governance was poor, with four of five mental health act transfer cases breaching the 28-day guideline. Around a third of prisoners were locked up during the working day, and Ofsted rated education and work as requiring improvement across all headline judgements. Prison offender manager contact was inadequate, limiting sentence progression, with the highest caseload per officer of any prison.
Charlie Taylor
HM Chief Inspector of Prisons
May 2026
To read the full reports, go to the HM Inspectorate of Prisons website or follow the links below:
| Inspection report, HM Inspectorate of Prisons report on an unannounced inspection of HMP Isle of Wight (16–26 March 2026, published 29 June 2026) | Easy read summary of the 2026 inspection report |
| Action plan, HM Prison and Probation Service action plan in response to the 2026 inspection of HMP Isle of Wight | |