The Guardian view on England’s prisons: a national humiliation | Editorial

Not one of England’s young offenders institutions is safe. Prison officers are routinely assaulted. Inmates are self-harming and committing suicideNelson Mandela once observed: “No one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails.” Most of us will never find out what life is like in prison, but the official version is that conditions behind bars in England and Wales are grim and getting worse. There have been, says the prison inspectorate, startling increases in vio