00:00An additional 1,500 coats, 1,000 blankets, 2,000 instant noodles and soups had to be ordered for
00:07the male inmates at HMP Wandsworth. The prison's Independent Monitoring Board, or IMP, is made up
00:14of volunteers tasked by ministers with scrutinising conditions in custody. The report warned the
00:20prison's heating problems will continue until systems are replaced in their entirety, rather
00:25than patched up in a piecemeal manner. The IMB concluded the prisoners at the Category B jail
00:32are being housed in unsafe, overcrowded, unsanitary and squalid conditions. They added the severe
00:38physical limitations of the Victorian buildings remain with inhumane living conditions. Staffing
00:45also remains an urgent issue, with around one-third of staff absent or unavailable every day on average,
00:52increasing the hours spent locked in cells for inmates. Inmates freed from HMP Wandsworth under
00:58the government's early release scheme this month described conditions inside the prison as awful,
01:03and said there's not enough space. It is the second most overcrowded prison in the country,
01:09holding 60 to 80 percent more people than it is designed to do. The majority of prisoners share
01:14extremely cramped cells, originally intended for single occupancy. His governor was called in for
01:20crisis talks when two criminals were released by mistake in November last year. Almost half the prisoners are
01:26foreign nationals.
