Violence, isolation and rats in cells The harsh reality of life on the inside

It is a sunny morning outside HMP Wandsworth and tourists are pointing at a food lorry waiting to go through the portcullis-style gate. 

- Helen Pidd

"That might have been the one he hid under," says one, as they discuss how the 21-year-old terror suspect Daniel Khalife allegedly managed to escape the Victorian jail this month clinging to the bottom of a delivery vehicle.

What the tourists don't clock are the men who walk out of the gate carrying prison-issue sports bags, blinking into the sunlight as they taste freedom for the first time in weeks, months, years.

Most have no one waiting for them, but one - Darren, a relaxed twentysomething in a bucket hat, a plastic crucifix hung round his neck - is met by Sam, a cheery man in shorts and Crocs contracted by the local council to meet and mentor prisoners on their release.

Sam's goal is simple, yet difficult to achieve: stop Darren from going back inside. More than two in five adult prisoners in England and Wales (42%) are reconvicted of another offence within one year of release, the starkest sign that the prison system does not work.

Darren was only in Wandsworth for two weeks, recalled for a short, sharp punishment after breaking the rules of his probation after his last release. He is sanguine about life in rat-infested cells built in 1851. Vandalism is rife: last year contractors were repairing up to 300 smashed toilet seats in Wandsworth every month. Pigeons fly about on the wings, droppings splattered across the walkways.

The jail is 170% over capacity, holding 1,617 prisoners - 667 more men than it was designed for. It is also seriously understaffed. On the day Khalife allegedly escaped, 80 staff were not at work, equating to 40% of the workforce.

The gap between the standards the prison inspectorate says inmates should expect and the reality is enormous, most notably the notion that they should be allowed a minimum of 10 hours out of their cell every day.