THE PARLIAMENTARY OMBUDSMEN’S SPECIAL C ASE RE VIE W ON THE ISOLATION OF INMATES IN REMAND PRISON It suggests a serious failure when the Prison and Probation Service must offer isolation-breaking measures to inmates who already have rights of association. The Chief Parliamentary Ombudsman further emphasises Both inmates with that, in contrast to what has emerged from the internatiorestrictions and in- nal investigations, her review mates who have the shows that the isolation of right of association inmates is not a problem that with other inmates is limited to inmates held on remand with restrictions. The are at risk of being lack of, inter alia, adequate isolated premises means that this is a shortcoming that risks affecting all inmates held on remand. With a target-oriented operation, this situation would not have arisen. Section 8.3 shows that the Prison and Probation Service, in its reporting back to the Parliamentary Ombudsmen in June 2018, reported a number of renovation projects of its remand prison premises. This meant that the agency would have an additional 161 new places for inmates without restrictions by the end of 2018. Of these, 88 places are located in units with special association departments. In the opinion of the Chief Parliamentary Ombudsman, this is a welcome addition, but she fears that it is far from sufficient in meeting the real needs. She highlights that she has previously stated that local and practical conditions are not acceptable reasons for not satisfying inmates’ statutory rights of association with other inmates. If, for example, the lack of communal space is accepted as a reason for refusing an inmate the right to associate with other inmates, it would completely dilute the right inmates held on remand are guaranteed by the Remand Prisons Act. 9 In addition to the availability of appropriate premises, the Chief Parliamentary Ombudsman also emphasises the importance of the Prison and Probation Service’s remand prisons having sufficient staffing levels to be able to meet both the need for inmates’ association with one another and isolation-breaking measures. This is detailed in section 8.6 with observations from the Opcat inspections on the consequences that the lack of staff can have on, for example, the possibility of satisfying inmates’ right of association with one another. In the opinion of the Chief Parliamentary Ombudsman, the Prison and Probation Service must take a comprehensive approach to both the issues of premises and staffing levels. The Prison and Probation Service must ensure that existing, as well as newly produced prisons, have The Prison and Probation sufficient premises for Service must ensure that association and the remand prisons have more use of isolation-brecommunal spaces aking measures, and that the staffing is sufficient for the remand prison to be able to offer inmates both sufficient levels of association with other inmates as well as isolation-breaking measures. A similar opinion was also put forward by the Remand Prison and Restrictions Government Inquiry with the purpose of ensuring there exists a communal space per 15 inmates (see section 5.4). The Chief Parliamentary Ombudsman notes that the inquiry’s proposal has not yet been implemented and that the Prison and Probation Service continues to have great difficulty in satisfying inmates’ rights of association with one another. In the opinion of the Chief Parliamentary Ombudsman, these difficulties are caused by the fact that several of – 59 –