DARTMOOR Prison is a safer and less oppressive jail than it was two years ago ? but still has some way to go in terms of improvements, an inspection report has concluded.

HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, Anne Owers, who was highly critical of the prison in 2001, said there had been some welcome and positive changes.

?Dartmoor 2003 was a visibly different prison from Dartmoor 2001,? she said. ?It was lighter and less oppressive than before, both in its physical appearance and in its less over-controlled atmosphere.

?It is to the credit of the Governor and many staff that Dartmoor has absorbed and acted on many of the hard messages in our last report, but the prison still has to grasp, and be supported, in its new role as a prison focusing on training and resettlement.?

Prisoners were out of their cells more regularly with access to showers and phones as a result of new staff deployment and only half as many inmates as in 2001 said they felt segregated.

In her last damning report, the prison inspector referred to the segregation unit as ?forbidding?, with its ?cages? and ?pens?, but these had been transformed into a bright resettlement unit, providing excellent opportunities for its 45 prisoners.

She said, however, that the unit only touched seven per cent of the prison population and for the remainder, the sentence planning was poor and 50% of prisoners left with no fixed abode.

Although there were no incidents of staff referring to prisoners in an overtly disrespectful language, there was little evidence of pro-active engagement by staff ? only 9% of prisoners said staff had checked on them in the last week, compared with 20% in training prisons generally.

Anne Owers said the change to a Category C status prison continued to be a difficult one, with staff not understanding, or claiming not to understand, the different security requirements and new rules and therefore being unable to implement them effectively.

In a prison where almost one in five prisoners were from black or ethnic minorities, race relations was a concern, with allegations of racist behaviour by staff doubling since 2001, and race complaints were not always fully investigated.

There needed to be improvements in education and there were no treatment programmes available for the large sex offender population ? a culture of denial was developing, in the absence of positive attempts to change behaviour.

Concluding her report Anne Owers said: ?There are some excellent initiatives, including the

visitors? centre, the resettlement unit and the drugs work ? but they are not yet integrated into the fabric and culture of the prison as a whole or part of the experience of the majority of its prisoners.

?That is the next task for staff and managers and they will need the active support of the Prison Service.?

Commenting on the report, Phil Wheatley, director general of the Prison Service, said Dartmoor Prison had not only visibly improved but it felt like a calmer, safer place.

?Major improvements to the old, rightly condemned, segregation unit have been matched by significant improvements in relationships between prisoners and staff, sentence planning and management of diversity,? he said.

?Dartmoor?s new settlement unit has been acknowledged as one of the leading centres for the rehabilitation of prisoners within the system.?