Last Thursday Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak unveiled the government’s spending plans for the coming year. The Spending Review included details on public sector pay, NHS funding and money for the devolved administrations as well as setting out the extent of the damage done to the UK economy by… Work with offenders digs into the detail of the Chancellor’s statement...
Given the very difficult challenges to public finances in the wake of coronavirus (and Brexit), many people were surprised to hear Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced that he was going to find £4 billion to spend on building new prisons (with 18,000 prison places) “by the mid-2020s”. It is clear that… Experts are predicting that increases in police numbers will start having an impact on prison numbers from this December. Work with Offenders examines the detail ...
Prison discipline A new report from the Howard League for Penal Reform (Monday 23 November) claims that the disciplinary system in prisons creates a pervasive sense of injustice, fuelling conflict and overcrowding, and should be overhauled, as figures show that the number of formal hearings has risen to a record… Work with Offenders looks at a briefing from the Howard League on problems with the prison disciplinary system ...
Last week the Howard League for Penal Reform a sentencing toolkit to ensure better outcomes for children facing sentence in the criminal courts. The toolkit was developed through work with 80 young people in contact with the criminal justice system and draws on the expertise of the Howard League legal… Work with offenders profiles a new Howard League resource invaluable for our readers working in youth justice...
HM Inspectorate of Probation today (24 November) published its annual report, Inspection of Youth Offending Services 2019-20 in which it concluded that improvements are required in more than half of the 16 youth offending services inspected this year. Inspectors found inconsistences in performance remain, with assessment of risk of harm… Work with Offenders examines the probation inspectorate’s annual report on youth offending services...
The challenge of coronavirus Probation and youth offending services have responded well to the COVID-19 pandemic but attention must now turn to tackling backlogs and longer-term problems. That is the verdict of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation (HMI Probation) in two separate reports published today. HMI Probation inspected the work… Work with Offenders looks at the conclusions of two new reports from the probation inspectorate...
A new report, “Stories of Injustice” published today by academics at Manchester Metropolitan University casts new light on the number and experiences of women imprisoned under laws relating to joint enterprise. What is joint enterprise? Joint enterprise is a doctrine of criminal law which permits two or more defendants to… Work with Offenders on a new report which sheds light on joint enterprise laws...
The Ministry of Justice has just updated its guidance on its Witness Intermediary Scheme. Most people haven’t heard of intermediaries, they are a hidden cog in the wheels of justice. A relatively new profession, intermediaries work with the police and courts as communication specialists to ensure adults with communication difficulties… Work with Offenders looks at the latest state of a critical service which is a hidden cog in the workings of the justice system...
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has just released a new statistical bulletin looking into childhood vulnerability to victimisation for the three-year period up to March 2019. Based on the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) for those two years, it reports on victimisation and negative behaviours of children… Work with offenders looks into new data about childhood vulnerability...
The Ministry of Justice and the Office for National Statistics has published the first edition of its regular quarterly Criminal Justice Statistics bulletin to cover the lockdown period. The bulletin covers the year from 1 July 2019 to 30 June 2020 and the statisticians have included additional information to show… Work with Offenders delves into the detail of the latest official data...