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Clinks Members’ Policy Briefing | June 2016
In this month's edition...
This month, Clinks has been working on how we can make the voluntary sector central to the prison reform agenda. We have met with the lead staff members for prison reform at the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) and the Ministry of Justice’s strategy unit and will shortly be meeting with the new Executive Governors of the early adopter prisons. The Reducing Reoffending Third Sector Advisory Group has helped us develop a number of ideas about how the voluntary sector could be more involved in prison reform, which we will publish soon.
Clinks launched ‘Change & challenge’, a report looking at the voluntary sector’s role in Transforming Rehabilitation. This has been sent to the Ministry of Justice, NOMS contract managers, all Community Rehabilitation Companies, the National Probation Service and parliamentarians. We will be taking forward our recommendations and have begun to hold meetings at a senior level within government.
Clinks held two consultation events for members to contribute to our response to the Lammy Review of racial bias in the Criminal Justice System. We will publish our response at the end of this month. If you would like to contribute to our response, please email Oonagh.ryder@clinks.org. You can also respond to the call for evidence online here.
This month we have also organised the first networking forum for organisations who work with women and girls which will allow us to represent them to government through the Advisory Board for Female Offenders and the Reducing Reoffending Third Sector Advisory Group. This meeting will take place on the 23rd June, you can find out more and book here.
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Queen’s Speech 2016 On 18th May, the Queen delivered her speech at the State Opening of Parliament. The speech announced legislation to reform prisons, giving governors more autonomy, closing old prisons and building new ones. The Queen also announced that action would be taken to ensure better mental health provision for those in the Criminal Justice System. Nathan Dick, Clinks’ Head of Policy and Communications, has written a blog summarising the speech and giving an update on the work Clinks will be doing to support and promote the voluntary sector in the Criminal Justice System.
Unlocking potential: a review of education in prison Dame Sally Coates has published her report and recommendations following her appointment by Michael Gove to lead the government’s review of education in prison. The report focuses on putting education at the heart of the prison regime and makes a number of recommendations for significant change, including more basic skills development in English, maths and IT, the introduction of a new scheme allowing graduates to train as teachers ‘on the job’ by working as prison officers for two years, and giving governors more control over how they use their education budgets. Michael Gove has accepted all the report's recommendations. We will shortly be publishing a briefing about the report; in the meantime, Clinks’ Policy Officer Nicola Drinkwater has written a blog summarising the key themes here.
Making prisons work On 12th May, Michael Gove delivered a speech to the Governing Governors’ Forum on prison reform. He discussed the importance of governor autonomy and the need to make prisons safer in order to make communities safer, as well as his intention to review the position of those on Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences. The minister spoke positively about the potential of release on temporary license to reintegrate offenders into society, through improving family ties and providing employment opportunities.
Clinks publications
Change and Challenge: the voluntary sector's role in Transforming Rehabilitation Having surveyed 151 voluntary sector organisations and held face to face discussions with over 90 organisations, Clinks has published a report on the sector’s collective experience of changes to probation services under the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms. The report makes seven recommendations for change that we hope will improve the sector’s experience and drive improvements in probation services.
Nelson’s Trust Women’s Centres in Gloucester and Swindon This is the first in a series of in-depth case studies of services working to support women in contact with the Criminal Justice System (CJS). The series aims to highlight the impact of current policy and funding arrangements on both clients and the organisations themselves. For this case study we spoke to Rose Mahon who, at the time, was Women’s Services Manager at The Nelson Trust. Rose had responsibility for two Women’s Centres – one in Gloucester and the other in Swindon.
Prisons
Prison safety This Justice Select Committee report explores safety in prisons and finds that levels of self-inflicted deaths, self-harm and assaults have risen, and that staffing levels have reduced. The report recommends that the Ministry of Justice and the National Offender Management Service together produce an action plan for improving prison safety, addressing the factors underlying the rises in violence, self-harm and suicide, and including both preventative measures and punitive ones. Michael Gove has written a letter to the Justice Select Committee in response to the report, confirming that he has allocated £10 million for governors to improve prison safety.
Preventing prison suicides: perspectives from the inside This briefing is part of a series by the Centre for Mental Health and the Howard League, exploring how prisons and healthcare providers can collaborate to prevent suicides in prison. The briefing uses insights gained from prisoner focus groups to identify a number of possibilities for improvement, including better training for staff, more opportunities for peer mentoring, and providing more meaningful activity.
Radicalisation in prisons in England and Wales This House of Commons Library briefing describes how the Government is seeking to tackle extremism and, in particular, radicalisation in prisons. It examines why people become radicalised, whether this is happening within prisons and what the National Offender Management Service is doing to tackle radicalisation. The briefing also highlights concerns that the prison system is not meeting the needs of Muslim people and that Muslim people in prison are treated with suspicion.
Prisoners' Release on Temporary Licence: recent controversies and reform proposals This House of Commons Library briefing paper discusses recent developments and controversies in the use of release on temporary licence (ROTL), highlighting a fall in the use of ROTL since 2013. The briefing provides information on the current rules surrounding ROTL, as well as the use of ROTL in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and notes that Michael Gove has recently announced plans to give governors more control over the use of ROTL.
The Future Prison: scoping paper This paper, published by the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce introduces their new project which aims to set out a blueprint for a future prison that places rehabilitation centre-stage. The paper outlines the main themes of the project: risk and rehabilitation; leadership and devolution; education and employment; health and wellbeing; the rehabilitative workforce; and service user participation. It highlights the importance of exploring the ‘not for profit’ model of prisons in order to move beyond the public vs private debate, and suggests that rehabilitation should be the first principle of the prison system.
Prison Service Journal: The Transformational Potential of Prison Education This special edition of the Prison Service Journal explores the impact of education across the prison estate. It includes an article by Rod Clark, Chief Executive of the Prisoners’ Education Trust (PET), which discusses evidence from PET’s experience of how education supports prisoner journeys to desistance. The journal also includes an article by academics from the University of Westminster on connecting prisons with universities, and an article investigating the idea of ‘rehabilitation’, by the West Midlands Prison Learner Co-ordinator at the Open University.
Criminal Justice System
Transforming Rehabilitation – Early implementation 5 This is the final report in a series published by HM Inspectorate of Probation looking at the implementation of Transforming Rehabilitation. The report finds that two thirds of offenders had not received adequate pre-release support with housing, employment or finances and that post-release probation work was taking too long to get started. While some progress had been made against the recommendations of previous reports, progress was still required in many areas, such as ensuring relevant information is shared for court hearings, developing plans to address diversity issues, and improving the quality of full risk of serious harm assessments.
Local commissioning, local solutions: devolving offender management This report, published by Reform, makes the case for devolving the commissioning and delivery of offender management to a local level. It recommends that Police and Crime Commissioners take responsibility from National Offender Management Service for commissioning all prison and probation services, as well as drug and mental health services to enable joined up solutions to be configured at a local level.
Youth justice
Education in Youth Custody This research briefing, published by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, looks at literature about the provision and quality of education in youth custody in England and Wales, and examines the challenges in providing education to a population with particular needs. It highlights variation in the subjects and qualification levels offered across different institutions and notes that not all children are receiving the mandated hours for education. Keeping children in care out of trouble: An independent review This review, established by the Prison Reform Trust and chaired by Lord Laming, finds that children in care are significantly over-represented in the Criminal Justice System and that this can be addressed by effective local practice. Its recommendations include developing strong local and national leadership to protect children in care from criminalisation; providing early support for children and families at risk; and improving joint working between children’s services, social services and criminal justice agencies. Desistance and young people This thematic inspection report, published by HM Inspectorate of Probation assesses the effectiveness of practice in Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) across eight domains which desistance research has highlighted as being significant in supporting children and young people’s journeys away from offending. It makes a number of recommendations for YOT managers and the Youth Justice Board, including developing opportunities for young people to participate in community activities; ensuring that the views of children and their parents/carers are actively sought and included in assessments, plans and reviews; and reviewing YOT practice guidance to take greater account of desistance theory.Women
Taking Forward Women-Centred Solutions This guide, published by Women Centred Working, demonstrates how gendered approaches can help unlock solutions to complex problems and deliver multiple outcomes for vulnerable women and their families – whilst making better use of public resources. Using three case studies of women’s services in Oldham, Barrow and Calderdale, the guide makes recommendations for using women-centred working to join up services and improve efficiency in provision for those with complex needs in local authority areas.Voluntary sector
All together now: whole systems commissioning for councils and the voluntary sector Published by the New Local Government Network in partnership with the Lankelly Chase Foundation, this report discusses the potential of whole systems change to join up services around the needs and assets of individuals within a system. It suggests that commissioners should incentivise all providers to work collaboratively towards aligned population-level outcomes, and that social value should be given greater weight in the tendering process, in order to ensure the impact of the voluntary sector on the community is recognised.Review of partnerships and investment in the voluntary sector The Department of Health, Public Health England and NHS England have published this report, looking at the role of the voluntary sector in improving health, wellbeing and care outcomes. The report makes recommendations for government, health and care system partners, funders, regulatory bodies and the voluntary sector. It emphasises putting wellbeing at the centre of health and care services, and making voluntary sector organisations an integral part of a collaborative system. The review aims to describe the role of the voluntary sector in improving health, wellbeing and care outcomes; identify the challenges and opportunities in realising the sector’s potential; and address challenges and maximise opportunities.
Substance misuse
Spice: the bird killer This User Voice report reflects the voices and experiences of serving prisoners in relation to legal highs and the use of drugs in prison. The report finds that ‘spice’ (synthetic cannabis) is now the most popular drug in prison, with a third of respondents having used it in the previous month, and that prisoners are using the drug to self-medicate in the absence of access to mental health services. Respondents said they were unlikely to report problems with substance misuse due to a perception that staff would seek to punish users due to a lack of harm reduction training.
Police and Crime Commissioners
List of new Police and Crime Commissioners The Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) elections took place on the 5th May, with new PCCs taking office on 16th. The Criminal Justice Alliance has provided a list of the results of the election for each area. Clinks’ briefing Engaging with Police and Crime Commissioners provides an overview of what PCCs are responsible for, why they are important for you to engage with, and contains practical tips to help you engage with PCCs.
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