At the end of last week, the Ministry of Justice — so often a stranger to public scrutiny — released a glossy, self-congratulatory 20-minute video celebrating the construction and delivery of HMP Millsike, a new 1468-place male resettlement prison in East Yorkshire. It was built ahead of schedule and on budget, and Britain is desperately short on prison spaces for those who should be incarcerated, but larger challenges remain than what Millsike can fix.

Much attention has been directed at the prison’s fixtures and fittings, overseen by private contractor Mitie to run for the next 10 years at a cost to the taxpayer of £329 million. The prison’s colour schemes have been carefully coordinated to infuse the place with feelings of calm. We are told that “warm truffle” magnolia walls and burnt orange cell doors are part of a “biophilic” approach to create an environment that fosters positivity, while prisoners will have a say in naming their blocks. Meanwhile, the wings are configured to encourage maximum surveillance — which has the handy by-product of pushing down the staff headcount. Windows are all glass, built to a ballistic standard to deter widespread drone deliveries.

It would be wrong to be too churlish about these innovations. Living and working in a prison is a stressful business, and the built environment is important. We can’t expect offenders to behave well and take responsibility for their lives when released if they are given no autonomy and no opportunities while they are banged up. Crucially, it’s the staff who dictate the prison’s culture, and this is where the real challenge lies. Millsike will employ 700 people from the local community, many of them as prison custody officers, but how many of them will stay is another matter.

Another privately-run resettlement prison, HMP Five Wells, descended into near-anarchy after it opened in 2022. Like HMP Millsike, it was hailed as a “smart prison”, until most of its staff took the smart option and fled its endemic violence: only 272 of the originally appointed 750 remained after the first year of operation. Also like Millsike, it promoted a new progressive approach to incarceration that gave prisoners freedom and choice. Unfortunately, due to the inexperience of the officers, this mostly allowed for more efficient drug dealing.

As to whether Mitie can learn from this experience, the omens are not encouraging. This is the company’s first prison, but not its first foray into the captivity-for-profit sector. Mitie runs immigration detention centres in Britain, with one near Heathrow described last year by the Chief Inspector of Prisons as the worst he had ever seen thanks to widespread drug use, violence and poor staff engagement.

Mitie executive Russ Trent at least has some personal experience of prisons which quickly go wrong after opening. He was the first governor of state-run HMP Berwyn, which was opened in 2017 with a promise to do things differently. Soused in the lexicon of hope — or spectacular naivete, depending on your view — Berwyn became synonymous with violence and corruption, leading the chairman of the prison officers union to observe: “experienced prisoners will take advantage of the softly, softly approach and that’s why Berwyn has got one of the highest assault rates on staff.”

So while the facilities at Millsike are impressive, it is human appointees who make the difference. The prison will have no control over which offenders it receives as the facility gradually builds up its personnel. Its legitimacy and chance of success, however, are largely based on who it recruits and trains up. Whether the paint scheme is warm truffle or falling off the walls, that formula is eternal: suitable and sufficient numbers of frontline staff clearly and confidently in charge. This is how lives are changed, and even saved.

---

Ian Acheson is a former prison governor and author of Screwed: Britain’s Prison Crisis and How To Escape it.

NotThatBigIan

---