Andrew Bridges, the chief inspector of prisons, said too much attention had been paid to his rights.

The joint report by the chief inspectors of prisons, police and probation said strategies were patchy and often counter-productive.

We appointed a superb chief inspector of prisons, Judge Tumim, and set up the Woolf commitee on prison reform, which has produced an excellent report.

Young people charged with riot offences were attacked in at least one youth jail in the aftermath of this summer's disturbances, the chief inspector of prisons has disclosed.

- Nick Hardwick, the chief inspector of prisons, has said that the jailing of more than 1,000 people following the riots has fuelled gang culture in prisons.

The chief inspector of prisons, Judge Stephen Tumim, has published a damning report into the causes of the riot at Wymott prison in Lancashire last month.

In 2010, a joint report by the chief inspectors of prisons and probation stated that indefinite prison sentences are unsustainable with the current situation of prison over-crowding in the UK.

Whiskes Mwale, chief inspector of prisons was quoted by the daily saying: "we have already transferred 98 prisoners whose deaths sentences were commuted to life imprisonment from Mikuyu to Zomba central prison."

In September 1998 the Chief inspector of Prisons issued a report warning that Eastwood Park Prison was keeping a number of inmates in cells that were below the nationally recommended standard size.

A report, published yesterday by Alan Bishop, chief inspector of prisons for Scotland, says members of a prisoners' alcohol abuse group have given talks at secondary schools and have attended meetings of parent-teacher associations and community education committees.

The conclusions are published in a report by the chief inspector of prisons after an inspection carried out on September 12 to see how Feltham young offenders institution in west London coped with the sudden influx of those remanded on riot charges.

In October the chief inspector of prisons, Judge Stephen Tumim, took the unusual step of writing to the director of the prison service about the situation at Parkhurst, pointing out that searches of prisoners were lax and that special electronic equipment to make them more effective was not being used.

But - despite the plea for legalisation made over the weekend by Sir David Ramsbotham, outgoing chief inspector of prisons, which is echoed in private by a number of senior police officers - there is no prospect of the government undertaking the radical overhaul of drugs that is now urgently needed.