Drugs and violence persist at jail, says damning report

Large quantities of drugs flown in by drones and violence against prisoners and staff are among issues highlighted in a damning report into a city jail.

HM Chief Inspector of Prisons Charlie Taylor said that while some progress had been made to improve the situation at HMP Manchester, drugs, violence and a "poor regime" remained serious threats to stability.

Inspectors returned to the prison 15 months after Taylor invoked an urgent notification notice and found it remained in "a precarious state".

A Ministry of Justice (MoJ) spokesperson said they were taking urgent action to improve security and tackle violence and welcomed recognition of the strong leadership now in place.

Taylor said this was another inspection that had been completed in a "troubled" prison dogged with problems for many years.

He said there had been some improvements in the jail, with the governor and his team restoring "an element of stability" but there was "a fragility about the place that makes us nervous".

Far too many drugs were getting into the jail, which houses category A and B prisoners, he said, with about 38% of inmates testing positive in random tests - one of the highest rates in prisons in England and Wales.

It was taking "far too long" to change the windows to guard against drones flying in carrying illicit substances "on an almost daily basis," he added.

The presence of drugs led to debt and violence, with "very high" levels of violence at Manchester, including "some of the most serious violence", and an increasing number of serious assaults on staff.

The report also found 40% of prisoners were unemployed and were locked up in their cells for long periods of time when it was supposed to be a training prison.

"What we saw at Manchester was far too many prisoners sitting in their cells watching daytime TV and in many cases taking drugs," he said.

Taylor said it cost a lot of money to send someone to prison and he did not think it unreasonable to expect that prisoners should be out of their cells working and learning skills that would help them "resettle" when they come out.

Taylor said leaders at Manchester had made a determined effort to start grappling with some of the issues identified in 2024 and they had seen some early evidence of improvement.

"However, without more determined action from HMPPS [HM Prison and Probation Service] to improve physical security, drugs will continue to undermine those efforts," he warned.

Half of the prisoners surveyed during the inspection, which took place between 12 and 22 January 2026, said it was easy to get hold of illicit substances.

Taylor said issues around staff recruitment and education provision also needed to be tackled, "if Manchester is to deliver the rehabilitative activity that prisoners need to successfully re-establish themselves in society when they are released".

The situation was exacerbated by recent cuts to education provision and, along with isolation, loneliness and poor mental health, inactivity was contributing to high rates of self-harm, and there had been four self-inflicted deaths since the previous inspection.

The offender management unit was found to be well led and prisoners received some good support with their sentence plan objectives, but Manchester was still not fulfilling its purpose as a training prison.

The curriculum did not meet prisoners' needs and it took too long to allocate them to education, and classes were often cancelled, the report said.

Taylor said they would be back "in the not too distant future" and they wanted to see some of these issues fixed.

An MoJ spokesperson said: "This is a prison operating under immense pressure after this government inherited a prison system at the peak of its crisis.

"We took immediate action to bring the system back from the point of collapse and while we welcome inspectors recognising the strong leadership now in place at HMP Manchester, we are taking urgent action to stop drones, upgrade security and tackle the flow of drugs which fuels violence behind bars."

The BBC understands that, since the report, the prison has developed a new education, skills and work programme and all staff receive suicide and self-harm prevention and mental health awareness training, to increase their skills in supporting prisoners in distress.

Enver Solomon, chief executive of social justice charity Nacro, said the report was "a damning indictment of a prison system in crisis.

"How can rehabilitation happen when drug use and violence are rife, and chronic staff shortages leave people in prison with little meaningful activity?"

Solomon said when nearly half of prisoners were using drugs and many were locked in cells for up to 22 hours a day, "rehabilitation doesn't stand a chance", despite it being "essential for helping people turn their lives around and ultimately for keeping our communities safe".

"Developing services that address the root causes of offending are vital for real change," he added.

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