Clinks Members’ Policy Briefing | October 2015
In this month's edition...[[{"fid":"2087","view_mode":"default","fields":{"format":"default","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Policy News","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Policy News"},"type":"media","link_text":null,"attributes":{"alt":"Policy News","title":"Policy News","height":"51","width":"600","class":"media-element file-default"}}]]
Andrew Selous rounds up the criminal justice landscape Prisons Minister, Andrew Selous, gave a speech on 23rd September about the landscape for rehabilitating offenders, reducing reoffending and the challenges ahead. In his speech he covered Transforming Rehabilitation, education and employment, families, volunteers and prison reform.
Prison smoking ban announced A smoke-free policy will be implemented in all prisons in Wales (Cardiff, Parc, Swansea and Usk/Prescoed) from January 2016, and at four English prisons (Exeter, Channings Wood, Dartmoor and Erlestoke) from March 2016. From next month, smoking will be barred inside buildings at all open prisons in England and Wales.
Review of youth justice announced The Secretary of State for Justice, Michael Gove has announced a review of youth justice which will focus on prevention and rehabilitation, including how the system can better link with children and young people’s services that operate outside of the Criminal Justice System. Read the full terms of reference of the review here and Clinks Policy Manager, Jess Mullen’s blog on the review here
Review of prison education announced The Secretary of State for Justice, Michael Gove has announced a review of prison education focusing on the need to ensure that adults in custody gain literacy and numeracy skills in order to make them employable and positive contributors to society; the importance of education in rehabilitation, particularly for those serving longer sentences and the need for the right incentives for prisoners to learn. Read the full terms of reference of the review here and Clinks Policy Manager, Jess Mullen’s blog on the review here.
David Cameron’s vision for a smarter state In this speech on 11th September, the Prime Minister focused on public service reform and the rationale behind the forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review. A significant proportion of this speech was focussed on the devolution agenda, and how central government could, or should, be passing responsibility and accountability to local areas. This policy of devolution is likely to feature strongly in this Government, and although we aren’t yet sure how it will impact on the Criminal Justice System we will be keeping track of developments.
Clinks consultation responses and submissions of evidence
Clinks response to HM Inspectorate of Probation’s thematic inspection of work with women offenders The Inspectorate are interested in establishing the current landscape for and the provision and gaps in services for women who offend. In our evidence we have highlighted key points in relation to the location, leadership and funding of women centres; barriers to gender-specific work; changes in the needs of female service users over the last two years and examples of good practice from the voluntary sector.
Clinks response to the Spending Review 2015 Clinks’ representation to the Spending Review 2015 focuses primarily on the review’s priorities around criminal justice and some of the other priority areas outlined which may impact on the Criminal Justice System (CJS) and the cost of providing services to those in contact with it. We concentrate on key issues for the CJS which may impact on costs and which we believe the Treasury and the Ministry of Justice should consider when assessing or developing policy proposals within the context of this Spending Review. As a member of the Making Every Adult Matter (MEAM) coalition, we also contributed to the MEAM representation to the Spending Review, which sets out a case for a national focus on multiple needs. The MEAM submission can be accessed here.
MEAM response to the independent review into the impact on employment outcomes of drug or alcohol addiction, and obesity Clinks contributed to this response by the MEAM coalition, which focuses on the experiences of people with drug and alcohol problems and their interaction with employment support services. It argues that adding mandatory requirements to achieve employment outcomes would not benefit individuals or the government and is informed by existing evidence, the knowledge of the coalitions’ frontline member agencies, and the experiences of people facing multiple needs.
MEAM written evidence to the Work and Pensions Select Committee inquiry into welfare-to-work provision Clinks contributed to this response by the MEAM coalition, which draws on the insights of people experiencing multiple and complex needs, and makes recommendations as to what can be done to improve welfare to-work provision for those furthest away from the labour market.
Criminal Justice System
Effective approaches with young adults: a guide for probation services The aim of this Clinks guide is to give probation practitioners, whether in the National Probation Service or Community Rehabilitation Companies, the tools to deliver a more effective approach to young adults. It provides practical suggestions for effective ways to engage young adults and support their desistance from crime. It also includes suggestions for managers on what they can do to enable practitioners to improve outcomes within probation services.
Community sentences since 2000: How they work- and why they have not cut prisoner numbers Published by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, this report describes how community sentences operate in three UK criminal justice jurisdictions – England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland – and why they have not cut prisoner numbers. The report includes statistical information including prisoner numbers, bail, remand, uses and types of community sentences, probation and other alternatives to custody.
Crime and policing news update, September 2015 This Home Office update includes information on enabling closer working between the emergency services; a consultation on extra powers for police staff and volunteers; information sharing in tackling gang and youth violence; the government response to tackling serious and organised crime; and using conditional cautions as an alternative to prosecution for foreign national offenders.
The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman Annual Report 2014-2015 This report looks at challenges facing prisons and probation, deaths in custody, and complaints received by the Ombudsman. Nigel Newcomen CBE, Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, said: "The number of self-inflicted deaths in custody remains unacceptably high and, in 2014–15, there were still 38% more than in 2012–13.”
Transforming Rehabilitation: the voluntary sector perspective This paper published by NPC summarises a discussion convened on 9th May 2015 with representatives from voluntary sector organisations that had bid unsuccessfully in the 2014 Transforming Rehabilitation Tier 1 tendering process. It aims to show the perspectives of those involved to better understand the reasons for failure and what can be learned for the future.
Multiple and complex needs
Breaking boundaries: Towards a ‘Troubled Lives’ programme for people facing multiple and complex needs Published by IPPR, this report examines the lessons that can be learned from the successes and failures of previous attempts to reform public services for people experiencing multiple needs. The report recommends that at the next spending review, the government chooses multiple and complex needs as one of a small number of priority issues for investment in local integration and service transformation, and creates a new 'Troubled Lives' programme, based on the Troubled Families model.
Women and girls
Authorised professional practice on domestic abuse Published by the College of Policing, this document gives new guidance for police officers responding to instances of domestic abuse. It adds more contextual information on domestic abuse to encourage greater understanding of the dynamics of this offence amongst officers and also emphasises the importance of building a strong case that does not rely exclusively on the victim’s support.
World Female Imprisonment List Published by the Institute for Criminal Policy Research, this briefing shows that 700,000 women and girls are held in penal institutions throughout the world, with female prisoners generally constituting between 2% and 9% of the total prison population in any country. The report looks at the number of women and girls held in penal institutions in 219 prison systems in independent countries and dependent territories, including pre-trial detainees/remand prisoners.
Substance misuse
Service User Involvement: a guide for drug and alcohol commissioners, providers and service users Public Health England has published new guidance for commissioners looking to develop activities to support people recovering from drug and alcohol misuse, demonstrating the value of service user involvement. This guide describes four different levels of service user involvement, from co-developing one's own care plan through to initiating and running recovery-focused enterprises. The guide showcases a number of examples of unique services from across the country that have been set up by, or run by, former alcohol and drug users.
The Arts
University of Sussex: using archives within the Criminal Justice System This case study, published by the National Alliance for Arts in Criminal Justice gives details of the writing lives project that took place in HMP Lewes. The project used extracts from the Mass Observation Archive, which records the thoughts, beliefs and experiences of people’s lives in workshops with the men in prison.
Offenders' families
Assisting Community Rehabilitation Companies and the National Probation Service to support offenders’ children Published by Barnardo’s i-Hop, this poster and two page briefing gives details about children and families affected by parental offending and how i-HOP can assist Community Rehabilitation Companies and National Probation Service professionals to support them. The briefing summarises some of the key outcomes for these families, and highlights the importance of considering children and families in the supervision of offenders. The poster and briefing include direct quotes from families and examples of practice.
Voluntary sector
Review of charity funding regulation NCVO has published the findings of chief executive Sir Stuart Etherington's review into the self-regulation of charity fundraising. The review took evidence from stakeholders in order to identify what changes are required to rebuild public trust in fundraising by charities. It states the current approach to the self-regulation of fundraising is not working, and is unnecessarily complex and badly resourced, and proposes a new approach to fundraising regulation.
Banged Up - Locked Up - What are the links between Care & Crime Robert Mills, OCR’s Sector Specialist for offender learning has published a LinkedIn post examining the links between care and custody. He explores education, familial offending, socio-economic factors, predictors and risk factors, mental health and wellbeing. He also highlights the lack of service user voice in the available literature, before warning that "if children in care continue to go unnoticed then they are at risk of becoming tomorrow’s serious, chronic offenders who will spend most of their teenage years in youth offending institutions and then their adult life in and out of prison."
Does TR spell trouble for smaller charities? In this Clinks guest blog Paul Streets OBE, Chief Executive of Lloyds Bank Foundation, provides an analysis of their recent research into the experiences of 800 small and medium sized charities.
Why I go to work in a prison every day In this Clinks guest blog, Zoe Twiddle from Khulisa shares her experience of a recent intervention with one of her service users, and the motivation she gets from supporting offenders on their journey to desistance.
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