Category A Prison - Cat A Prisons
Category A Prisons or CAT A Prisons as they are often referred to are for prisoners who deem a higher risk to the public or of escape. CAT A Prisoners are usually on trial or convicted of murder, manslaughter, wounding with intent, rape, indecent assault, robbery, firearms or supplying class A Drugs.
CAT A Prisoners have a lot less privileges than lower cat prisons such as B,C or D. Category A Prisons are the highest of security so prisoners can expect to have a longer level of bang up time (being locked up) , being escorted everywhere within the prison, less privileges and have to prove themselves to OMU to get to a lower category prison
Category A Prison - What are they like?
What is a CAT A Prison like?
Stereotypically, everyone thinks that a CAT A prison, with it being the highest security prison, no one will come out alive. Homosexuality, rapes in the shower, shankings by looking at someone the wrong way, but usually this isn’t actually the case.
A recent report was conducted at HMP Sutton and HMP Belmarsh, the results show that 1 in 3 said they didn’t even feel punished whilst at the prison, even in a CAT A!
Cat A Prisoners will more than likely find tighter security and escorts whilst walking round the prison, more bang up and less privileges. However, CAT A prisoners with more than 4 years will get a review about their categorisation every 12 months. For those under 4 years will get a categorisation review every 6 months.
To get to from a CAT A prison to a lower Cat B will need to prove that they are of lower risk, less likely to escape and have been showing good behaviour whilst in prison.
Category A Prison List
There are seven Cat A Prisons in the UK in total:
HM Prison Belmarsh ,
Dispersal prison,
HM Prison Frankland.
HM Prison Full Sutton,
HM Prison Long Lartin,
HM Prison Manchester,
HM Prison Wakefield,
HM Prison Whitemoor
HM Prison Woodhill