The prison received an Urgent Notification in May 2024 following a full inspection, with an Independent Review of Progress carried out in March and April 2025; the full reports can be read on the HM Inspectorate of Prisons website, just follow the links below. In their latest report the inspectors said:
HMP Wandsworth is a category B local prison in south-west London, run by HM Prison and Probation Service, holding 1,521 men against a baseline operational capacity of 979 at the time of the 2024 inspection, with around 80% sharing a cell designed for one. Inspectors rated safety and respect both Poor, a decline from reasonably good, while purposeful activity remained Poor, unchanged, and preparation for release remained not sufficiently good, unchanged. Charlie Taylor said the level of chaos found at Wandsworth was deeply shocking, and that the prison had come to be symbolic of the problems characterising what is worst about the English prison system.
Following the escape of a prisoner in September 2023, HM Prison and Probation Service had invested nearly £900,000 in additional safety and security resources. By the time of the March and April 2025 review, a new governor had brought energy and focus to safety and decency, violence and self-harm rates had fallen, drug testing positivity had improved, staffing had been bolstered with experienced transfers from other prisons, and the Trinity unit had been converted into an enhanced work and reform area for prisoners.
Inspectors nonetheless found 10 self-inflicted deaths since the previous inspection, seven of them in the preceding 12 months, and around 40% of emergency cell bells went unanswered within five minutes. More than half of prisoners said drugs were easy to obtain and 44% tested positive. Roughly three-quarters of prisoners spent over 22 hours a day locked up, most were unemployed, library sessions ran at under 10% of planned provision, over 900 maintenance jobs were outstanding, and over a third of staff were unavailable for duty on any given day.
Charlie Taylor
HM Chief Inspector of Prisons
April 2025
To read the full reports, go to the HM Inspectorate of Prisons website or follow the links below:
| Inspection report (PDF), Report on an unannounced inspection of HMP Wandsworth by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons (22 April–2 May 2024, published 6 August 2024) | Easy read summary of the 2024 inspection report |
| Action plan, HM Prison and Probation Service action plan in response to the 2024 inspection of HMP Wandsworth | Independent Review of Progress (PDF), HM Inspectorate of Prisons review of progress at HMP Wandsworth (31 March–2 April 2025, published 12 May 2025) |