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In this month's edition...
We’ve launched our seventh State of the sector report which looks at how voluntary organisations in criminal justice have been faring over the past year. See our blog to read about our key findings. We are now reviewing the questions for next year to ensure they enable us to accurately reflect your experiences. We have consulted with delegates at our launch event and at our regional criminal justice forum in Wales to inform this.
Clinks is pleased to welcome Zahra Wynne, Health and Justice Policy and Development Officer, to our policy team. Please contact Zahra on Zahra.wynne@clinks.org if you would like to speak to her about our health and justice policy work.
Following an open recruitment process, eight senior voluntary sector leaders have joined the Reducing Reoffending Third Sector Advisory Group (RR3). The RR3 is a group of senior voluntary sector experts which meets quarterly to advise the Ministry of Justice and HM Prison and Probation Service. Clinks provides the chair and secretariat to the RR3. See here for the full list of members and click here to find out more about how the RR3 works.
Clinks has published its annual report and financial statements for the year ended 31st March 2019. We were delighted to have Professor Ben Crewe from Cambridge University, Sofia Buncy from Muslim Women in Prison, and Tammy Banks of re:shape join us at our Annual General Meeting for a panel discussion on ‘what should happen to people who commit criminal offences?’. This is the key question answered in our recently published book Crime and Consequence, a collection of essays by policy makers, practitioners, academics and people with lived experience of the criminal justice system. A selection of these are now available as a podcast.
Clinks members will shortly receive copies of The state of the sector 2019, our Impact assessment 2019 and our Annual report and financial statements in the post.
Due to the announcement of a general election and the current pre-election period, there have been no major criminal justice announcements in recent weeks. Political parties have launched their manifestos during this time. Clinks has summarised the criminal justice commitments made by the Liberal Democrats, Labour, the Conservatives, and Plaid Cymru. Read them here
Clinks Publications
The state of the sector 2019 We’ve launched our seventh state of the sector report which explores how the voluntary sector in criminal justice is faring. For the third year, Clinks has found that service user numbers are rising and that their needs are growing more complex. This is being driven by a range of factors including worsening conditions in prison, a lack of housing, welfare reform and cuts to statutory services in the community. It shows that more work needs to be done to address these challenges and that policies designed to tackle them are not keeping pace. As the need for their services rises, we find organisations are struggling for resources due to a reduction in grant funding and challenges in achieving full-cost recovery on contracts.
Sentencing in England and Wales Clinks has published a briefing which outlines three key areas of sentencing policy: growing sentence inflation, the high use of short custodial sentences and a decline in community sentences. In this briefing, we summarise the key facts and issues around each of these, recent policy developments and the impact on the voluntary sector. In particular, the briefing highlights where sentencing policy has an unequal or disproportionate effect on particular groups of people that the voluntary sector works to support. The aim is to equip the voluntary sector with the relevant information that will enable them to engage in current debates and future policy in this area.
Joint statement on better health debate Clinks has signed a Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise joint statement calling on the next government to work across parties and departments to focus on people’s health. Building on recent calls for the debate around healthcare to focus on facts and be less ‘weaponised’, the statement called for a shift beyond a focus on services, to a broader view of health that considers all that people need for good, healthy lives. It says: “‘Health’ is about physical and mental health and wellbeing — across the life-course, including at the end of life. As important as hospitals are, they are rarely where good health is created. Health is made good or bad within the neighbourhoods and communities we live.”
Clinks impact assessment 2019 Clinks has published a report following an independent assessment of our impact. The report highlights Clinks’ successes including the route it provides for officials to engage with a greater number and diversity of voluntary sector organisations. It also highlights Clinks’ role in keeping the voluntary sector informed of policy updates and the support it provides for organisations to respond to opportunities and challenges. The impact assessment has also given Clinks a number of areas to reflect on how to improve. We will look at ways in which we can better communicate with our members on what happens as a result of Clinks’ policy work and how to have a greater strategic focus on influencing policy at our regional networking forums.
Equalities
Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System (CJS) The biennial statistics on race and the CJS, published by the Ministry of Justice, show that minority ethnic groups – particularly black individuals - continue to be over-represented at many stages of the CJS. The greatest disparities occur at the point of stop and search, arrests, custodial sentencing and in the prison population. The report highlights that white individuals had a lower average custodial sentence length than all other ethnic groups; that black prisoners served the greatest proportion of their original sentence in custody; and that minority ethnic prisoners continue to report more negatively about their treatment in prison. These continued racial disparities reiterate the importance of prioritising full implementation of the Lammy review.
HM Prison and Probation Service offender equalities annual report 2018 to 2019 This annual report by the HM Prison and Probation Service provides information about the experiences of people with protected characteristics with regards to particular aspects of prison and supervision in the community including the Incentives and Earned privilege (IEP) scheme, Mother and Baby Units (MBUs) and accredited programmes. The report shows black prisoners continue to be disproportionately placed on basic IEP status - the lowest level of the IEP scheme. The number of total applications, approved applications and refused applications to MBUs decreased from the previous year. Of those who started an accredited programme in prison, 93% were men and 24% were from a black, Asian or minority ethnic background.
Service user involvement
Change from within This report by the Criminal Justice Alliance highlights the value of hiring people with lived experience of the criminal justice system in the criminal justice voluntary sector. It shines a light on the range of structural, systemic and cultural barriers that people with lived experience continue to face in employment in this sector. The report’s wide-ranging recommendations include for the Charity Commission to review its rules that restrict recruitment of people with past convictions, particularly into senior management positions; for employers to revise their HR policies to ensure they support employees with lived experience; and for funders to fund and evaluate a range of programmes that support the recruitment and career progression of people with lived experience in the voluntary sector.
Youth justice
Examining the Youth Justice Service: What drove the falls in first time entrants and custody? Crest Advisory has published a report examining the 73% decrease in those entering youth custody since 2008. It found two key determinants: the proactive diversionary and preventative activities of Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) and the removal of police targets for ‘offences brought to justice’. Although the number of children in custody has fallen, the conditions inside the youth estate have worsened, with rising levels of assaults and self-harm and high reoffending rates. Recommendations include: expanding the remit of YOTs to work with people up to age 25; removing the ability of magistrates to issue custodial sentences of less than six months to children; and a pledge to close Young Offender Institutions by 2025.
Health
A sense of safety This report by the Centre for Mental Health and Agenda explores how trauma-informed approaches for women are being implemented in a range of public services. The research found that services best able to adopt trauma-informed approaches tend to use a holistic approach to meeting women’s needs. Many are finding it challenging to take this approach because of fragile funding conditions. The report also notes the challenges of delivering a trauma-informed approach in what are arguably inherently traumatising environments such as prisons. It recommends that: public service commissioning bodies adopt trauma and gender-informed commissioning principles; a definition and benchmark of trauma-informed approaches for women be developed; and all inspectorate bodies inspect the extent to which gender- and trauma-informed principles are being used.
Families
A helping hand (PDF) The Prison Reform Trust has published a report on the specific issues faced by families of people serving Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences. It identifies the need for clear information on the processes and policies related to the IPP sentence and concern from families about the lack of understanding amongst practitioners about the impact of IPP sentences on them and their family member. The report recommends that relevant prisons have a dedicated IPP caseworker; that prison and probation staff be trained on the particular implications of IPP on a person and their family; and that information materials be developed for families that explain the systems, processes and responsibilities of prisons, parole and probation with regards to IPP sentenced individuals.
Probation
Probation quarterly: Issue 14 The latest issue of Probation Quarterly includes articles covering a range of topics including diversion, service user involvement and the role of arts in creating positive change. The article on diversion looks at a pilot in Sussex that provides women who have been arrested with coaches that help them to navigate and engage with local support services. Another article explores the role of lived experience when conducting social research, using joint research between the HM Inspectorate of Probation and the Revolving Doors Agency as an example. An article on arts and heritage discusses a new programme by Changing Lives which has supported women to learn about local and women’s history.
The future of justice in Wales In this blog Bryn Hall, Clinks’ Area Development Officer for Wales, takes a closer look at the final recommendations of the Commission on Justice which conducted an independent review of the criminal justice system in Wales. It is welcome that the Commission aims to better integrate and align crime reduction policy in Wales with other devolved policy such as health, education and social policy. We are also pleased to see the Commission’s emphasis on alternatives to custody and better integration between prison and the community. These would create important opportunities for a more joined up approach and more effective co-ordination with the voluntary sector, whose involvement as a key strategic partner is vital to ensure these aims are achieved.
Providing families of people serving the indeterminate IPP sentence with ‘A Helping Hand’ Harry Annison and Christina Straub discuss their recent project with the Prison Reform Trust on the views of families of people serving Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences. Families expressed the need for a specialised, comprehensive support system dedicated to IPP and its impact. The blog draws out the project’s recommendations for the voluntary sector whilst recognising that these require appropriate resourcing. The recommendations include a webpage for families with information about IPP policies and processes; for organisations to develop specific guidance documents for staff and volunteers around IPPs and its impact on families, and for voluntary sector support in facilitating local peer support groups for family members of people serving IPPs.
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Written monthly by...
Clinks' policy officers, Will Downs and Lauren Nickolls
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