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Please visit POPS’ Facebook page for HMP Risley for all the latest information and updates.

HMP Risley is a prison for men in Warrington, Cheshire.

POPS delivers the Family Support Services at HMP Risley providing a warm welcome and advice and support for all visitors on a range of issues including travel, debt and housing. We also offer one to one support at times to suit families, please ask for more information.

Recent Updates

• Warm Spaces 2024

Useful Documents

Before your visit make sure you download and read the following documents: I

• 10 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW
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Important Contact Information

Visitor Centre: 01925 733 063 Booking Line: 01925 733 284 / 733 285 Book by email: [email protected] Prison Switchboard: 01925 733 000

POPS’ Family Lead: [email protected] / [email protected]

Visitor Centre Opening Times

Visiting times:, financial assistance with visiting.

If you qualify to receive help with your finances such as benefits, you may be able to recoup all or part of the cost of your travel expenses.

Safer Custody 

If you have concerns about an individual in custody at HMP Risley please call the Safer Custody concern line on 01925 733 007. Please leave your name, contact information and the name and prison number of the individual you are concerned about along with a description of your concern. Alternatively you can send the information via email to [email protected] or via the online Safer Custody portal on the Prisoners’ Families Helpline website.

Last updated 10/01/24.

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Inside Look: Life and Facilities at Risley Prison

Welcome to our inside look at Risley Prison . Located in Warrington, Cheshire, Risley Prison provides high-level rehabilitative and vocational services to its inmates. Our deep dive will paint a picture of day-to-day life and facilities at this institution.

Risley Prison is a Category C adult male prison that has the capacity to hold approximately 1,095 prisoners. It is known for promoting rehabilitation, offering a wide variety of vocational educational and training services.

Facilities at Risley Prison

• Accommodation: Risley is composed of 10 residential wings, each containing single and double cells with basic facilities like a bed, desk, chair, and storage for personal items.
• Education: Risley offers various educational programs from basic literacy skills to Open University courses. The education department is managed by Novus, providing support in a variety of subjects.
• Workshops: Inmates have the opportunity to get involved in different workshops, like construction, catering, horticulture and recycling. This helps prisoners to develop useful skills for future employment.
• Healthcare: A healthcare team is available to provide medical, dental, and mental health services.
• Chaplaincy: Risley prison respects all faiths and houses a multi-faith chaplaincy team, offering various worship services and pastoral care.

Prisoners at Risley can earn privileges as part of the Incentives and Earned Privileges scheme (IEP). This allows for benefits such as extra visitation rights, in-cell televisions, and higher wages for work.

Day-to-Day Life at Risley Prison

Life at Risley operates on a structured routine. Inmates are generally allowed out of their cells for at least several hours each day – to work, access educational programs, exercise, socialise, and seek the support they need.

Visitation plays a crucial part in prisoners’ lives. They’re typically allowed at least two visits every four weeks. The visits are supervised, but the visitors’ centre aims to create a relaxed atmosphere to support the wellbeing of all relatives, including children.

Despite being a place of confinement, Risley Prison is a space where inmates can engage in personal development activities. It seeks to lower the risks of reoffending through rehabilitative measures and reshaping its residents’ futures.

Please note, all information provided pertains to UK law and is relevant within the context of the UK prison system.

Rehabilitation and Support

Risley Prison’s main goal is to minimise reoffending behaviour, and this is achieved through various rehabilitative initiatives and support services.

• The Offending Behaviour Programme: Specialised programmes to address offending behaviour. They tackle subjects like violence, drugs, and sexual offences.
• Substance Misuse Services: There are dedicated services for prisoners dealing with substance abuse or addiction problems, including counseling and peer-led support.
• Education and Vocational Training: As mentioned earlier, a variety of education and training courses are available to help develop skills for future employment.
• Probation Service: They work closely with the individual prisoner, providing guidance and ensuring the prisoner complies with the terms of their release.

Risley Prison is about far more than just serving time; it’s about learning, growing, and investing in a better future. We hope this inside look has provided you with an understanding of the facilities and life within Risley Prison.

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Risley Prison

Tel: 01925 733000 – Risley, Warrington, Cheshire WA3 6BP

HMP Risley is a category C training prison holding adult males, with a capacity of 1,095. It also holds vulnerable prisoners, notably sex offenders, who are integrated with the other inmates. The prison originally opened in 1964 as a remand centre holding both men and women; however, the female unit officially closed in 1999. If you’d like to find out how to get to HMP Risley, you can find directions using the map on this page.

Tel: 01925 733000

Operational capacity: 1095

Risley, Warrington, Cheshire WA3 6BP

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Here’s some facts about Risley Prison

HMP Risley is a category C prison in the Risley area of Warrington, Cheshire. Opened in 1964, the prison has capacity to hold 1,095 inmates.

Appleton is a 185-bed unit, and Birchwood is a 92-bed unit. Ravensmoor is a 28-bed independent living unit, where prisoners are assessed to determine if they can be trusted to live on the wing without direct supervision. Culcheth is a 197-bed drug recovery unit; the north wing accommodates prisoners on maintenance doses, while the south wing is mainly for support and recovery. Daresbury is a 196-bed unit, with a focus on induction coordination. Elton is a 178-bed unit plus 16 beds in the segregation unit. Glazebury is a 196-bed unit accommodating sex offenders only. Fran Atkinson is a 28-bed unit accommodating sex offenders only.

Appleton, Culcheth, Daresbury, Elton and Glazebury are newer wings with open landings of two spurs each (north and south).

To view the latest  HMIP inspection report, click here .

Visiting hours are 13:45 – 16:00 Mon-Sun and 09:00 – 11:45 Sat-Sun.

A gang of smugglers were caught in the act of piloting a drone with drugs attached underneath.

Inmates have access to a wide variety of courses, including Open University degrees.

Inmates arranged for a guards car to be ‘firebombed’ , but they blew up the wrong vehicle.

Prison Phone offers phone tariffs that reduce the costs of calls from this prison by up to 75%! This enables prisoners to get the support and love that they are missing from home, while reducing costs for the inmate. Find out more below.

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Behind the gate, noel smith - insidetime.

• 30th October 2017

The life and infamous times of Britain’s prisons: this month HMP Risley

HMP Risley is a Category C male adult prison located in the Risley area of Warrington, Cheshire. The prison has stood on this site since it opened as a remand centre in 1964. During the Second World War, the whole area where the prison now stands was the location of a Royal Ordinance Factory – ROF Risley – and after the war it became the site of the design offices and laboratories for the UK’s fledgling nuclear weapons and nuclear power programmes.

Stopping play

The nearby clay pits once supplied the bricks used for the buildings in the area, but are now used as a rubbish dump and landfill site. The old Risley Prison Officers Club was built as a naval establishment and was known as HMS Arial East. In the early 1960s, before the prison was built, local children would play and swim in the rain-filled clay-pits and holes. The building of the prison put a stop to all of that.

Originally, Her Majesty’s Remand Centre Risley was designed to hold both male and female remand prisoners for production at the local Courts. A Category C prison was opened on the site in 1990, alongside the remand centre. Risley ceased to hold female prisoners in April 1999, and in March 2000 Risley wholly re-rolled to a Category C prison for adult males.

The prison’s nickname ‘Grisly Risley’ dates from the time it was a remand centre, when conditions within were absolutely atrocious. In 1988, the then Chief Inspector of Prisons, Stephen Tumin, described Risley as ‘barbarous and squalid, appalling and totally unacceptable’, also, ‘dirty and dilapidated’. Prisoners at Risley were held in their cells for more than 20-hours a day; the food was revolting and unhygienically prepared and served; there had been three suicides in the space of five-weeks, yet none of the suicide prevention measures supposedly operational across the prison system were in place. The prison was heading for trouble.

On the 1st of May 1989, 120 prisoners from D-wing barricaded the landings in order to draw attention to the conditions at the prison. The MUFTI (Minimum Use of Force and Tactical Intervention) were deployed. The MUFTI (predecessors of modern-day ‘Tornado Squads’) had a bad reputation for brutal violence against prisoners and pitched battles were fought between the two sides on D-wing. Fifty-four prisoners occupied the roof of D-wing for three-days. The prisoners surrendered together, having negotiated for solicitors to be present and photographs taken of them in case they were beaten later.

A year later, twenty-one men stood trial, charged with criminal damage and riot, a Public Order Act charge used for the first time in the context of prison. They faced up to ten-years imprisonment for each count, but all pleaded not guilty. They presented a defence which stated that conditions at Risley were so bad that their detention there amounted to false imprisonment, and that they were therefore legally entitled to use ‘reasonable force’ to mount their protest. The Judge directed the jury to ignore such an argument. The jury, however, was horrified by what it had heard about the prison and acquitted every prisoner.

New beginning

After the Risley uprising the prison was rebuilt and turned into a Category C. Conditions were much improved and staff became less aggressive. Today, the prison holds a large percentage of vulnerable prisoners, who are kept separate from the general population. Accommodation consists of single-occupancy cells with integral sanitation, in-cell mains power and TVs. Work at Risley includes kitchen, laundry, stores, cleaning, gardens, waste-management and the Braille workshop. Vocational courses include painting and decorating, joinery, industrial cleaning and construction. Courses in art-design, information technology, and higher-level learning, including the OU.

Petite governor

In 2016, 44-year-old Pia Sinha was appointed as Governor of Risley. Ms Sinha is a qualified psychologist. In July 2017, she told the BBC – ‘People often do a double-take when this 5ft three-quarters-of-an-inch tall Asian woman introduces herself as the Governor. You get a lot of raised eyebrows… but I take it as a compliment’.

It would seem that the prison has finally lost its ‘grisly’ tag.

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2 thoughts on “ Behind the gate ”

Absolute load of rubbish as I have just been released from Risley and there where no courses offered to me or I wasn’t aware of any painting and decorating courses or any other courses that where included in this article and I was there 7 months and released in September 2018

A wonderfully written article no doubt approved by someone still connected with ‘establishment society’. Current conditions in ‘former’ grisly risley..18 hours per day bang up, inmates routinely denied access to chapel, applications ignored broutinely, inmates access to the gym routinely denied, wings with No comp form or IMB forms. This rag is nothing but a propaganda mouthpiece for HM Government

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• Crime, justice and law
• Prisons and probation

Lincoln Prison

Lincoln is a prison and young offender institution (YOI) in the East Midlands, for men aged 18 and over.

Help us to improve this page. Give us your feedback in this 2-minute survey .

Book and plan your visit to Lincoln Prison

To visit someone in Lincoln Prison you must:

• be on the prisoners approved visitor list
• book your visit more than 3 working days in advance
• Have a visit booked for the day you attend and be listed as a visitor on that visit
• have the required ID with you when you go

At least one visitor must be 18 or older at every visit.

There may be a limit to the number of visits a prisoner can have.

Help with the cost of your visit

If you get certain benefits or have an NHS health certificate, you might be able to get help with the costs of your visit , including:

• travel to Lincoln
• somewhere to stay overnight

How to book domestic and social visits

For first time visitors or people not on a prisoners approved visitors list, please call the booking line for more information.

Telephone booking line: 01522 663 172 The booking line is open Monday to Friday: 9:30am to midday, except Bank Holidays Find out about call charges

Approved visitors can book their visit online or by telephone.

Please note any domestic/social booking enquiries sent to the Lincoln Visits Booking email address will not be responded to. This email address is for legal enquiries only.

Visiting times:

• Tuesday 2pm to 4pm
• Thursday 2pm to 4pm
• Saturday 9am to 11am and 2pm to 4pm
• Sunday 9am to 11am and 2pm to 4pm

How to book legal and professional visits

Face to face legal and professional visit times:

• Tuesdays and Thursdays: 9am to 11:30am

They can be booked via [email protected]

Please note this email address is only for Legal enquiries. Domestic enquiries will not be responded to. See ‘How to book family and friends visits’ above for advice regarding domestic enquiries.

Or via the Visits Booking line 01522 663172

• Monday to Friday: 9:30am to 12pm except Bank Holidays

Social Visitors for Remand and Convicted prisoners can book online at www.gov.uk/prison-visits

Virtual Legal Visits can only be booked by emailing [email protected] .

We also offer Family Visits once a month. These are extended visits often with a specific focus and prisoners apply for these internally.

Getting to Lincoln Prison

Find Lincoln Prison on a map

The prison is opposite Lincoln County Hospital. The closest railway station is Lincoln Central. The prison is a 20 minute walk from the train and bus station.

To plan your journey by public transport:

use National Rail Enquiries

use Traveline for local bus times

There is Pay and Display parking to the right of the prison and also at the back. Blue Badge parking is at the front and should be requested when booking a visit.

Entering Lincoln Prison

All visitors, aged 16 or older must prove their identity before entering the prison. Read the list of acceptable forms of ID when visiting a prison .

For your first visit, please arrive from 12:20pm and look out for the ‘purple people’ so that you can have an induction prior to booking in (from 1:30pm).

All visitors will need to be given a pat-down search, including children. You may also be sniffed by security dogs.

There are strict controls on what you can take into Lincoln Prison. You will be provided with a locker key when you book in. Please be aware that there is only limited space for belongings available. Pushchairs and car seats can be left with security.

You will be told the rules by an officer at the start of your visit. If you break the rules, your visit could be cancelled and you could be banned from visiting again.

Visitors Dress Code

Visitors to HMP Lincoln must be dressed appropriately at all times, which will reflect in our aim to create a family atmosphere as part of the Reducing Re- offending and Decency agenda. This instruction applies to all visitors to the establishment regardless of age and gender.

At HMP Lincoln it is considered to be inappropriate to wear the following types of clothing:

• Short/cropped tops that reveal naked midriff.
• Low cut tops or shirts that unbutton to reveal cleavage or bare chest.
• Vests (as a single garment)
• Mini-skirts that are shorter than knee length and expose thighs.
• Shorts that are shorter than knee length and expose thighs.
• All types of see-through clothing.
• Headwear (other than for religious purposes).
• Clothing that is offensive in nature or displays offensive discriminatory, or inappropriate material.
• Ripped clothing
• Cloaks, capes, scarves or other articles that could prevent staff from observing visitors and prisoners sufficiently.

Any visitor that does not comply with this dress code will not be permitted entry to HMP Lincoln at the discretion of the visits staff.

This notice will be displayed in the visitors centre and available as an Annex to the visits policy.

Visitors must leave all property in their vehicle or the Visitors Centre with the exception of the articles listed below:

Card or Cash (coins only) for purchasing refreshments

Medication (to be held by visits staff for emergency use only)

Babies dummies

Baby’s bottle with dry, powdered milk (water to be supplied by refreshments team) and an unopened jar of baby food (not glass).

In the case of Legal Advisors or other professional visitors, documents, and briefcases, containing documents needed for the visit.

No recording equipment may be taken into the visit room without express permission from the Head of Security.

Visiting facilities

Lincoln Prison has a tuck shop where you can purchase food and drink during weekend visits, or you can order food from ‘On a Roll’ prior to your visit which will be delivered to the prison. Please order your food from this website

There is also a facility in the Visits Centre for a sit-down meal in the training restaurant ‘Berties’ on weekdays only. Enhanced prisoners can apply for this. All payments for this service are card only.

Counter service is also available for all visitors.

The children’s play area is available for use.

Family days

We offer family visits once per month, these are extended visits often with a specific focus and are applied for internally by prisoners.

For more information regarding family visits, please call the visits booking line or Lincolnshire Action Trust for more information.

Keep in touch with someone at Lincoln Prison

There are several ways you can keep in touch with a prisoner during their time at Lincoln.

Secure video calls

To have a secure video call with someone in this prison you need to:

• Download the Prison Video app
• Create an account
• Register all visitors
• Add the prisoner to your contact list
• Be an approved visitor on the prisoners’ visitors list

How to book a secure video call

Secure video calls at this prison can be requested by prisoners only.

You will receive a notification if a prisoner has requested a video call with you.

Read more about how it works

Please note that a prisoners’ call list and visitors list are different. You will need to be added to both in order to receive calls and visit a prisoner.

Phone calls

Prisoners do not yet have phones in their cells so they will always have to call you. They have to buy phone credits to do this.

They can phone anyone named on their list of friends and family. This list is checked by security when they first arrive so it may take a few days before they are able to call.

You can also exchange voicemails using the Prison Voicemail service .

Officers may listen to phone calls as a way of preventing crime and helping keep people safe.

You can send emails to someone in Lincoln Prison using the Email a Prisoner service .

You can write at any time.

Include the person’s name and prisoner number on the envelope.

If you do not know their prisoner number, contact Lincoln Prison .

All post apart from legal letters will be opened and checked by officers.

Send money and gifts

You can use the free and fast online service to send money to someone in prison .

You can no longer send money by bank transfer, cheque, postal order or send cash by post.

If you cannot use the online service, you may be able to apply for an exemption - for example if you:

• are unable to use a computer, a smart phone or the internet
• do not have a debit card

This will allow you to send money by post.

Gifts and parcels

Prisoners are given a list of items they can have in prison, known as the ‘facilities list’.

Convicted prisoners can not have any items posted or handed in and must save their money and buy them from the approved catalogue.

Un-convicted men on remand can have clothes handed in or posted, but in limited amounts. Make sure to include the person’s name and prisoner number on the parcel.

Family and friends of prisoners are permitted to send books directly to their loved ones, or can order books from approved retailers, which can source and send the books on to prisoners.   For the full list of approved retailers, you can read the HMPPS Incentives Policy, Annex F .

All parcels will be opened and checked by officers. Contact Lincoln Prison for more information on what’s allowed.

Life at Lincoln Prison

Lincoln Prison is committed to providing a safe and educational environment where men can learn new skills to help them on release, including workshops, education and vocational courses.

Security and safeguarding

Every prisoner at Lincoln Prison has a right to feel safe. The staff are responsible for their safeguarding and welfare at all times.

For further information about what to do when you are worried or concerned about someone in prison visit the Prisoners’ Families helpline website .

There is a Listeners’ Scheme, prison mentors and peer support schemes to aid well-being. There is addiction counselling available.

Charity workshops are available and many community links, for example, volunteers who help with family visits.

Arrival and first night

When a prisoner first arrives at Lincoln Prison, they will be able to contact a family member by phone. This could be quite late in the evening, depending on the time they arrive.

They will get to speak to someone who will check how they’re feeling and ask about any immediate health and wellbeing needs.

Each prisoner who arrives at Lincoln Prison gets an induction that lasts about a week. They will meet professionals and peers (known as ‘Insiders’) who will help them with:

• health and wellbeing, including mental and sexual health
• any substance misuse issues, including drugs and alcohol
• personal development in custody and on release, including skills, education and training
• other support (sometimes called ‘interventions’), such as managing difficult emotions

Every prisoner is allocated a key worker officer who meets them weekly to monitor progress and discuss any problems. Prisoners also find out about the rules, fire safety, and how things like calls and visits work.

Accommodation

Around 650 prisoners live in Lincoln Prison across 4 main residential wings. A, B and C wings hold a mix of prisoners while E wing holds any prisoners who are considered vulnerable.

All wings have access to showers, telephones, toasters and recreational activities, such as pool and table tennis.

Education and work

Lincoln offers a wide range of education, including English and maths, and also vocational courses in painting and decorating and bricklaying.

There are tailoring workshops, a laundry and a recycling centre where prisoners can earn recognised qualifications.

Temporary release

There is no release on temporary licence (ROTL) at Lincoln.

Organisations Lincoln Prison works with

Lincoln works with the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), Shelter and Lincolnshire Action Trust which offer varied resettlement support. Support is offered with employment, accommodation, mental and physical health and drug support services in the community.

Support at Lincoln Prison

Further information and support provided by Lincolnshire Action Trust for children and families of a person in prison.

Telephone: 01522 663 355

Concerns, problems and complaints

In an emergency.

Call 01522 663 000 if you think a prisoner is at immediate risk of harm. Ask for the Orderly Officer and explain that your concern is an emergency.

Problems and complaints

If you have any problem with any aspect of the prison, please write to the prison governor.

Contact Lincoln Prison

Governor: Colin Hussey

Telephone: 01522 663 000 24 hours Fax: 01522 663 001 Find out about call charges

Follow Lincoln Prison on Twitter/X

HMP/YOI Lincoln Greetwell Road Lincoln LN2 4BD

Social and legal visits updated.

Updated Governor

Updated visiting guidance based on 1 April COVID rule changes

Added link to new safer custody information under Security and safeguarding.

Updated visiting information: Reduced visit schedule and testing for visitors aged 12 and over.

Updated visiting information: Testing for visitors aged 12 and over.

Added link to information about testing for physical contact at visits.

New visiting times and booking information added.

Prison moved into National Stage 3 framework and is now preparing to open visits for family, friends and significant others. We will update this page with specific visiting information as soon as possible.

Updated visit info

Updated visiting information in line with new national restrictions in England.

Updated visiting information in line with coronavirus restrictions.

Updated dress code

Updates to entering and visits sections

updated survey

First published.

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HMIP Inspections of Risley

The prison was given an inspection in April 2023, the full report can be read at the Ministry of Justice web site, just follow the links below. In their latest report the inspectors said:

HMP Risley is a mixed sex offender and general category C resettlement prison in Cheshire, that held 1,032 prisoners at the time of our inspection. For the last two years, the leadership had been unstable, with temporary governors being in post for most of that time. The current acting governor had worked hard to maintain stability and set an agenda that sought to improve decency in the jail and support his staff team, but the prison was still not fulfilling its function as a category C resettlement prison.

The many prisoners who were unemployed were locked up for 22 hours a day, in a prison that had not created enough places in work or education for the size of the population. The jail operated a split regime which meant that most prisoners were only in poorly paid, part-time work or education. They did not have enough time out of their cells, with no evening association and an even worse situation at the weekend. Only those on the excellent, enhanced living unit had a regime that was commensurate with the category of the prison.

Inspectors were particularly concerned about the public protection arrangements at Risley. The offender management unit was understaffed and there was insufficient support from probation services; this meant that some of the public protection arrangements were inadequate, men were not supported to reduce their risk of harm, and preparations for release were often not good enough. Some high-risk prisoners were released homeless, systems to monitor phone calls and other contact were not managed effectively, and some were leaving having had little or no interaction with a prison offender manager.

Since the last inspection the proportion of men serving sentences for sexual offences had increased significantly, and they now represented 40% of the total population, but there was a failure to provide for them. Despite HMI Prisons raising this issue in 2016, there were still no accredited programmes for these prisoners. This represents an astonishing failure by the prison service, which has been far too slow in putting provision in place. Although the effectiveness of these programmes has, at times been questioned, if the prison service believes they are effective and necessary, they should make sure that the right prisoners get access to them.

Other prison service bureaucracy was hampering progress. The lack of suitable dentist facilities meant that there was a huge waiting list and prisoners had to be sent in small groups to HMP Thorn Cross for treatment. The governor was waiting to hear if he could have the funds to refurbish the existing dental suite, but progress on this application was slow.

Since our last inspection, when we commented on poor living conditions, the situation had deteriorated, with parts of the prison now beyond repair. Progress had been slow in refurbishing the showers, some of which were in appalling condition; this had not been picked up by leaders’ decency checks.

The Ofsted inspection revealed that the provision of education, training and work was inadequate, much of the work on offer was repetitive and boring, and prisoners were not provided with skills that would be useful when they were released. Rates of pay were also very low, at just £10.20 a week even for some full-time workers. This was likely to have led to the increased levels of debt which were contributing to violence in the jail.

Our score for safety had improved to ‘reasonably good’, with better oversight of the use of force and some excellent work with Cheshire police in reducing the supply of drugs, which remained an ongoing challenge for the jail. Overall levels of violence were similar to those of comparator prisons and it felt reasonably safe. However, leaders had not identified that levels of violence among the general population were higher than similar prisons when excluding those convicted of sexual offences. Levels of self-harm remained too high and support was patchy for these prisoners and for those who were a suicide risk.

Behaviour management relied on punitive measures, which meant that some prisoners spent long periods of time on the lowest level of the incentives scheme. Not enough thought had gone into motivating men to improve their behaviour.

Risley held 200 foreign national prisoners who were placed on the wing that had some of the worst conditions. Although there was Home Office support on site, there was a lack of coordination of services for these prisoners. More than 20 were being held beyond the end of their sentence under immigration legislation, including one who had been at the prison since his custodial sentence ended in 2021. These prisoners did not always receive their entitlements and the Home Office was taking too long to process their cases.

If Risley is to prepare prisoners adequately for their eventual release, it must provide far more purposeful activity that gives prisoners the skills and experience they need to settle successfully on release. The prison must also make sure that its critical public protection function is being met, particularly for the large population of prisoners convicted of sexual offences.

Charlie Taylor HM Chief Inspector of Prisons June 2023

The inspectors provide a brief list of their major concerns

What needs to improve at HMP Risley

During this inspection we identified 14 key concerns ( they actually only list 13! ), of which five ( actually give 6 ) should be treated as priorities. Priority concerns are those that are most important to improving outcomes for prisoners. They require immediate attention by leaders and managers.

Leaders should make sure that all concerns identified here are addressed and that progress is tracked through a plan which sets out how and when the concerns will be resolved. The plan should be provided to HMI Prisons.

Priority concerns

• Recorded levels of self-harm among prisoners were high and too often support ended without the underlying causes having been addressed.
• Living conditions had deteriorated across many wings and showers were in a particularly poor state.
• Health care provision was undermined by a lack of onsite dental services and weak management of long-term conditions.
• The regime did not provide sufficient time out of cell for a category C resettlement prison.
• Leaders did not provide a broad enough range of education, skills or work activities to meet prisoners’ needs.
• Far too many prisoners convicted of sexual offences were released without having completed offending behaviour work specific to their risks.

Key concerns

• Data were not used well and so leaders had not identified that recorded levels of violence, excluding the large population of prisoners convicted of sexual offences, were higher than similar prisons. Violence and self-harm were often related to prisoners being in debt to others. There was little constructive help for these prisoners and their situation was worsened by low wages.
• Conditions in the segregation unit were poor and the regime was very limited.
• Prisoners from some protected characteristic groups reported far more negative outcomes in some important areas. Far more disabled prisoners than those who did not have a disability felt unsafe, while some from a minority ethnic and Muslim background said they had experienced racism.
• Oversight of education, skills and work did not drive improvements quickly enough.
• Careers education, information, advice and guidance were not effective and did not promote prisoners’ progression fully.
• Prisoners accessing vocational training in industries did not have enough opportunities to achieve a qualification or have their employment skills recorded.
• The application of some public protection measures was weak.

Return to Risley

To read the full reports, go to the Ministry of Justice site or follow the links below:

• Inspection report (1 MB) , Report on an unannounced inspection of HMP Risley by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons (12–27 April 2023)
• HMP Risley – report (PDF) ( 728 kB ) , Report on a scrutiny visit to HMP Risley by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons (17 and 24–25 November 2020)
• HMP Risley ( 832.17 kB ) , Report on an unannounced inspection of HMP Risley (13-24 June 2016)
• HMP Risley , Unannounced inspection of HMP Risley (8–19 July 2013)
• HMP Risley , Announced inspection of HMP Risley (7 – 11 February 2011)
• HMP Risley , Unannounced full follow-up inspection of HMP Risley (14-18 April 2008)

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Why were so many metro stations in Moscow renamed?

Okhotny Ryad station in Soviet times and today.

The Moscow metro system has 275 stations, and 28 of them have been renamed at some point or other—and several times in some cases. Most of these are the oldest stations, which opened in 1935.

The politics of place names

The first station to change its name was Ulitsa Kominterna (Comintern Street). The Comintern was an international communist organization that ceased to exist in 1943, and after the war Moscow authorities decided to call the street named after it something else. In 1946, the station was renamed Kalininskaya. Then for several days in 1990, the station was called Vozdvizhenka, before eventually settling on Aleksandrovsky Sad, which is what it is called today.

The banner on the entraince reads: "Kalininskaya station." Now it's Alexandrovsky Sad.

Until 1957, Kropotkinskaya station was called Dvorets Sovetov ( Palace of Soviets ). There were plans to build a monumental Stalinist high-rise on the site of the nearby Cathedral of Christ the Saviour , which had been demolished. However, the project never got off the ground, and after Stalin's death the station was named after Kropotkinskaya Street, which passes above it.

Dvorets Sovetov station, 1935. Letters on the entrance: "Metro after Kaganovich."

Of course, politics was the main reason for changing station names. Initially, the Moscow Metro itself was named after Lazar Kaganovich, Joseph Stalin’s right-hand man. Kaganovich supervised the construction of the first metro line and was in charge of drawing up a master plan for reconstructing Moscow as the "capital of the proletariat."

In 1955, under Nikita Khrushchev's rule and during the denunciation of Stalin's personality cult, the Moscow Metro was named in honor of Vladimir Lenin.

Kropotkinskaya station, our days. Letters on the entrance: "Metropolitan after Lenin."

New Metro stations that have been opened since the collapse of the Soviet Union simply say "Moscow Metro," although the metro's affiliation with Vladimir Lenin has never officially been dropped.

Zyablikovo station. On the entrance, there are no more signs that the metro is named after Lenin.

Stations that bore the names of Stalin's associates were also renamed under Khrushchev. Additionally, some stations were named after a neighborhood or street and if these underwent name changes, the stations themselves had to be renamed as well.

Until 1961 the Moscow Metro had a Stalinskaya station that was adorned by a five-meter statue of the supreme leader. It is now called Semyonovskaya station.

Left: Stalinskaya station. Right: Now it's Semyonovskaya.

The biggest wholesale renaming of stations took place in 1990, when Moscow’s government decided to get rid of Soviet names. Overnight, 11 metro stations named after revolutionaries were given new names. Shcherbakovskaya became Alekseyevskaya, Gorkovskaya became Tverskaya, Ploshchad Nogina became Kitay-Gorod and Kirovskaya turned into Chistye Prudy. This seriously confused passengers, to put it mildly, and some older Muscovites still call Lubyanka station Dzerzhinskaya for old times' sake.

At the same time, certain stations have held onto their Soviet names. Marksistskaya and Kropotkinskaya, for instance, although there were plans to rename them too at one point.

"I still sometimes mix up Teatralnaya and Tverskaya stations,” one Moscow resident recalls .

 “Both have been renamed and both start with a ‘T.’ Vykhino still grates on the ear and, when in 1991 on the last day of my final year at school, we went to Kitay-Gorod to go on the river cruise boats, my classmates couldn’t believe that a station with that name existed."

The city government submitted a station name change for public discussion for the first time in 2015. The station in question was Voykovskaya, whose name derives from the revolutionary figure Pyotr Voykov. In the end, city residents voted against the name change, evidently not out of any affection for Voykov personally, but mainly because that was the name they were used to.

What stations changed their name most frequently?

Some stations have changed names three times. Apart from the above-mentioned Aleksandrovsky Sad (Ulitsa Kominterna->Kalininskaya->Vozdvizhenka->Aleksandrovsky Sad), a similar fate befell Partizanskaya station in the east of Moscow. Opened in 1944, it initially bore the ridiculously long name Izmaylovsky PKiO im. Stalina (Izmaylovsky Park of Culture and Rest Named After Stalin). In 1947, the station was renamed and simplified for convenience to Izmaylovskaya. Then in 1963 it was renamed yet again—this time to Izmaylovsky Park, having "donated" its previous name to the next station on the line. And in 2005 it was rechristened Partizanskaya to mark the 60th anniversary of victory in World War II. 

Partizanskaya metro station, nowadays.

Another interesting story involves Alekseyevskaya metro station. This name was originally proposed for the station, which opened in 1958, since a village with this name had been located here. It was then decided to call the station Shcherbakovskaya in honor of Aleksandr Shcherbakov, a politician who had been an associate of Stalin. Nikita Khrushchev had strained relations with Shcherbakov, however, and when he got word of it literally a few days before the station opening the builders had to hastily change all the signs. It ended up with the concise and politically correct name of Mir (Peace).

The name Shcherbakovskaya was restored in 1966 after Khrushchev's fall from power. It then became Alekseyevskaya in 1990.

Alekseyevskaya metro station.

But the station that holds the record for the most name changes is Okhotny Ryad, which opened in 1935 on the site of a cluster of market shops. When the metro system was renamed in honor of Lenin in 1955, this station was renamed after Kaganovich by way of compensation. The name lasted just two years though because in 1957 Kaganovich fell out of favor with Khrushchev, and the previous name was returned. But in 1961 it was rechristened yet again, this time in honor of Prospekt Marksa, which had just been built nearby.

Okhotny Ryad station in 1954 and Prospekt Marksa in 1986.

In 1990, two historical street names—Teatralny Proyezd and Mokhovaya Street—were revived to replace Prospekt Marksa, and the station once again became Okhotny Ryad.

Okhotny Ryad in 2020.

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Kabul airport bomber was an ISIS operative freed from prison by the Taliban

The man who detonated a bomb outside the Kabul airport in August 2021, killing 170 Afghans and 13 American service members , was an Islamic State operative who had been held in a coalition detention facility in Afghanistan but was freed by the Taliban, according to a new U.S. military review that has identified him for the first time.

Some service members who were at the airport that day claimed they had spotted the suicide bomber at the site and were ordered not to engage. But the review found that those service members had the wrong man in their sights, and the strike was not preventable.

“There was no opportunity to engage the bomber prior to the attack,” said a senior U.S. military official, who was involved in the supplemental review.

The bombing at Abbey Gate took place during the U.S. military’s chaotic exit from Afghanistan. Thousands of people had converged on the airport in a desperate effort to flee after the Taliban’s swift takeover of the country.

An initial Pentagon review released in February 2022 found that the attack was carried out by a lone suicide bomber and that it was not preventable. Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, head of U.S. Central Command, ordered the supplemental review last year after witnesses of the attack came forward with new information and allegations that they could have stopped it but were denied the chance to do so.

One of the most vocal witnesses was retired Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, who lost an arm and a leg in the attack, and suffered damage to internal organs that resulted in roughly 50 surgeries. 

In testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee in March 2023, Vargas-Andrews said the Marines and others involved in the evacuation were given descriptions of men believed to be plotting an attack. Vargas-Andrews said he and others spotted a man who fit the description — a person who came to be known as “bald man in black.”

But the review — which included interviews with more than 50 service members directly involved in the evacuation, including a dozen who had not previously been interviewed — found that this man had no connection to the attack.

The actual bomber was Abdul Rahman al-Logari, according to the U.S. military. A facial comparison analysis determined that al-Logari and the bald man in black could not be the same person, the review found. 

The team of military investigators reviewed photos and video taken of the scene before the attack and found no footage of al-Logari. He was determined to have arrived immediately before the blast and blended in with the massive crowd gathered outside the airport. 

The officials involved in the review said that given the density of the crowd, the U.S. military members at the scene did not have time to identify him.

A day after the attack, ISIS-K, an Islamic State offshoot based in Afghanistan, identified al-Logari as the bomber. The new review marks the first time U.S. officials have said they have independent confirmation. 

Al-Logari was among the thousands of militants released from Afghan prisons after the Taliban seized control of Kabul in mid-August 2021. But the officials involved in the review said U.S. intelligence determined that even if al-Logari had not been released from prison, the attack would likely have still been carried out because ISIS-K had other bombers ready and available.

Courtney Kube is a correspondent covering national security and the military for the NBC News Investigative Unit.

Mosheh Gains is a Pentagon producer for NBC News.

Norilsk: The city built by gulag prisoners where Russia guards its Arctic secrets

Environmental activists are frustrated by how authorities handled a diesel spill which poured into two Arctic rivers in late May.

International correspondent @DiMagnaySky

Friday 3 July 2020 23:41, UK

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The drive from Norilsk airport to the city takes you past mile after mile of crumbling, Soviet-era factories.

It looks like an endless, rusting scrapyard - a jumble of pipes, industrial junk and frost-bitten brickwork. If you were looking for an industrial apocalypse film setting, this would be your place - but you're unlikely to get the permissions.

Norilsk was built in Stalin's times by gulag prisoners. This gritty industrial city is a testament to their endurance both of the cruelty of Stalin's regime and of the harsh polar climate. There were no thoughts then on how to build to protect the environment, just to survive it.

Vasily Ryabinin doesn't think much has changed, at least in ecological terms. He used to work for the local branch of the federal environmental watchdog, Rosprirodnadzor, but quit in June after exposing what he says was a failure to investigate properly the environmental impact of the gigantic diesel spill which poured into two Arctic rivers in late May.

At 21,000 tonnes, it was the largest industrial spill in the polar Arctic .

Despite the Kremlin declaring a federal emergency and sending a host of different agencies to participate in the clean-up, just last week Mr Ryabinin and activists from Greenpeace Russia found another area where technical water used in industrial processes was being pumped directly into the tundra from a nearby tailing pond. Russia's investigative committee has promised to investigate.

"The ecological situation here is so bad," Mr Ryabinin says.

"The latest constructions such as the tailing pond at the Talnack ore-processing plant were built exclusively by Nornickel chief executive Vladimir Potanin's team and supposedly in accordance with ecological standards, but on satellite images you can see that all the lakes in the vicinity have unnatural colours and obviously something has got into them."

Mining company Nornickel would disagree. It has admitted flagrant violations at the tailing pond and suspended staff it deems responsible at both the Talnack plant and at Norilsk Heat and Power plant no 3 where the diesel spill originated from.

On Thursday it appointed Andrey Bougrov, from its senior management board, to the newly-created role of senior vice president for environmental protection. It has a clear environmental strategy, provides regular updates on the status of the spill, and its Twitter feed is filled with climate-related alerts.

But what investors read is very different to the picture on the ground.

Norilsk used to be a closed city - one of dozens across the Soviet Union shut off to protect industrial secrets. Foreigners need special permissions approved by the Federal Security Service (FSB) to enter the region. It would take an invitation from Nornickel to make that happen and, for the past month since the spill, that has not been forthcoming.

Unlike in Soviet times, Russian citizens are now free to come and go. That's why our Sky News Moscow team were able to fly in and travel around the city, even if getting to the spill site was blocked. What they were able to film provides a snapshot of the immense challenge Russia faces in upgrading its Soviet-era industrial infrastructure, particularly at a time when climate change is melting the permafrost on which much of it was built.

Just downwind from one of the rusting factories on the city outskirts is a huge expanse of dead land. The skeletal remains of trees stand forlorn against the howling Arctic winds. Sulphur dioxide poisoning has snuffed the life out of all that lived here. Norilsk is the world's worst emitter of sulphur dioxide by a substantial margin.

"For 80km south of here everything is dead," Mr Ryabinin says, "and for at least 10km in that direction too. Everything here depends on the wind."

Immediately after the spill, Mr Ryabinin filmed and took samples from the Daldykan river just a few kilometres from the fuel tank which had leaked. By that point the river was a churning mix of diesel and red sludge dredged up from the riverbed by the force of the leak. Norilsk's rivers have turned red before and the chemical residues have sunk to the bottom, killing all life there. Nothing has lived in those rivers for decades.

In his capacity as deputy head of the local environmental watchdog, Mr Ryabinin says he insisted that he be allowed to fly further north to check the levels of contamination in Lake Pyasino and beyond.

Nornickel at the time claimed the lake was untouched by the spill. Mr Ryabinin says his boss encouraged him to let things be.

"I can't be sure I would have found anything, but this sort of confrontation - making sure I didn't go there with a camera, let alone with bottles for taking samples, it was all very clear to me. It was the final straw."

Rosprirodnadzor refused to comment to Sky News on Mr Ryabinin's allegations or suggestions that the agency was working hand in hand with Nornickel.

Georgy Kavanosyan is an environmental blogger with a healthy 37,000 following on YouTube. Shortly after the spill, he set out for Lake Pyasino and to the Pyasina River beyond to see how far the diesel had spread.

"We set out at night so that the Norilsk Nickel security wouldn't detect us. I say at night, but they've got polar nights there now, north of the Arctic Circle. So it's still light but it's quieter and we managed to go past all the cordons."

He is one of the few to have provided evidence that the diesel has in fact travelled far beyond where the company admits. Not just the 1,200km (745m) length of Lake Pyasino but into the river beyond.

He says his measurements indicated a volume of hydrocarbons dissolved in the water of between two and three times normal levels. He thinks after he published his findings on YouTube, the authorities' vigilance increased.

Greenpeace Russia have spent the last two weeks trying to obtain samples from Lake Pyasino and the surrounding area. They have faced difficulties getting around and flying their samples out for independent analysis.

They are now waiting for results from a laboratory in St Petersburg but say the samples remain valid technically for just four days after collection and that they weren't able to make that deadline due to the authorities' actively obstructing their work.

Elena Sakirko from Greenpeace Russia specialises in oil spills and says this has happened to her before. This time, a police helicopter flew to the hunter's hut where they were staying and confiscated the fuel for the boat they were using. Then a deputy for the Moscow city parliament tasked with bringing the samples back from Norilsk was forced to go back empty-handed.

"We were told at the airport we needed permission from the security department of Nornickel," Ms Sakirko says. "We asked them to show us some law or statement to prove that this was legal or what the basis for this was, but they haven't showed us anything and we still don't understand it."

Nornickel announced this week that the critical stage of the diesel spill is over. The company is now finalising dates for a press tour for foreign media and for other international environmentalists.

Mr Ryabinin thinks this should have happened weeks ago.

"If we don't let scientists come to the Arctic region to evaluate the impact of the accident, then in the future if anything similar happens, we won't know what to do."

A spokesperson for Nornickel said the company "is actively cooperating with the scientific community and will meticulously assess both the causes and effects of the accident."

Nornickel considers permafrost thawing to be the primary cause of the accident, but is waiting for the end of investigation before making a final statement, the spokesperson said.

They added that the company "accepts full responsibility for the incidents on its sites these past two months and holds itself accountable for any infrastructural deficits or poor decisions by personnel.

"The imperative is to do everything to clean up our sites, instil a stronger culture of transparency and safety in our workforce, and ensure that such situations do not occur in the future."

Stephen Curry tells the AP why 2024 is the right time to make his Olympic debut

Golden State guard Stephen Curry knew he was running out of chances to play in what would be his first Olympics, so he and his wife Ayesha started planning many months ago about how to make the Paris Games work for their family

Golden State guard Stephen Curry knew he was running out of chances to play in what would be his first Olympics , so he and his wife Ayesha started planning many months ago about how to make the Paris Games work for their family.

Their growing family, that is.

Ayesha Curry revealed in March that she is pregnant with the couple’s fourth child and the baby is due in June. That’s not entirely by accident; the couple thought ahead with hopes of keeping the Olympic months of July and August clear — just in case.

“We thought about it ahead of time, which was nice,” Curry said. “If the timing didn’t work at a certain month in the fall, we actually would have made a different decision knowing the Olympics were on the radar. So, thankfully, the Lord looked out for us and if everything goes to plan, I’ll be available this summer.”

That is, indeed, the plan. Curry was one of the 12 names formally announced by USA Basketball on Wednesday as the initial roster for this year’s Paris Olympics. It’s entirely possible that the roster gets tweaked between now and the first practice in early July — injuries or long playoff runs could spark changes — but Curry has been planning to make his Olympic debut this summer for some time.

“I wanted to play in the last two that I was eligible for,” Curry said, referring to the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games and the Tokyo Games that were delayed to 2021 because of the pandemic. “Watching guys that I’ve been competing against the last 10 years all have that experience win gold medals, watching three of my teammates (Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green) win gold medals, I knew I wanted to do that.”

It would be logical to think that part of the recruitment pitch to Curry this time around was the fact that the Olympic team is coached by Steve Kerr, his coach with the Warriors.

That wasn't really the case. Curry had talks with Durant and LeBron James about teaming up — those talks sparked in part by the U.S. taking a less star-studded team to the World Cup at Manila last summer and finishing fourth — but Kerr wasn't pushing his best player to play this year.

“He wanted to do it,” Kerr said. “He's excited. I think 2016 would have been the year that made the most sense. In 2020, there was the pandemic. But I've never had the discussion with him. Going to the Finals wears you down and we had gone in 2015 and 2016. Then 2021 comes around, there was the pandemic, but now, it makes perfect sense. It's another box to check in his career.”

There aren't too many of those boxes unchecked. And this might really be the last one of any significance left.

He's the NBA's all-time 3-point recordholder, a four-time NBA champion, 10-time All-Star, nine-time (and probably soon to be 10-time) All-NBA selection, a two-time scoring champion, a two-time MVP, a Finals MVP, an All-Star MVP and a member of the league's 75th anniversary team. He even helped put together one of the more memorable moments in All-Star history this year, when he faced off with WNBA star Sabrina Ionescu — someone he simultaneously mentors and admires — in a 3-point contest.

The legacy has long been secure. But a little extra gold wouldn't hurt.

“That's the goal," Curry said.

Curry and the Warriors won 46 games this season but didn't make the NBA playoffs, falling to Sacramento on Tuesday in an elimination game of the Western Conference play-in tournament, 118-94. So, the next time he's slated to play for real is now July, when the Americans convene for training camp in Las Vegas. The U.S. opens Olympic play against Serbia on July 28.

Curry has played with “USA” across his chest plenty of times before, going back 17 years. He was on the under-19 team that won gold at the 2007 Global Games and won silver in that year's U19 world championships — “that burned,” Curry said, “because you hate losing at anything.”

He hasn't lost a game with the national team since — 18 games, 18 wins. The Americans went 9-0 on their way to gold at the 2010 world championship (now called the World Cup), then went 9-0 on the way to another gold at the World Cup in 2014.

“I definitely wanted this experience," Curry said of playing in an Olympics. “I think the timing is just right. I'm later in my career. This is probably the last opportunity I have to play. And that made it a much easier decision to say, ‘This makes sense.’ And then I was talking to some other guys who were interested in playing, so you knew this could be a great team.”

AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games

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Woman Sentenced to Month in Prison Over Theft of Ashley Biden’s Diary

Aimee Harris sold the diary to Project Veritas, a right-wing group, in what prosecutors said was a brazen plot to damage Joseph R. Biden Jr. in the 2020 election.

By Adam Goldman

A federal judge in Manhattan sentenced a Florida woman on Tuesday to one month behind bars for her role in a brazen scheme to steal the diary of President Biden’s daughter and sell it to a right-wing group in the hope of disrupting the 2020 election.

The conduct of the woman, Aimee Harris , “was despicable and consequently very serious,” Judge Laura Taylor Swain of Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York said before handing down a punishment.

Ms. Harris, 41, tested the patience of prosecutors and the judge overseeing the case, missing repeated sentencing dates and jeopardizing what otherwise appeared to be a likely path to probation. In August 2022, she pleaded guilty to conspiring to transport the stolen diary to New York, where she met with employees of the group, Project Veritas, and sold it for $40,000 just weeks before the election.

The judge also sentenced her to three years’ probation, along with three months of home confinement, and ordered her to pay back the money she earned from the sale.

The sentencing of Ms. Harris reflects the seriousness of the government’s efforts to deter people from interfering in elections. That includes former President Donald J. Trump, who is awaiting federal trial in Washington on charges of trying to subvert the outcome of the 2020 race.

In a statement provided to the court, Ms. Biden described what happened to her as “one of the most heinous forms of bullying.”

Initially federal prosecutors had recommended Ms. Harris face up to six months of home confinement and three years of supervised release, while her lawyers had requested probation. But her sentencing was pushed back repeatedly — a dozen times — in part because Ms. Harris claimed she had child care issues or was sick.

At a scheduled hearing in late January, Ms. Harris called the court from a hospital emergency room, prompting Judge Swain to describe the situation as “highly irregular.” At a hearing in February, the judge told Ms. Harris that the reasons she had cited in seeking a delay were “matters of great concern for the court.”

Prosecutors, exasperated, asked the judge this month to impose a sentence of four to 10 months in prison, saying Ms. Harris had “repeatedly and consistently engaged in tactics to improperly delay this proceeding.” They accused her of misrepresenting the nature of her child care, failing to get an identification card so she could travel to New York and flouting the court’s rules.

Judge Swain finally threatened to have her arrested and brought to New York by U.S. marshals if she did not comply with the court’s orders.

After her guilty plea in August 2022, prosecutors said that Ms. Harris was later arrested and charged with driving under the influence with property damage and had tested positive for marijuana. The judge ordered her to undergo treatment for alcohol abuse.

Ms. Harris claimed that the diary had been abandoned, discarded at a friend’s house where she had been staying. But prosecutors said that in August 2020, she stole the diary, which President Biden’s daughter Ashley Biden had left at the house to store along with other personal items.

Ms. Harris then enlisted the help of a friend, Robert Kurlander, to sell the diary. Eventually, the pair found a buyer in Project Veritas, with each making $20,000. The two later returned to the house, taking other items belonging to the president’s daughter to confirm she was in fact the diary’s author.

Mr. Kurlander, 60, who also pleaded guilty and has cooperated with the Justice Department’s investigation into the theft, is scheduled to be sentenced later this year. On Friday, prosecutors asked for a six-month delay. Mr. Kurlander was previously convicted of fraud in a federal court in Florida. He also faces prison time but unlike Ms. Harris decided to cooperate with prosecutors.

As part of its investigation, the F.B.I. searched the homes of three former employees of Project Veritas, including its founder, James O’Keefe, but so far none of them have been charged. All three have since left the group.

Mr. O’Keefe was pushed out of Project Veritas after employees denounced his management style and questionable spending. Hannah Giles, who succeeded him as chief executive, laid off employees.

But she abruptly quit in December. She wrote on social media that she had “stepped into an unsalvageable mess — one wrought with strong evidence of past illegality and past financial improprieties.”

In December, a federal judge ruled that prosecutors could review hundreds of documents related to the theft of the diary. Project Veritas had claimed that the materials were protected under the First Amendment and that “disclosure to the government would violate their constitutional rights, constituting irreparable harm.”

Lawyers for Mr. O’Keefe and the two other former operatives of Project Veritas — Spencer Meads and Eric Cochran — asked the judge to temporarily halt that order as an appeal moved forward. But the judge denied the motion in January, noting that additional delay could “frustrate the investigation and raise concerns about witness recollection, evidence availability and statutes of limitations.”

Mr. Meads has appealed the ruling. The status of the investigation remains unclear but Mr. Kurlander’s delayed sentencing until October most likely means prosecutors have not ended their pursuit of Mr. O’Keefe.

Over the course of the inquiry, investigators obtained evidence that indicated that Ms. Harris hoped not only to profit from selling the diary to the group but also to hurt Mr. Biden’s chances of defeating Mr. Trump.

“Stealing personal belongings of a candidate’s family member, and selling them to an organization to exploit them for political gain, was wrong and illegal no matter the political agenda,” prosecutors said in a sentencing memo. “Such criminal conduct does not merely harm the victim, but seeks to undermine the political process.”

The memo added, “The calculus must be clear that criminal conduct of this sort will not be tolerated regardless of one’s political affiliation, ideology or motivation.”

Text messages obtained by prosecutors showed that Ms. Harris and Mr. Kurlander knew that they were stealing Ms. Biden’s diary and her other belongings and that the group planned to publicize the contents of the diary, which she had kept while she was recovering from drug addiction.

Olivia Bensimon and Anusha Bayya contributed reporting.

Adam Goldman writes about the F.B.I. and national security. He has been a journalist for more than two decades. More about Adam Goldman

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Librarians fear new penalties, even prison, as activists challenge books

Tom Bober, librarian and President of the Missouri Association of School Librarians, poses for a photo Wednesday, March 20, 2024, in Clayton, Mo. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

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When an illustrated edition of Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” was released in 2019, educators in Clayton, Missouri needed little debate before deciding to keep copies in high school libraries. The book is widely regarded as a classic work of dystopian literature about the oppression of women, and a graphic novel would help it reach teens who struggle with words alone.

But after Missouri legislators passed a law in 2022 subjecting librarians to fines and possible imprisonment for allowing sexually explicit materials on bookshelves, the suburban St. Louis district reconsidered the new Atwood edition, and withdrew it.

“There’s a depiction of a rape scene, a handmaid being forced into a sexual act,” says Tom Bober, Clayton district’s library coordinator and president of the Missouri Association of School Librarians. “It’s literally one panel of the graphic novel, but we felt it was in violation of the law in Missouri.”

Across the country, book challenges and bans have soared to the highest levels in decades. Public and school-based libraries have been inundated with complaints from community members and conservative organizations such as as Moms for Liberty. Increasingly, lawmakers are considering new punishments — crippling lawsuits, hefty fines, and even imprisonment — for distributing books some regard as inappropriate.

The trend comes as officials seek to define terms such as “obscene” and “harmful.” Many of the conflicts involve materials featuring racial and/or LGBTQ+ themes, such as Toni Morrison’s novel, “The Bluest Eye,” and Maia Kobabe’s memoir, “Gender Queer.” And while no librarian or educator has been jailed, the threat alone has led to more self-censorship.

Already this year, lawmakers in more than 15 states have introduced bills to impose harsh penalties on libraries or librarians.

Utah enacted legislation in March that empowers the state’s Attorney General to enforce a new system of challenging and removing “sensitive” books from school settings. The law also creates a panel to monitor compliance and violations.

Awaiting Idaho Gov. Brad Little’s signature is a bill that empowers local prosecutors to bring charges against public and school libraries if they don’t move “harmful” materials away from children.

“The laws are designed to limit or remove legal protections that libraries have had for decades,” says Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.

Since the early 1960s, institutions including schools, libraries and museums — as well as educators, librarians and other staffers who distribute materials to children — have largely been exempt from expensive lawsuits or potential criminal charges.

These protections began showing up in states as America grappled with standards surrounding obscenity, which was defined by the Supreme Court in 1973.

Ruling 5-4 in Miller v. California, the justices said obscene materials are not automatically protected by the First Amendment, and offered three criteria that must be met for being labeled obscene: whether the work, taken as a whole, appeals to “prurient interest,” whether “the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law,” and whether the work lacks “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”

Eventually, almost every state adopted protections for educators, librarians and museum officials, among others who provide information to minors.

“Until recently, police and prosecutors were unable to pursue charges against public libraries over materials that make certain individuals uncomfortable. These exemptions have prevented spurious prosecutions of teachers over health and sexuality curriculum, art, theater, and difficult subjects in English classes,” stated a 2023 report from EveryLibrary, a national political action committee that opposes censorship.

Arkansas and Indiana targeted educators and librarians with criminalization laws last year. Tennessee criminalized publishers that provide “obscene” materials to public schools.

Some Republicans are seeking penalties and restrictions that would apply nationwide. Referring to “pornography” in the foreword to Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a possible second Donald Trump administration, the right-wing group’s president, Kevin Roberts, wrote that the “people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders.”

Arkansas’ version was temporarily blocked by a federal judge after a coalition of librarians and publishers challenged the legality of subjecting librarians and booksellers to criminal charges if they provide “harmful” materials to minors.

Indiana lawmakers stripped away “educational purposes” as a defense for school librarians and educators charged with giving minors “obscene” or “harmful” material — felonies punishable by up to 2½ years in jail and $10,000 in fines. The law also requires public catalogs of what’s in each school library and systems for responding to complaints.

Indiana’s law took effect January 1. It’s likely a matter of when — not if — a lawsuit is filed, and the anxiety has created a chilling effect.

“It’s putting fear into some people. It’s very scary,” said Diane Rogers, a school librarian who serves as president of the Indiana Library Federation. “If you’re a licensed teacher just being charged with a felony potentially gets rid of your license even if you’re found innocent. That’s a very serious thing.”

Rogers said she’s confident Indiana’s school libraries don’t offer obscene materials, but she’s seen reports that some districts have moved certain titles to higher age groups or required parental approval to check them out.

A PEN America list shows 300 titles were removed from school libraries across 11 Missouri districts after lawmakers in 2022 banned “sexually explicit” material, punishable by up to a year in jail or a $2,000 fine. The American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri and library groups challenged the law last year, but it remains in effect pending a motion for the state to intervene.

“Gender Queer” is another title no longer available to high schoolers in Clayton, where district officials recently turned their attention to Mike Curato’s graphic novel, “Flamer,” about a teenager who struggles with his sexual identity and how to fit in at Boy Scout camp. The American Library Association included “Flamer” on its list of 2023’s most challenged and/or banned books .

“We had a lot of conversations about how to interpret the law and not be in violation,” Bober said. “But we also didn’t want to overreach and overcensor our collections. With ‘Flamer,’ we did not feel we were in violation of the law.”