In this month's edition...
We continue to work on influencing the probation review programme. Our recent submission to the Justice Committee’s inquiry into the Future Probation Service can be read here.
Anne Fox, Chief Executive of Clinks and Jess Mullen, Clinks Director of Influence and Communications also recently met with Amy Rees, Director General of Probation at HM Prison and Probation Service regarding the Dynamic Framework contracts for education, training and employment services and accommodation services. Anne and Jess raised significant concerns that the contract values are too low which risks excluding voluntary sector organisations and diminishing the quality of services.
We are also working to support the sector to understand and navigate the Dynamic Framework. Most recently we held an event to support organisations led by and for people from black, Asian and minority ethnic communities.
On behalf of the Ministry of Justice, Clinks held an information giving event with the voluntary sector on the Residential Women’s Centres announced in the government’s Female Offender Strategy. Delegates were consulted on key aspects of the model. We have collated the feedback and questions from the sector and sent it to officials. We continue to work with the department to encourage further, ongoing consultation with the sector as their plans develop.
Clinks is supporting Mind to gather the views of our members on what mental health information they think would be helpful for people in prison. You can share your views using this survey [Password: MindClinks1020].
A smarter approach to sentencing The government has published a white paper for reforming its sentencing and release framework. This includes proposals to increasing the length of time someone can be spent in prison for certain sentences. We are concerned this will put further pressure on struggling prison infrastructure, worsen conditions and exacerbate inequalities. It will also impact voluntary organisations' ability to deliver vital support. There is also focus on tackling offending drivers, improving sentencer confidence in community options and investment in Community Sentence Treatment Requirements. This is welcome but we have concerns about plans to make community sentences tougher and the increase the use of curfews and tagging. This will increase the likelihood of breach, prevent diversion from custody and impact engagement with voluntary services in the community.
Consultation on serious violence reduction orders The Home Office is consulting on the introduction of Serious Violence Reduction Orders (SRVOs) to further expand police stop and search powers as pledged in the Conservative party manifesto. The SVROS would give police officers the power to target those who have been previously been convicted of knife and offensive weapon offences - including those who have received non-custodial sentences such as community orders or suspended sentences - and stop and search them without needing to have suspicion. Currently this is proposed only for adults however the consultation document does invite views on whether SVROs should also be applied to children aged 12 and over. The consultation closes on 8th November 2020.
Dynamic Framework event - Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and specialist providers The Ministry of Justice's Probation Dynamic Framework Team are running an event aimed at SMEs and specialist providers to provide an overview of how they can deliver via the Dynamic Framework – the procurement system for the new probation service [14th October, online, free]. The event will provide information about qualifying for the framework and call-off competitions for sub-contractors as well as networking opportunities with lead bidders.
Clinks publications
Trauma-informed work with people in contact with the criminal justice system In this latest addition to the online evidence base that Clinks is creating for the voluntary sector, Patricia Durr, former Head of Operations at One Small Thing, has written an evidence review of trauma-informed practice in criminal justice. The concept of trauma-informed practice has found its way into national justice policy including the government’s Female Offender Strategy. This evidence review explores the impact of trauma in the context of the criminal justice system, explains the core values behind trauma-informed services and defines the three stages to becoming trauma-informed in your practice. It then examines the emerging evidence of the impact of trauma-informed care with people in contact with the criminal justice system in the UK.
Notes from the Reducing Reoffending Third Sector Advisory Group (RR3) special interest group on probation The RR3 has set up a Special Interest Group (SIG) to focus on the probation review programme and the voluntary sector’s role. These notes summarise a recent meeting with officials to discuss the estimated volumes and values for the Dynamic Framework contracts. Concern was raised that for some of the contracts, such as accommodation, the estimated values were much less than current contracts. However, the volumes for women’s services have been increased significantly which is driving down the unit cost. SIG members were also concerned about the size of the gap between the Dynamic Framework’s annual spend which is intended to ‘ramp up’ each year.
Health and justice
Dame Carol Black Review part 2 The Making Every Adult Matter (MEAM) coalition has published its response to the second part of Dame Carol Black’s independent review of drug misuse. The submission is based on engagement with voluntary organisations and people with lived experience, including an online consultation with organisations delivering substance misuse services in the criminal justice system. The response focusses on the barriers individuals experiencing multiple disadvantage face when trying to access substance misuse services and examples of local best practice. Carol Black is expected to publish her final report by the end of the year. MEAM is a coalition of Clinks, Homeless Link, Mind and associate member Collective Voice, and works to improve services for people facing multiple disadvantage.
Prisons and sentencing
Prison, probation and sentencing in Wales: 2019 factfile The Wales Governance Centre has published its latest annual factfile providing an up-to-date account of imprisonment, probation and sentencing in Wales. It continues to find that Wales has a higher imprisonment rate than England and in September 2019, there were 279 Welsh women in prison –the highest quarterly recording since the Wales Governance Centre began collecting the data in 2013. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been a disproportionate number of confirmed Covid-19 infections in the Welsh prison estate compared to England. The report also found that in 2019 self-inflicted deaths rose in Welsh prisons, whilst in England this number fell by 12% and that 543 people were released from Welsh prisons without a fixed address in 2018/19.
Improving the prison estate The Public Accounts Committee published a report from its inquiry into the prison estate condemning the failure of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) to improve the conditions and suitability of the prison estate. The report finds prisoners continue to be held in unsafe, crowded conditions. The report states that only 206 of the promised 10,000 new prison places have been delivered and £900 million backlog of maintenance has built-up. The Committee recommends that within three months the MoJ publish a cross-government reducing reoffending strategy, write to the committee with its plans to improve conditions in women’s prisons and, following the 2020 Spending Review, set out a comprehensive long-term strategy for the prison estate.
Smarter community sentences The Centre for Justice Innovation has published a paper outlining steps the government should take to reform community sentences and give probation officers the powers to do their job, enable communities to have more of a voice, and ensure the resource needed to give people the chance to turn their lives around. The report recommends shortening overall community sentence lengths given to those who are low risk, to free up probation staff time; in the next Spending Review increasing the overall level of funding available for drug and mental health treatment requirements in the community; and trialling deferred sentencing for vulnerable people under probation supervision to improve routes into services and out of the criminal justice system.
Convictions
Thinking Differently (PDF) The Prison Reform Trust and Unlock have published a joint report exploring employers’ attitudes towards hiring people convicted of sexual offences. It finds that over half of employers would feel more confident hiring people with sexual convictions if they had access to management advice, or if they believed that the applicant wouldn’t re-offend. The report recommends that the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 be reformed so that the length of time before a conviction is spent is fair and proportionate; that the government provides clear and comprehensive information for employers about recruiting people with convictions; and that projects supporting people with sexual convictions reintegrate into the community receive adequate funding.
Youth justice
The state of youth justice 2020 The National Association of Youth Justice has published a report by Dr Tim Bateman analysing trends and developments in youth justice over recent decades. The report notes a welcome reduction in the number of children entering the youth justice system. However the reductions have not benefitted all children equally. The overrepresentation of minority ethnic children, particularly black and mixed heritage children, has become more pronounced and is one of the most pressing issues facing the youth justice system today. The report praises the fact that ‘child-first’ principles have become established in youth justice discussions, but raises concerns about the extent to which this has been embedded in practice.
Five months in: how the criminal justice voluntary sector is coping In this blog, Lauren Nickolls, Clinks’ Policy Officer, analyses the findings of our latest survey conducted in late August. Voluntary organisations continue to raise increasing concern about the impact that the pandemic is having on people in contact with the criminal justice system and their families. This impact is being exacerbated by a lack of support to prepare people for release and the difficulty accessing statutory services in the community at this time. In the last month, many organisations have begun to increase their service provision, but a sense of uncertainty among many remains.
Sentencing white paper: an overview Clinks is producing a series of blogs analysing the government’s recently published white paper on sentencing reform. In the first blog of the series, Clinks’ Policy Officer Will Downs provides an overview of how this paper has been developed, what the key proposals are and the steps towards implementation. This white paper will lead to more people in prison and more people in prison for longer, even though there is no evidence that longer sentences make any difference to public safety. We are concerned that there has been a lack of open consultation on the development of these proposals and as such they do not reflect the knowledge held within the voluntary sector.
‘The damage it’s caused is incredible’: women’s chances of gaining employment impacted by racism in the criminal justice system Olivia Dehnavi, Policy and Research Officer at Working Chance has written a blog on institutional racism in the criminal justice system and how this affects the employment prospects of black, Asian and minority ethnic women. Working Chance spoke to women about their experiences of racism in the criminal justice system and while looking for employment. What was clear was the disproportionate chance of receiving a conviction or prison sentence compounds discrimination when looking for a job. The blog includes the stories of three women who have experienced racism in the criminal justice system and while job seeking.
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Written monthly by...
Clinks' policy officers, Will Downs and Lauren Nickolls
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