UK National Preventive Mechanism

For all the UK NPM's latest updates, be sure to keep up with our LinkedIn and website:

⭐️ linkedin.com/company/uk-n...
⭐️ www.nationalpreventivemechanism.org.uk

Bar chart showing the healthy prison outcomes at HMP Leeds in 2025 compared with 2022. Safety and purposeful activity had both declined from not sufficiently good to poor; respect and preparation for release had declined from reasonably good to not sufficiently good.

HMP Leeds: critical safety concerns putting prisoners at risk.

Read the report: hmiprisons.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmipris_repo...

And the press release: hmiprisons.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/news/critica...

See the healthy prison scores:

White text against a black background, reading: "If there had been 16 self-inflicted deaths in three years in any other state facility, there would be a national outcry and calls for a public inquiry. What is being done to keep people safe?" This quotation is from Andrea Coomber KC (Hon.), Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform.

At the end of September, Leeds prison had room for 641 men but was being forced to hold 1,092.

Chronic overcrowding has tragic consequences: https://howardleague.org/news/leeds-prison-report-reveals-the-tragic-consequences-of-chronic-overcrowding/

What happens to prisoners on a Friday?

Are regimes similar to Monday to Thursday, with some access to activity, or is Friday the start of a long weekend of lock up? Sara Pennington led a team of inspectors to find out.

Read the blog: hmiprisons.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/news/what-ha...

With the publication of the ‘Just passing time’ thematic review, Chief Inspector, Charlie Taylor, outlines the problems with current work and training provision in adult prisons and his concerns that cuts will make things worse.

Read the blog: hmiprisons.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/news/what-do...

Today we published six new reports following visits to mental health services and two prisons in Scotland.
Read more here:
bit.ly/3KRJNNp

📢​The UKNPM Reporting Dashboard can help to quickly highlight good practice & share these examples across NPM bodies! Read how on our website:
nationalpreventivemechanism.org.uk/news/using-t...

The Dashboard is fully updated with records from September 2025: npm-reporting.powerappsportals.com

The UK NPM has released a statement on the findings made in the BBC Panorama programme, Undercover in the Police.

nationalpreventivemechanism.org.uk/news/npm-sta...

It is rare that we come across the intentional infliction of pain and suffering, as seen in this documentary.

📝In our latest blog, NPM Chair Sherry Ralph reflects on her first year in post and celebrates the commitment and collaboration of NPM bodies. @custodyvisiting.bsky.social

Read more on our website!
nationalpreventivemechanism.org.uk/news/reflect...

YouTube video by UK National Preventive Mechanism Launch of the UK NPM Reporting Dashboard

ICYMI: The UK NPM has launched our Reporting Dashboard, a searchable database of all recommendations made by scrutiny bodies monitoring places of detention to prevent torture and ill-treatment in the UK.

🎞️Launch video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Nqy...

🌐Dashboard: npm-reporting.powerappsportals.com

Our #EnvironmentalConditionsofDetention project (@ecd-rights.bsky.social) is working to pull together as much learning as possible on these conditions. The aim is to guard against all forms of #torture. @uknpm.bsky.social
Read our recent practice notes:
detentionconditions.org/project-comm...

From Data to Action: How the UK NPM’s New Dashboard Aims to Transform Detention Oversight | APT

Read the Association for the Prevention of Torture's latest blog, featuring the UK NPM's own Sam Gluckstein! Sam discusses the UK NPM's ground-breaking new Reporting Dashboard, which launches in 2 weeks! Visit our website to register your attendance for the launch event.

www.apt.ch/news/data-ac...

Microsoft Virtual Events Powered by Teams Microsoft Virtual Events Powered by Teams

Find out more and register here:

events.teams.microsoft.com/event/f641cc...

Join us on Wednesday 20 August for the international launch of a brand-new dashboard. For the first time, this new tool brings together and codifies all those findings, offering public access to the collective insight of more than 3,500 monitors working across the UK’s places of detention.

They ensure that minimum standards are upheld and make recommendations to improve treatment and conditions. These 3,500 people, across 21 independent NPM bodies, generate over 5,000 recommendations for detention settings across the UK every year.

Across the UK, 3,500 NPM inspectors, monitors, and visitors make a difference in their communities by entering places of detention that usually unseen by the public – prisons, police custody, court custody, secure children’s care, or health and social care settings.

- promote humane conditions of imprisonment
- raise awareness about prisoners being a continuous part of society
- to value the work of prison staff as a social service of particular importance.

www.un.org/en/events/ma...

The Nelson Mandela Rules, or the revised United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, were unanimously adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 2015, when the scope of Nelson Mandela International Day was extended to:

18 July, Nelson Mandela’s birthday, was declared an International Day in 2009, which everyone is invited to mark by making a difference in their communities.

Today is the UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.

In this month’s blog, the UK NPM details what constitutes torture, and what is being done in the UK and around the world to prevent it.

Find out more: nationalpreventivemechanism.org.uk/news/blog-in...

#humanrights #OPCAT

We look forward to sharing our findings and driving better treatment for people deprived of their liberty in the UK!

nationalpreventivemechanism.org.uk/document/npm...

Exciting news! In April, UK NPM bodies agreed to a bold new Business Plan. Building on strong achievements over 2023-25, this year we are focusing on person-centred approaches and working closely with all 21 UK NPM bodies to drive meaningful change.

Head of the UK NPM Sam Gluckstein sends thanks from Strasbourg to all the hundreds of volunteers among the NPM's 3,500 visitors, monitors and inspectors.

Making sure he is heard over the traffic, a happy Volunteers Week from Sam and all of us at the NPM!

We are grateful to all those who have engaged with our recently launched Preventive Guidance. nationalpreventivemechanism.org.uk/news/blog-pr...
We look forward to continuing to support volunteers in the coming year through additional resources and programmes which will be released soon!

To all the volunteers supporting the UK NPM’s preventive mandate: Thank you! Your work is crucial to ensuring people deprived of their liberty are treated with dignity and that their rights are respected.

If you are interested in learning more about volunteering as a preventive monitor where people are deprived of their liberty, you can learn about opportunities at the end of our recent blog on recruiting dedicated volunteers: nationalpreventivemechanism.org.uk/news/blog-re...

As well as reporting on their findings and making recommendations, volunteers like custody visitors identify immediate changes that improve treatment and conditions: bsky.app/profile/cust... @custodyvisiting.bsky.social

Volunteers’ visits, and resultant findings, deepen our understanding of what happens day-to-day in prisons, immigration detention, police custody and court custody, while simultaneously helping to prevent ill treatment.

This Volunteers’ Week, the UK National Preventive Mechanism thanks the thousands of dedicated volunteers across the UK for their important contribution to the NPM mandate of preventing torture and ill treatment of people deprived of their liberty.

The NPM welcomes the publication of the MoJ's Sentencing Review, and will take some time to digest its recommendations and consider them against arguments made in our submission, which encouraged bold action to an entrenched issue.

nationalpreventivemechanism.org.uk/news/indepen...