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Clinks Members' Policy Briefing | October2017
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This month Clinks held two events at the Labour Party and Conservative Party Conferences, supported by the Barrow Cadbury Trust. The events explored the Lammy Review's recommendations and how action can be taken on the issue of disproportionality for black, Asian and minority ethnic people in the criminal justice system. They were attended by David Lammy MP, Richard Burgon Shadow Secretary of State, Sam Gymiah, Minister for Prisons and Probation, other MPs, Police and Crime Commissioners and voluntary sector representatives. Clinks will provide a summary of the events and our current work on the Lammy Review in an upcoming blog series over the next few weeks, the first of which is available on our website.
On 13th September the Reducing Reoffending Third Sector Advisory Group (RR3) held its latest quarterly meeting with officials from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and Her Majesty's Prisons and Probation Service (HMPPS). The group received an update on MoJ policy and activities and provided feedback from the voluntary sector. The meeting also focused on good practice in commissioning, with the group discussing the recent family services commissioning process by HMPPS and finalising a paper summarising the lessons learned from this process. The notes from the meeting and the paper will be published in the coming weeks.
The latest meeting of the Women’s Networking Forum, a reference group to the RR3, took place on 21st September and was hosted by Whist. There was representation from six organisations delivering services in the North East. We will be publishing a note from the meeting soon and the information will be used to support Laura Seebohm, who has recently taken up a seat on the RR3, as an expert on women's services. On 27th September, we held the first meeting of the RR3 Special Interest Group on accommodation for people in contact with the criminal justice system. During the meeting we explored the current challenges and barriers preventing people accessing accommodation and the opportunities for addressing these. The discussions focused on three key areas: early intervention and prevention; once people are in contact with the criminal justice system; and how the Ministry of Justice can join up outside of the criminal justice system. Notes from the meeting will be published soon.
Clinks is continuing to engage with the MoJ and HMPPS on how the recommendations of the Farmer Review of family ties for men in prison can be taken forward. The Secretary of State has confirmed that the MoJ will publish a response to the review; Clinks will include this response in our newsletters once it is published and also provide a briefing for the sector.
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Pay boost for public sector prison staff On 12th September, the Secretary of State for Justice David Lidington announced that all prison staff will receive an increase to their salary averaging 1.7% across the service. The increase comes after recommendations from public sector pay review bodies to lift the cap on public sector pay and will come out of the Ministry of Justice’s existing budget. David Lidington said, “Prison officers provide a vital public service. Their work is often out of sight but is crucial to keeping the public safe.”
David Lidington’s Conservative conference speech Secretary of State for Justice, David Lidington, gave a speech to Conservative Party Conference on 3rd October. In it he praised prison officers and governors and highlighted the problems of violence, suicide and self-harm in prisons. He annouced that £64 million would be invested to boost the number of frontline staff in youth custody and that a new national taskforce would be launched, the New Futures Network, to match prisoners with employers. The Secretary of State also drew attention to the work being done by the voluntary sector in the criminal justice system, saying, "I want to see charities and voluntary groups, large and small, play an even stronger role as we move forward with our reforms."
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Clinks publications
Briefing on the final report of the Farmer Review This briefing outlines the key findings and recommendations of the Farmer Review into the importance of strengthening prisoners’ family ties to prevent reoffending and reduce intergenerational crime. The review was commissioned by the Ministry of Justice in 2016 and carried out in partnership with Clinks; its final report was published in August 2017. The findings include that family ties are crucial to rehabilitation and resettlement and that improved family services can increase prison safety. The report’s key recommendation is that each prison should deliver a ‘local family offer’, providing a visitors’ centre, an appropriate staffing structure, extended family visits, family learning and a communication system for families to report safeguarding concerns about prisoners.
Briefing on the 2017 Drugs Strategy This briefing summarises the main aspects of the government’s Drug Strategy, published in July, and indicates what impact it is likely to have on Clinks members. The strategy’s focuses on both reducing drug use and supporting people in their recovery, highlighting the specific needs of certain groups of drug users such as young people, homeless people and women with experience of physical and sexual abuse. The briefing outlines the aspects of the strategy most relevant to the criminal justice system, exploring the strategy’s approach to drug use in prison, through the gate provision and services for people with complex needs.
Multiple Needs: Time for political leadership Making Every Adult Matter (MEAM), a coalition of Homeless Link, Mind and Clinks, has published this report outlining the importance of understanding and addressing multiple needs and how the government can do this. It calls on the government to show leadership on the issue, to take a collaborative approach across government, to set clear expectations of local areas and to ensure that flexible funding is available that encourages services to work together and allows them to respond to local needs. The MEAM coalition now plan to use the report to bring together policymakers from across Whitehall departments to consider its findings and recommendations.
Going further back: Earlier action on multiple needs to prevent homelessness The University of Sheffield has published this report by the Making Every Adult Matter (MEAM), a coalition of Homeless Link, Mind and Clinks, in partnership with a number of other organisations based in West Yorkshire. The report looks at how experiences of multiple needs can lead to homelessness and how services can improve their response to multiple needs to prevent homelessness. It recommends that services should be designed to respond sensitively to past trauma, that services should be commissioned to work with people in a flexible way that builds trust and rapport, and that services should invest in co-ordinated preventative support for people with multiple needs.
Criminal justice system
Keeping safe This Inside Time special report, published by the Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody, summarises suggestions from prisoners on what works to keep people in prison safe. The report highlights a number of themes across contributions from people in prison, including mental health, family relationships, staff attitudes and lock up times. It also outlines solutions suggested by prisoners, such as setting up an emergency contact line for families and friends, increasing time out of cell and increasing support for transgender prisoners and other vulnerable groups.
Resolving enquiries about rules in prison: a peer-led information service toolkit The Prison Reform Trust has published this toolkit, which collates examples of good practice in developing peer-led information services in prisons and provides a step by step toolkit for setting one up. The toolkit outlines the benefits of a peer-led information service, such as encouraging transparency within prisons and allowing prisoners to gain an understanding of the prison’s systems. It presents a range of different models for the service and then provides a series of steps to help prison staff set up the right service for their prison. The toolkit also explores some of the challenges staff may come across such as safeguarding and risk management, confidentiality and prisoner churn.
What happened to the rehabilitation revolution? This report, published by the Centre for Social Justice, examines previous governments’ approaches to rehabilitation and asks why policy statements and implementation in this area have failed to reduce the prison population or re-offending rates. The report suggests that government is narrowly focused on prison safety, at the exclusion of broader rehabilitative policy, and puts forward ten new initiatives to resuscitate the rehabilitation revolution. These include: introducing specialist Problem Solving Courts for people with multiple convictions; using administration or judicial supervision to reduce the number of people recalled to prison each year; and enabling sentencers to play an increasing role in enabling people to lead pro-social and law-abiding lives.
The Hero’s Journey Life Coaching Programme: Summary of the interim evaluation report by the Social Investment Consultancy This interim evaluation report, published by Spark Inside, looks at the impact of their life-coaching programme, The Hero’s Journey. This programme is grounded in the principle that people must be empowered to help themselves and has been delivered by Spark Inside to young people aged 15 – 25 leaving prison. The interim evaluation finds that the programme has a strong, positive and holistic impact on young people in prison and leads to positive changes in the following areas: wellbeing, social experience, decision-making and problem solving skills, empathy and emotional intelligence, and resilience and confidence.
Women
Mapping the Maze: Services for women experiencing multiple disadvantage in England and Wales Agenda has published this report, aiming to map service provision specifically for women facing homelessness, substance misuse, poor mental health, offending and complex needs. It finds that there is not enough help across the board for women in England and Wales and that services are inconsistent and silo-ed. The report highlights some key themes relating to good practice, emerging from the research, including the importance of relationships between women and staff, the value of timely and long-term support, and the need for support to be flexible and accessible. It makes several recommendations to the governments of England and Wales, including: providing central government funding streams that are gender- and trauma-aware; providing a cross-departmental funding stream for services to support women experiencing multiple disadvantage; and providing cross-departmental leadership.
Youth justice
The state of youth justice 2017 The report by the National Association for Youth Justice provides an overview and analysis of youth crime in England and Wales and how the youth justice system can respond to these trends. The report finds that youth crime has decreased in recent years, along with first time entrants to the criminal justice system. It identifies poverty, age, gender and ethnicity as key factors in criminalisation and suggests that children should be kept out of the criminal justice system wherever possible. The report concludes that there appears to be a shift towards a greater use of informal responses to youth crime but highlights ongoing challenges, such as the continued criminalisation of black, Asian and minority ethnic children and looked after children.
Why Youth Diversion Matters: A Briefing for PCCs This briefing, published by the Centre for Justice Innovation, provides information for Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) about the benefits of investing diversion schemes for young people. It states that prosecuting or using out of court disposals for young people committing first time and low-level offences makes them more likely to reoffend and that there is strong evidence that diversion schemes result in better outcomes and represent a more efficient use of funds. The briefing shows that reductions in funding for Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) have led to an increased focus by YOTs on their statutory purpose, rather than on diversion. It suggests that PCCs could protect frontline policing resources by investing in diversion schemes for young people.
Notices of supervision: guidance for Youth Offending Teams Her Majesty's Prisons and Probation Service, the Ministry of Justice and the Youth Justice Board have published this guidance for Youth Offending Teams on issuing Notices of Supervision. The guidance is intended to help professionals respond to the difference circumstances and needs of each young person. The guidance provides a number of questions for consideration when deciding whether a Notice of Supervision is proportionate and necessary. These include consideration of the child's maturity and progress against their training plan, ensuring that there are no other less intrusive ways of managing the child's level of risk and ensuring that the child is able to comply with the requirements attached to their Notice of Supervision. The guidance also outlines the requirements that can be attached to a Notice of Supervision and the circumstances in which Intensive Supervision and Surveillance may be applied to a Notice of Supervision.
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Using technology to strengthen prisoner-family ties This guest blog by Kieran Ball, Co-Founder of Prison Voicemail, looks at the findings of the Farmer Review and gives an example of how technology can be used in prison to strengthen family ties. It looks at how the more flexible communication enabled by Prison Voicemail positively impacts on the health, wellbeing and relationships of prisoners and their families. Kieran writes, “These findings show that technology can support many aspects of family relationships that the Farmer Review identified as important to reducing reoffending, limiting the intergenerational effects of imprisonment and improving safety in prisons. Our experience as a small and recently formed organisation has highlighted the positive change technology can achieve in a short time, and at relatively low cost.”
Launch of the Farmer Review’s final report Clinks’ Policy Officer, Oonagh Ryder, has written this blog, summarising the launch event for the final report of the Farmer Review of family ties for men in prison. The event took place at the Centre for Social Justice on 5th September and was attended by the Minister for Prisons and Probation, Sam Gyimah, and Lord Farmer.
Developing our message to government on multiple needs: prevention Laura Greeson from Making Every Adult Matter, a coalition of Homeless Link, Mind and Clinks, has written this blog reflecting on the national consultation process conducted by the coalition in the process of developing its publication Multiple Needs: Time for Political leadership. She writes, “We know that the key to helping people with multiple needs is a well-coordinated response from public services. But it is now clear that a well-coordinated response can happen much earlier on, and before an individual develops complex and multiple needs.”
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