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In this month's edition...
HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) has announced which organisations will deliver contracts to provide resettlement and rehabilitation services under the reunified probation service, which launches on 26th June. Following our campaigning, we are pleased that the voluntary sector will be the main delivery partner of these services, though we are disappointed about the lack of involvement of small and specialist organisations in delivery. You can read more about this in our blog.
We have also launched a survey to understand the voluntary sector’s experience of the probation reform programme. We want to hear from a full range of organisations, from those who chose not to qualify on to the Dynamic Framework, to those who won multiple contracts. The responses will shape a report into the voluntary sector’s experiences and set out lessons learnt to inform future commissioning processes.
The Reducing Reoffending Third Sector Advisory Group (RR3) – a voluntary sector advisory group to the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and HMPPS – met for its second quarterly meeting of the year. The group were joined by Alex Chalk MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice, to discuss the outcomes of competitions for day-one services under the reformed probation model.
The RR3 also convened a recent meeting of its special interest group on Covid-19 with officials from HMPPS to discuss the progress of regime recovery in prisons and the programme of prison regime reform. You can read the notes here.
We have recruited two new Policy Officers to join our Directorate of Influence and Communications. Franklin Barrington and Noorjehan Piperdy started at Clinks in May 2021 and will join our policy team to support Clinks’ influencing work to represent and advocate for the voluntary sector in criminal justice.
The Queen’s Speech and background briefing notes In May, the government announced its legislative plans in the Queen’s Speech. In the speech, it reaffirmed its commitment to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which Clinks believes will have a number of adverse effects on people in the criminal justice system. Other announcements included: the Violence against Women and Girls Strategy would be updated to better protect women and improve outcomes for rape cases; a Dormant Assets Bill to free up around £880 million for good causes; and a Procurement Bill to reform the public procurement regime. Clinks has responded to the government’s green paper on procurement, and we will be publishing our response soon.
Increase to the Discharge Grant The government has announced that it will be increasing the discharge grant given to eligible people who are released from prison from £46 to £76. This represents an increase to the grant of 65%. It is understood that the new “One-off Subsistence payment” for people leaving prison is due to come into effect in the summer of 2021, and will rise each year, until 2024/25, in line with the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The changes will be confirmed via an amendment to the relevant PSI (72/2011) which will be republished on the government website.
Pre-sentence report pilots The Ministry of Justice has begun a pilot to increase the delivery of pre-sentence reports (PSRs) in 15 magistrates’ courts across England and Wales. This pilot was launched following the Sentencing White Paper that found there was a significant decrease in the number of PSRs being requested by the judiciary between 2010 and 2018. The pilot will evaluate whether this approach will improve outcomes for people convicted of offences, judicial confidence, and the administration of justice. This pilot is working with the new Target Operating Model for the new probation services, which aims to provide expert PSRs. Initial insights from the pilot are due to be collected after six months.
Clinks publications
A window of opportunity Clinks and Birth Companions have published a report exploring the needs and experiences of pregnant women and new mothers in contact with the criminal justice system in the community, in England. The report is based on the lived experiences of these women and those involved in their care. We have set out 16 recommendations for change, aimed at criminal justice agencies, health services, voluntary sector organisations, and social services. These include prioritising and sustainable funding whole systems approaches, ensuring provision supports a trauma-informed, holistic and culturally appropriate approach, implementing Lord Farmer’s recommendation for mandatory pre-sentence reports as soon as possible, and reversing the plans to create 500 new prison places for women.
Criminal justice and racial inequality The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill moved on to Committee Stage in the House of Commons in May. With the Bill returning, as part of a coalition of criminal justice and race equality organisations, we have published a briefing. This highlights how the Bill could deepen racial inequality and calls for the government to withdraw the discriminatory measures and begin a proper public consultation. This briefing explores potential issues arising from a range of measures included in the Bill, such as increasing the maximum sentence for assaulting emergency service workers, criminalising trespass and introducing new police powers for encampments, diversionary and community cautions, mandatory minimum sentences for certain offences, licence conditions, and discretionary powers to prevent automatic early release.
The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill
Children of mothers in prison and the right to family life: The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill The Joint Committee on Human Rights, a cross-party committee of MPs and Peers, published a report on children’s right to family life where their mothers receive custodial sentences. Building on previous work, they propose a number of changes to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill to strengthen the rights of children. These include requiring data to be collected and published on the number of people in prison who are primary carers, and the number of children who have a primary carer in custody. Other proposals aim to ensure the best interests of children are upheld when sentencing a primary carer, such as by requiring pre-sentence reports, and requiring judges to state how the interests of a child were considered when sentencing their primary carer.
Probation
A thematic review to prepare for the unification of probation services HM Inspectorate of Probation published a review of the unification of probation services last week. The Inspectorate found, overall, the transition programme is being well led, and they were satisfied all eligible staff would be transferred to the new structure for day one. However, the report states that it seems inevitable there will be gaps in services provided through the Dynamic Framework on day one, and the resettlement workstream appears to be behind and under-developed compared to other parts of the programme. The Inspectorate’s recommendations to HM Prison and Probation Service include ensuring clearer strategic oversight of resettlement, and ensuring services commissioned in regions are informed by a current analysis of strategic need of the full probation caseload.
Youth justice
Youth Justice statistics: 2019 to 2020 The Ministry of Justice has published the youth justice statistics for England and Wales for the year ending March 2020, considering children aged 10-17. Some of the main points from these statistics include: 19,000 children were cautioned or sentenced, a 12% fall on the previous year; there were 11,100 first time entrants to the youth justice system to the year ending December 2019, a 12% decrease on the previous year; the average custodial sentence length has increased to 18.6 months; and there were around 2,500 self-harm incidents, an increase of 35% on last year. As the latest time period data in this report covers is March 2020, it does not cover the coronavirus pandemic.
HM Chief Inspector of Probation: National Children’s Day On National Children’s Day (16th May), HM Chief Inspector of Probation, Justin Russell, issued a statement discussing children known to youth offending services and the coronavirus pandemic. He highlights that HMI Probation’s inspections have found that these children have struggled to access education and suffered from their lack of face-to-face contact with support services. Core inspections have been able to resume in May, and the inspection standards framework has been updated to include the quality of work to help children resettle in the community after custody, and the quality of policy and practice in relation to out of court disposals. The Chief Inspector wants to see improvements and greater consistency in the quality of work carried out with children in the justice system.
Racism in the criminal justice system and the Sewell report The government’s Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities recently published a report on race disparities in the UK. In this blog, Zahra Wynne, Health and Justice Policy Development Officer at Clinks, details our concerns about how the report overlooks the impact of social inequalities on offending, preferring to treat contact with the criminal justice system as a form of moral failing for racially minoritised people rather than the impact of institutional, systemic, and structural racism. Following the report’s publication, Clinks signed the Runnymede Trust’s open letter calling for the Prime Minister to #RejectTheReport and implement the recommendations of the long-standing Macpherson, Lammy, Marmot and Williams reviews.
Senedd Elections 2021 and criminal justice In the run-up to the elections for Senedd Cymru (the Welsh Parliament), Clinks explored the manifestos of the three main Welsh political parties to find out about their commitments on criminal justice policy and voluntary sector organisations working in the sector in Wales. Welsh Labour, who formed the next government in Wales following the election, pledged to pursue the case for policing and justice to be devolved, as set out in the Thomas Commission. They also pledged to implement and fund the commitments in their Race Equality Action Plan. This makes specific commitments on criminal justice including working to better understand and address race disproportionality and its causes across the criminal justice system. They also committed to increasing the number of Police Community Support Officers.
HM Chief Inspector of Prisons: open prisons in lockdown HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, Charlie Taylor, discusses some of the challenges that open prisons have been facing as a result of the coronavirus restrictions. He highlights difficulties in prisoners accessing work and skill development opportunities off-site, restrictions in the use of releases on temporary licence, and some prisoners not making parole through no fault of their own. He notes that, in open prisoners, he has met some of the most disgruntled prisoners he has spoken to during the pandemic, with one prisoner saying he felt more stuck in the open prison than he had in the category C prison he had moved from. Taylor noted things are beginning to improve across prisons, but it may be some time before things can operate as they should.
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Written monthly by...
Clinks' Policy Officers Franklin Barrington and Noorjehan Piperdy
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