HMP Grendon: Victim of its own success

HMP Grendon: Victim of its own success

The death of a Grendon inmate is no surprise. It has gone sadly downhill since my time inside

By Noel Smith



If turning out genuinely rehabilitated prisoners who do not go on to commit serious offences once released is the stated aim of the British prison system – and why wouldn't it be? – then HMP Grendon has been a success for 48 years. Since it opened, in 1962, as an "experiment" in rehabilitation, Grendon has been doing the job that other prisons can only aspire to – actually rehabilitating violent and sexual recidivists. It has the lowest reconviction rates in this country of any comparable prison, and it does the job by treating its inmates with respect and allowing them to take a certain amount of responsibility for their lives. And yet Grendon has never been everyone's cup of Darjeeling, being far too namby pamby for most of the "stick-em-and-nick-em" brigade.

For this reason, the death of Robert Coello, a 44-year-old convicted paedophile, at the prison in Buckinghamshire, could be just what HM Prison Service has been waiting for. The institution is very expensive to run, costing between £45,000 to £50,000 per prisoner a year, as opposed to £38,000 in other male category-B prisons. This doesn't please the bean-counters at the Ministry of Justice, nor does Grendon's success show the rest of the prison system in a good light.

All inmates at Grendon are volunteers and before entering the therapeutic regime they used to be vetted by probation and psychology staff to ascertain their genuine desire to change, and given an IQ test to ensure they were intelligent enough for the daily cognitive group therapy sessions.

Before this murder there had never been a serious violent incident at Grendon. That it has happened now is, sadly, no surprise. Until 2002 Grendon had a waiting list of approximately 200 prisoners. And then HMP Dovegate, a privatised prison in Staffordshire, opened its own therapy unit and took those prisoners who had been waiting for Grendon. Unfortunately, the opening of Dovegate, and other smaller therapy units throughout the prison system, had the effect of forcing Grendon to compete for "customers" in a market where it was once the sole provider. This meant Grendon had to significantly lower its once strict acceptance criteria.

I was an inmate at Grendon for almost five years – from July 2003 to May 2008 – and I witnessed the gradual eroding of standards that were forced on the prison. Other jails were now doing Grendon's job a lot cheaper, albeit with nowhere near its success rate. So some things had to change. The first thing to be quietly phased out was the "drug-free" rule. Previously, in order to even get on to the induction wing at Grendon, an inmate had to prove – via mandatory drug testing – that he was at least six months clear of any drug use, including psychotropic prescription drugs. It was still against the constitution to take drugs at Grendon, but now exceptions were being made for some prescription medication, and men were getting off the prison transports still under the influence of heroin. Gone was the battery of interviews, and even the IQ test was dropped. By the time I left Grendon, getting there was as simple as expressing mild interest to a probation officer or psychologist. A prison-based therapy unit can only function effectively if the inmate volunteers have a genuine desire to change, and without safeguards at the induction stage there is no way of weeding out the wasters.

It was only a matter of time before something serious happened. I wouldn't be surprised if the MoJ used this incident as an excuse for a radical overhaul of Grendon's ethos. There has been a persistent rumour at the jail for a while now, that it could be closed down and reopened as a young offenders' or women's prison. The Grendon experiment may well have run its course. And that would be a shame. Particularly for any future victims.