Work With Offenders

08/12/2022

Preventing deaths on arrest and in police custody

A new report brings together, for the first time, a wide range of policing practice across England and Wales

A new publication issued last week by the Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody (IAPDC) says that Police forces, Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs), and health partners must improve practice to prevent deaths at the point of arrest, during, and after custody.

The report has perhaps the longest formal title of any report in 2022: “Preventing deaths at point of arrest, during and after police custody: a review of police practice submitted to the Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody by Police and Crime Commissioners and associated bodies”. It brings together, for the first time, a wide range of policing practice across England and Wales to prevent deaths and makes a series of recommendations for police, healthcare, and other bodies.

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https://www.workwithoffenders.co.uk/news/news_article/110226

07/12/2022

Focus on rehabilitation not longer sentences, says Ken Clarke

Criticism follows need to use police cells to house people on remand

Tory former justice secretary and home secretary Ken Clarke has urged a reversal in the trend for increasing maximum prison sentences and a focus instead on rehabilitation.

His comments followed criticism over a move to hold inmates in police cells after a surge in overcrowding in male prisons over the last few months.

The Government has said this is a required “temporary measure” due in part to an exceptional number of prisoners held on remand as a result of the barristers’ strike, and the surge in offenders receiving custodial sentences.

The prison population rose by over 1,500 in October and November which Justice Minister Lord Bellamy described as “a highly unusual increase, which has caused pressure on the adult male estate but not the female or youth justice estates.”

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https://www.workwithoffenders.co.uk/news/news_article/110219

06/12/2022

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05/12/2022

Change to Friday Prison Releases comes closer

A Private Members Bill is the government’s chosen mechanism to implement the government’s pledge on Friday releases

Last week (ironically on Friday) Simon Fell MP, the Conservative MP for Barrow and Furness, spoke in parliament on the second reading of his Offenders (Day of Release from Detention) Private Members Bill. The Bill, which is supported by the Government, aims to introduce legislation which means that offenders scheduled for release on a Friday who also have mental health issues, substance misuse problems, or far to travel home will be released on Wednesday or Thursday instead, providing that strict security checks are followed.

The private bill is the government’s chosen mechanism to implement the government’s pledge on Friday releases which was contained in the Prisons Strategy White Paper, published in December 2021.

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https://www.workwithoffenders.co.uk/news/news_article/110202

05/12/2022

Prison overcrowding crisis

We have always known that our prison system is overcrowded; it’s been that way for many years.

Official figures show that the prison system as a whole has been overcrowded in every year since 1994.

Almost two in every three prisons in England and Wales are overcrowded (77 of the 120 prisons), with more than 15,900 people held in overcrowded accommodation—more than a fifth of the prison population.

Nevertheless, with the dip in the prison population owing to the pandemic and the government committing £4 billion to build a total of 18,000 new prison places with the 1,680 places in HMP Five Wells opening earlier this year, it was still something of a surprise when the Prisons Minister Damian Hinds was forced to request the emergency use of 400 police cells for people on remand earlier this week.

Ministers blamed the recent barristers’ strike for an “acute and sudden increase in the prison population” of 800 in the last two months.

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https://www.workwithoffenders.co.uk/news/news_article/110189

30/11/2022

An economic evaluation of restorative justice

A new economic evaluation of Restorative Justice by the charity 'Why me?' compares restorative interventions for victims of crime and offenders with the conventional justice system.

The research analysed the economic impacts of Restorative Justice interventions, including the impacts upon reoffending and its direct benefits to victims.

What is restorative justice?
Restorative Justice is a transformative tool that empowers everyone affected by crime to communicate and move forwards.

Restorative Justice gives people who have been harmed the chance to talk about the impact of the incident and seek answers about why it happened in a face-to-face meeting, via video, or through letters.

Victims of crime often feel excluded, confused, and revictimized by the criminal justice process. Restorative Justice brings them back to the heart of the discussion and allows them to have their voices heard – to detail the impact the crime had on them, and to seek answers to questions they have.

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https://www.workwithoffenders.co.uk/news/news_article/110162

30/11/2022

MoJ set to trigger Op Safeguard again

Operation Safeguard involves the use of police cells to hold prisoners.

Police cells could once more be used to house prisoners as the prison population continues to increase.

Justice Minister Damian Hinds has today said that the MoJ has written to the NPCC to request the temporary use of up to 400 police cells. It’s part of an established protocol known as Operation Safeguard.

Operation Safeguard has previously been used between October and December 2006 and January 2007 to October 2008.

Cells will be jointly managed by police and the MoJ.

Since the barrister strike action earlier in the year, the prison population has increased from 79,800 to 82,700 and the remand population increased by 1,700.

Damien Hinds has called the increase “acute and sudden”.

The government has a number of ongoing contracts to increase the size of the prison estate including the opening of HMP Fosse Way next spring (1,700 new spaces) and a £500m contract to deliver 2,400 new places across six existing sites.

Continue reading below:
https://www.workwithoffenders.co.uk/news/news_article/110160

28/11/2022

Reading app developed to help prisoners

The Ministry of Justice has today announced a new app to improve the literacy of people in prison and give them a better chance of finding work on release.

The app was developed as part of an innovation challenge run by the MoJ within its Prison Leavers Project. Called “Turning Pages Digital”, the app was jointly developed by tech company Yalla Cooperative and the Shannon Trust - a charity which will be familiar to a large number readers from the many years it has spent pioneering literacy programmes in prison.

The Shannon Trust
The Shannon Trust was founded by Christopher Morgan in 1997 following a series of letters with a life-sentenced prisoner, Tom Shannon, in a penpal scheme run by the Prison Reform Trust.

Reading Tom’s letters, Christopher learned about prison life and the shocking levels of poor literacy among prisoners. In 1995, the letters were put together in a book titled, ‘Invisible Crying Tree’. The royalties from the book were used to found the Shannon Trust. One of the key success factors from the beginning of the charity was its insistence on a peer mentoring approach. Throughout its history the motto has always been “by prisoners for prisoners” – with those who can read teaching those who can’t.

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https://www.workwithoffenders.co.uk/news/news_article/110150

28/11/2022

Why are Prison Mother and Baby Units under-used?

Thursday 24th August saw the publication of the Chief Social Worker’s review of decision-making in applications to prison Mother and Baby Units (MBUs).

The review was undertaken by the Chief Social Worker for Children and Families, Isabelle Trowler and examines the decision-making process for prison mother and baby unit applications, and child and family social workers’ role in this.

About Mother and Baby Units

An MBU is part of a women’s prison where a mother can live with her baby up to the age of 18 months. There is provision for extended placements where appropriate, such as when the mother’s sentence ends shortly after the child is 18 months old. In exceptional circumstances placements can be extended up to a maximum age of 24 months. Pregnant women, and women with children younger than 18 months old can apply. There are no exclusions relating to remand status/sentence, offence type, sentence type or sentence length.

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https://www.workwithoffenders.co.uk/news/news_article/110147

25/11/2022

London probation services are “hugely disappointing”

Inspectors judged just one quarter of the cases they examined as being of a satisfactory standard in relation to their assessment of risk of serious harm.

Probation inspectors have today published their remaining inspections of London probation services, also known as Probation Delivery Units (PDUs), which have resulted in another set of poor ratings for the Capital.

Lewisham and Bromley PDU was rated as ‘Inadequate’ – the lowest rating possible – with inspections of Newham PDU and Barking, Dagenham and Havering PDU both rated as ‘Requires improvement’.

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Inspectors judged just one quarter of the cases they examined as being of a satisfactory standard in relation to their assessment of risk of serious harm.

14/11/2022

Young people’s experiences of violence

A new report published by the Youth Endowment Fund today explores the ways in which violence – and fear of violence – is shaping children’s lives.

The report “Children, violence and vulnerability 2022” combines a survey of 2,025 children and young people with a review of national statistics. The Youth Endowment Fund was established in March 2019 by children’s charity Impetus, with a £200m endowment and ten year mandate from the Home Office. Its purpose is to prevent children and young people becoming involved in violence; it does this predominantly by finding out what works and building a movement to put this knowledge into practice.

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https://www.workwithoffenders.co.uk/news/news_article/110074

14/11/2022

Construction begins on UK's first all-electric prison

A UK-first, the prison will based at Full Sutton in East Yorkshire and is expected to create over 600 jobs.

Nearly 1,500 prisoners will reside at the UK’s first electric prison which is set to open in 2025.

The site will run solely on electricity where others still rely on gas. It will also use solar panels and heat pump technology resulting in 78 per cent less energy useage than HMP Wormwood Scrubs and cutting energy costs by over £1.1 million.

It will draw 18GWh less energy from the gas and electricity networks every year than HMP Belmarsh.

A competition will be launched later this year to find an operator to run the prison. Companies will have to set out how they would work with local businesses to train-up prisoners with skills most sought by local employers.

Continue reading below:

The site will run solely on electricity where others still rely on gas. It will also use solar panels and heat pump technology resulting in 78 per cent less energy useage than HMP Wormwood Scrubs and cutting energy costs by over £1.1 million.

14/11/2022

Crest Co-operative: running probation contracts for 20 years

Crest Co-operative recently won another MoJ contract to provide unpaid work supervision services. It’s something they’ve been delivering for over 20 years.

Crest Co-operative is a charity based in North Wales that run a variety of services including charity shops, a food bank, furniture upcycling through to a radio station.

They have around 47 paid staff, between 30 and 35 regular volunteers and through the probation services provide unpaid work supervision for around 10,000 hours per annum. At any one time they might have between 20 to 30 people on the unpaid work programme.

Managing Director Rod Williams told Work with Offenders: “We tell everyone, you're here, you're part of the team as far as we're concerned. We don't label anyone, or discriminate against anyone.

Continue reading below:

https://www.workwithoffenders.co.uk/news/news_article/110045

28/10/2022

The unstoppable rise of people on MAPPA arrangements
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There are now more people supervised under MAPPA arrangements than there are people in prison

The Ministry of Justice and the Office for National Statistics have published the annual report on Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements for 2021/22. Although MAPPA has only been in existence since 2003, there are now more people supervised under its arrangements than there are people in prison. On 31 March 2022, there were 89,438 offenders under MAPPA management in the community in England and Wales compared to 79,808 people in prison on the same date.

What is MAPPA?

First established in 2003, Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) are a set of statutory arrangements to assess and manage the risk posed by certain sexual and violent offenders. MAPPA bring together the Police, Probation and Prison Services into what is known as the MAPPA Responsible Authority for each MAPPA Area (using police force boundaries) to manage serious (mainly sexual and violent) offenders to minimise the risk they pose to the public.

https://www.workwithoffenders.co.uk/news/news_article/109991

20/10/2022

The rise and rise of tagging

The number of individuals being actively monitored with a location monitoring device (GPS) has more than doubled

We know that this government is keen on imprisonment, it is after all investing £4 billion to create 20,000 new prison places and the prison population is expected to increase by almost a quarter over the next three years.

The governments tough stance on crime is not restricted to incarceration though. It is also keen on making an increasing number of offenders subject to electronic tagging as today’s Electronic Monitoring Statistics make clear.

Here are the headlines:

The number of individuals being actively monitored increased by 12%

At 30 September 2022, the total number of individuals actively monitored was 14,996, an increase from 13,371 on the same date last year.

https://www.workwithoffenders.co.uk/news/news_article/109946

20/10/2022

Racial bias and the bench

A new report from the University of Manchester and a part-time crown court judge raises urgent questions about racial attitudes and practices in the justice system.

Although the judiciary wields enormous power over individuals, its operations are alarmingly under-scrutinised, and one area that has remained largely beyond examination is judicial racial bias. The research by the University of Manchester and a part-time crown court judge who is a training tutor for the Judicial College, is an extensive study and the report draws on a survey of 373 legal professionals.

Context

Black barristers are under-represented in the judiciary, and also report experiencing racism from judges, magistrates and panel members. On top of this, The Lammy Review and the Race at the Bar report both found sentencing outcomes are harsher for many ethnic minority defendants than their white counterparts.

With raised public concern about the treatment of ethnic minority communities in the justice system of England and Wales, serious questions are being asked of judges and the judiciary. Despite the disproportionate number of ethnic minority people criminalised by the justice system, new recruits to the predominantly white and privileged sector of the judiciary currently receive little or no formal guidance on racial literacy and antiracism.

In November 2020, the Judicial Diversity Committee of the Judge's Council launched the 'Judicial Diversity Strategy 2020-2025' to tackle bias and the lack of diversity within the judiciary.

The research project considers how judicial officer holders are trained and how racial bias is tackled in comparative contexts.

20/10/2022

Ombudsman highlights concerns about deaths in prison

Former Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO) Sue McAllister has today published her final Annual Report, covering the year 2021-22.

In the report, Ms McAllister who was the the Ombudsman from October 2018 to June 2022, highlights a number of issues.

The PPO investigates deaths of prisoners, young people in detention, offenders under probation supervision and individuals detained under immigration powers (detained individuals). The report highlights the case of Baby A, who tragically died in prison, and the case of Baby B, who was sadly stillborn in prison. At the time, these investigations were outside the PPO’s remit. The Ombudsman’s remit has now been expanded so that future neonatal deaths and stillbirths in prison or deaths of children in mother and baby units within a prison will be investigated within the PPO’s Terms of Reference. It is to be hoped that the new Ombudsman, Kimberley Bingham, does not have the need to exercise these powers any time in the foreseeable future.

https://www.workwithoffenders.co.uk/news/news_article/109939

20/10/2022

t is increasingly hard to retain prison staff due to better pay and conditions elsewhere, including other parts of the public sector, particularly the police, a new report has warned.

Ahead of the government's medium-term fiscal plan, the Institute for Government (IFG)/Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) has published its annual public services stocktake. The report is determinedly downbeat, revealing that public services won’t have returned to pre-pandemic performance by the next election, which in most cases was already worse than when the Conservatives came to power in 2010.

Performance Tracker reviews the state of nine public services – general practice, hospitals, adult social care, children’s social care, neighbourhood services, schools, police, criminal courts and prisons – and their comparative and inter-connected problems. This Work with Offenders article focuses on the report’s analysis of prison performance.

https://www.workwithoffenders.co.uk/news/news_article/109931

21/09/2022

“Dysfunctional” custody system failing girls

At the time of the inspection, there were just 14 girls in custody across the whole of England and Wales

The national youth custody system is failing to provide very vulnerable girls with the environment and support they need, according to a joint thematic inspection by HM Inspectorate of Prisons, HM Inspectorate of Probation, Ofsted, Care Quality Commission (CQC) and Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW) published today. Inspectors spoke to girls who were currently detained, girls and women who had been recently released, as well as young women who had transitioned to an adult prison after turning 18.

https://www.workwithoffenders.co.uk/news/news_article/109759

14/09/2022

Courts get involved in parole changes

The Justice Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab recently issued new rules which prohibits probation staff from offering explicit recommendations (either for or against release) when they submit reports to the parole board. The rules were followed up by new guidance attempting to restrict probation officers’ ability to answer… Regular readers, particularly anyone involved in the world of probation, will be aware of the recent major changes taking place in the parole process....

https://www.workwithoffenders.co.uk/news/news_article/109584

14/09/2022

Justice system still not recovered from the pandemic

Today’s edition of the quarterly criminal justice statistics for England and Wales (covering the year up to 31 March 2022) show that while business at the courts is increasing, it is still a long way from getting back to normal. Headlines 1.36 million individuals were dealt with by the criminal… There has been a significant change in the profile of offences going through the courts over the last two years....

https://www.workwithoffenders.co.uk/news/news_article/109618

14/09/2022

Separation centres provide “decent care”

What are separation centres? The Separation Centre model was introduced in 2017 as one part of the government’s response to a review into the management of extremism within the prison estate. The aim was to prevent prisoners with extreme views from radicalising their fellow inmates, presenting a risk to national… The Prison Inspectorate has today published its first ever inspection into two separation centres – which hold very small numbers of prisoners with extreme views to prevent them radicalising their fellow inmates....

05/08/2022

The Law Commission of England and Wales has today announced that it will launch a wide-ranging review of the laws governing appeals for criminal cases.

The Commission has been asked by the Government to examine the need for reforms to the appeals system, to ensure that the courts have the right powers to enable the effective, efficient and appropriate resolution of appeals.

https://www.workwithoffenders.co.uk/news/news_article/109559

04/08/2022

A research team from the University of Lincoln (led by Dr Lauren Smith) conducted a qualitative exploration of the health and wellbeing of prison operational managers and Governor grades on behalf of the Prison Governors Association (PGA). The researchers interviewed 63 PGA members to explore how participants described their health and wellbeing at work, what mechanisms of support were available, and how they felt about their current role. The report gets its title from its core finding: “Just get on with it”.

https://www.workwithoffenders.co.uk/news/news_article/109555