Pentonville: Grim report underlines need for urgent change

The Howard League for Penal Reform has responded to HM Inspectorate of Prisons’ report on Pentonville prison, published today (Tuesday 30 September).

Inspectors visited the prison, in London, in June and July 2025 and found an overcrowded prison with high levels of drugs, violence and abject conditions.

Conditions were so bad that inspectors invoked an urgent notification, giving the Secretary of State for Justice 28 days to respond with an action plan for improvement.

Inspectors visiting the prison found that 44% of the men felt unsafe at the time of the inspection, while 50% reported that they had been bullied or victimised by staff. Three people had taken their own lives at the prison this year.

Lack of organisation at the prison meant that: staff on one wing were unable to account for the whereabouts of the men under their care during the day; men on their first night in the prison were at times unable to be identified or located; and staff were consistently failing to calculate prison sentence lengths correctly and holding people beyond their release dates.

Levels of violence at the prison were high, and often fuelled by drug use. An ineffective allocation of jobs and education places meant that the majority of men were spending more than 22 hours locked in their cells.

Conditions at the prison were found to be dirty, noisy and chaotic. The cells were overcrowded, with crumbling infrastructure and infestations of mice and cockroaches.

Pentonville is the tenth prison to be issued with an urgent notification since November 2022.

Andrea Coomber KC (Hon.), Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “It is no secret that large London local prisons such as Pentonville and Wandsworth face major problems – but the details in this report are appalling and represent a new low for an overcrowded and under-resourced public service that stands on the brink of collapse.

“It is a sign of how serious the systemic issues are that these prisons continue to face these intolerable challenges and ‘comprehensive failures’. The government needs to drastically reduce the number of men in Pentonville, and provide significant investment to help leaders to run a decent and safe jail.”

Notes to editors

1. The Howard League for Penal Reform is the oldest penal reform charity in the world. It is a national charity working for less crime, safer communities and fewer people in prison.
2. The inspection report for Pentonville prison will be available on the HM Inspectorate of Prisons website at: https://hmiprisons.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/our-reports/
3. For more information about the prison overcrowding crisis, read the explainer article ‘Why are prisons overcrowded?’

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