Government moves on IPP sentences

The Justice Secretary Alex Chalk has announced a partial reform to the sentence of Imprisonment for Public Protection, commonly known as IPPs. Mr Chalk has proposed changes to the indefinite licence period which all IPP prisoners are subjected to, by introducing government amendments to the Victims and Prisoners bill which… Three years after their release, a person serving an IPP will be automatically referred to the Parole Board for a review of their licence....

Some children remanded in custody unnecessarily

The inspectorates of prison and probation alongside Ofsted have today published a joint thematic inspection of work with children subject to remand in youth detention. Its headline conclusion was that some children could be better cared for in the community rather than youth detention. At any given time, there are… A substantial minority of children had a significant history of escalating social care involvement, including receiving support through child protection planning, or they were already in care at the time of the initial remand ...

PAVA spray used disproportionately against black and muslim prisoners

The disproportionate use of PAVA incapacitant spray on Black, Black British and Muslim prisoners is now so firmly established that it has become normalised, according to a new analysis published yesterday by the Prison Reform Trust. The briefing reveals that since PAVA spray was introduced, the scale of the disparity… The official guidance is that prison officers are permitted to use PAVA spray when there is: “serious violence or an imminent or perceived risk of it”....

Violence in the youth custody estate

Two reports published today by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons paint a bleak picture of youth custody in England and Wales. While the number of children in custody continued to fall in 2022-23, levels of violence and self-harm rose by just over a quarter and a third respectively. The Children… The number of children held in Secure Training Centres and YOIs has continued to decline...

Prison crisis worsens as fifth prison given urgent notification

Last week the Chief Inspector of Prisons, Charlie Taylor, issued an urgent notification for improvement within days of finishing the inspection on 9 November 2023. Bedford becomes the fifth establishment to receive with an urgent notification in the past 12 months. Mr Taylor said that conditions had deteriorated very sharply… The escape of a prisoner who was meant to be subject to constant supervision in July 2022 highlighted substantial weaknesses in security...

Black women at increased risk of being killed by domestic abusers

A report published today by the Centre for Women’s Justice takes a deep dive into the murders and suicides of Black and minority women linked to domestic abuse. The report, ‘Life or Death’, highlights how barriers to reporting and failures by police and other services, against a backdrop of intersecting… The researchers built a dataset of 4,370 post-death investigation reports into the deaths of BAME women who have died in the last 10 years...

Some progress made on probation and prison staffing levels

Yesterday's publication of the latest HMPPS workforce statistics which cover the period up to the end of September are the first grain of good news for the prison and probation services for a considerable period of time. The headline figures comparing this June – to September with the previous quarter… Some better news but the number of probation officers in post still represents a shortfall of 2,129 FTE against the required staffing level of 6,780 FTE...

Magistrates are remanding more people in custody

A significant part of our prison capacity crisis is the growing remand population. The September 2023 remand population figure of 16,196 is 12% higher than in September 2022 and is the highest September figure in at least the last fifty years. The untried prison population rose by 8% (to 10,521)… The researchers ask why custodial remand is so often ordered when conditional bail might be appropriate....

Even tougher on crime

The last 20 years have seen a dramatic increase in the number of people serving long prison sentences. There is no official definition of how long a person needs to spend in prison to be classed as a ‘longterm’ prisoner, but the general understanding is that this term applies to… Today’s King’s Speech contained a long list of hardline criminal justice measures committing the Government to introduce tougher sentences for rapists and murderers...

Assaults self harm and deaths in prison custody have risen

Regular readers will be more familiar than most with the chronic overcrowding in our prison system and the recent emergency measures that the government has had to institute to tackle them. The early release provision and other measures have succeeded in reducing the number of people inside by 424 people… There have been more than 23,000 assaults in the prison system in the 12 months to June last year ...