| General Details | Inspections, |
| Regimes | Visits and getting there |
| Local News | |
General Information
| Name or Prison | HMP & YOI East Sutton Park |
| Address: | Sutton Valence Maidstone Kent ME17 3DF |
| Other contact details: | |
| Web Site: | |
| Email: | |
| Main switchboard: | 01622 785000 |
| At Risk hotline: | |
| Fax: | 01622 785001 |
| Visits booking number: | |
| Visits booking email: | |
| Visits booking txt number: | |
| Type of Prison: | Female Adult and YOI Open Prison |
The prison is part of the Kent & Sussex region and is run by HMPS. It has a capacity of 96 and the #1 governor is Amy Dixon, who has been in charge since June 2022
East Sutton Park is a small women’s open prison and young offender institution set in an Elizabethan manor house near Maidstone, Kent, dating back to 1570 and first used as a girls’ borstal in 1946. With capacity for under 100 women, it is one of the smallest and most distinctive establishments in the estate, and has a strong reputation: an earlier inspection described it as “an excellent prison” where very strong staff-prisoner relationships underpinned safety and effective preparation for release, with violence extremely rare and disagreements usually resolved informally.
A more recent inspection, in September and October 2023, found a similar picture overall but raised some more modest concerns: weak use of data to track outcomes for women, stalled progress on equality and diversity work with some women reporting unfair treatment, gaps in recording the skills women gained on non-accredited courses, and room for better health-and-safety and values education. The prison submitted an action plan addressing each point in early 2024.
Given its consistently strong reputation, families of women at East Sutton Park may find the practical visiting and contact details above particularly useful for planning a visit to this rural site.