In this month's edition...
On 24 October, Clinks’ CEO Anne Fox gave evidence to the Senedd’s Equality and Social Justice Committee, as part of its work into women’s experiences in the criminal justice system. Anne gave evidence alongside Clinks members Emily Evison from the Prison Reform Trust and Andrea Coomber KC from the Howard League for Penal Reform. Topics covered in the session included the residential women’s centre pilot, where concerns were raised that the model remains unclear and could replicate the harms of prison. You can watch the session in full on the Senedd website.
Jess Mullen, Clinks’ Director of Influence and Communication, attended the Women in the Criminal Justice Experts Group. Discussion focussed on plans for monitoring and reporting on the forthcoming Female Offender Strategy delivery plan; preventing the use of remand for a person’s own protection; and supporting women on bail, where Jess advocated for involving the voluntary sector as this work was developed.
Clinks previously wrote to the ministers who were appointed to the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) back in September by the then Prime Minister, Liz Truss. Following the recent ministerial appointments made by the new Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, Dominic Raab returned to the Ministry of Justice as the Lord Chancellor, Secretary of State for Justice, and Deputy Prime Minister. In addition, Damian Hinds has been appointed as a Minister of State at the MoJ, taking on responsibility for prisons and probation. Clinks will be writing to Mr Hinds as the new prisons minister to welcome him to the role and highlight the importance of the voluntary sector. More details about the changes to government ministers are included below.
We are delighted to be able to welcome Antonia Cross to Clinks. Antonia has joined the organisation as our new Communications Manager.
Ministerial reshuffle | Following Rishi Sunak’s appointment as Prime Minister, a reshuffle of government ministers has taken place. This has seen Dominic Raab return to the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) as the Deputy Prime Minister, Lord Chancellor, and Secretary of State for Justice, following the resignation of Brandon Lewis. In addition, Edward Argar and Damian Hinds have been appointed as Ministers of State in the MoJ, replacing Rachel Maclean and Rob Butler respectively. In the Home Office, Suella Braverman is the Home Secretary, after a brief period on the backbenches. Robert Jenrick has joined the Home Office as the Minister of State (Minister for Safeguarding), along with Chris Philp who also became a Minister of State. Sarah Dines and Lord Murray of Blidworth have also joined the Home Office as Parliamentary Under-Secretaries of State. At the Attorney General’s Office, Victoria Prentis took the post of Attorney General, with Michael Tomlinson remaining the Solicitor General.
National Audit Office study into improving resettlement support for prison leavers | The National Audit Office (NAO) has announced that it will be undertaking a study looking at the government’s approach to improving resettlement for people leaving prison. The NAO will examine whether the Ministry of Justice and HM Prison and Probation Service have applied learning from previous resettlement delivery arrangements, the government’s early progress in improving resettlement services, and what the government needs to get right to improve resettlement services in the future. They are running a stakeholder consultation, where they are inviting responses from organisations who help prison leavers to resettle into the community in England and Wales to provide their views.
The government responds to the Justice Committee on women in prison | The government accepted 37 of the 38 recommendations from the Justice Committee’s inquiry into women in prison, which included recommendations made by Clinks. The government rejected the recommendation to make pre-sentence reports mandatory for women facing a custodial sentence (taken from Farmer). The response stated that 456 new prison places for women will be provided through a mix of twelve open (25 places per unit) and six closed units (26 places per unit) across five women’s prisons: HMPs Drake Hall, Eastwood Park, Foston Hall, Send and Styal. Women are expected to be held in the new places by early 2025. The government stated that it will publish: a progress update on Farmer Review recommendations (by end of 2022); a Delivery Plan for the Female Offender Strategy 2022-2025 (shortly); evaluation of the pre-sentence report pilot (in 2023). The response contained little reference to the voluntary sector.
Mandatory drug testing in Approved Premises | The government has announced that from 03 October 2022, people supervised in Approved Premises will be randomly tested for 14 different types of drugs. People whose substance use is directly linked to their offence will be required to take a urine test once a week. Everyone else will be tested at least twice whilst being supervised in probation hostels. People who test positive will have to undergo intensive substance use treatment or could be recalled to prison. These changes were introduced by the Approved Premises (Substance Testing) Act 2022.
Expansion of GPS tagging programme | The government announced that its GPS tagging programme will be expanded from 26 October 2022, so more people leaving prison who have committed theft, burglary, and robbery will be fitted with tags. Currently, only people with sentences of a year or more can be monitored via GPS tag on release, but the changes will extend the scheme to cover people with sentences of 90 days or more. This expansion will see a further 2,000 people monitored. In a written statement, the former Lord Chancellor stated that electronic monitoring will be a compulsory condition of someone’s licence up to a maximum of 12 months, unless exemptional circumstances apply.
Latest criminal justice statistics published | The Ministry of Justice published statistics covering people in the criminal justice system, safety in custody and in the children and young people’s secure estate (CYPSE), and proven reoffending. There were 81,309 people in prison on 30 September 2022, and 243,127 people on probation. There were 307 deaths in custody in the year to September 2022, a 22% decrease on last year. The number of self-harm incidents in prison rose 0.4% in the year to June 2022, with the rate of self-harm incidents per 1,000 people remaining unchanged in female establishments and decreasing 1% in male establishments. The annualised rate of self-harm per 100 children in the CYPSE fell 12% in the quarter to June 2022, compared to the same quarter last year. The proven reoffending rate for the October to December 2020 cohort was 23.1%.
People in prison begin apprenticeships | People in open prisons in England are now able to start apprenticeships, following the announcement the government made in its Prisons Strategy White Paper last year. To enable this, the law was changed so that people in prison can undertake apprenticeships without an apprenticeship agreement, which is legally classed as an employment contract. The government plan for up to 300 people who are eligible for day release and nearing the end of their sentence to start an apprenticeship by 2025.
Prison and Probation Ombudsman Annual Report 2021/22 | Former Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO) Sue McAllister published her final Annual Report as Ombudsman, for the year 2021-22. The PPO received 4,442 complaints, 11% more than the previous year. It started 329 fatal incident investigations, a 23% decrease on the previous year. The report details challenges with managing older people in prison and found that people with care needs are being left in unsafe conditions. The PPO launched a year-long pilot in September 2021 to investigate the deaths of those who die within 14 days of their release from prison. Its investigation has highlighted the need for strong communication between prison, probation and other agencies to meet complex needs and support the wellbeing of those released.
Resettlement
Bridges from prison: making the case for jobs and relationships | Frameworks UK has published a report on framing support for people leaving prison. The report, supported by Porticus, explores how the public tend to think about people in and leaving prison, and how to make the case for the importance of job opportunities and supportive relationships, both to build understanding about why they are needed and to build support for action. We were delighted to work with Frameworks UK and the Criminal Justice Alliance over the past year to support the development of this important research. We will be holding events to equip Clinks members with the framing skills in the coming months, including a workshop at our annual conference in November. In addition, on 16 November Frameworks UK is running a free webinar to present the research.
Prison
Progression for people serving the longest prison sentences | The Prison Reform Trust (PRT) has published a report as part of its Building Futures programme looking at the issue of sentence progression. Based on a consultation with people in prison, the report unpacks the terms “risk” and “progression”. PRT argues the understanding of these terms points towards the need for an individualised, personalised approach. In addition, the report finds many people serving long-term sentences felt confused and uncertain about how they were meant to progress or make positive and productive use of their time. PRT’s recommendations include HM Prison and Probation Service consulting and publishing a policy framework for people serving long-term sentences.
Performance Tracker 2022: Prisons | The Institute for Government (IfG) has published its Performance Tracker 2022, looking at the position of public services, including prisons. The IfG found spending on prisons fell in 2021/22, following increases since 2015/16. In addition, it found that the workforce is insufficient to safely return to pre-pandemic regimes, with the situation exacerbated by high levels of staff sickness. This was coupled with staff retention substantially worsening due to better pay and conditions available elsewhere, including other parts of the public sector. Whilst publicly available data on prison backlogs is limited, the IfG also highlight several other areas where there are delays across MoJ services, including access to health appointments for people in prison, staff training and annual leave, and prison maintenance.
Probation
Using attachment theory in probation practice | HM Inspectorate of Probation published the latest paper in its Academic Insights series, on the use of attachment theory in probation practice. The paper notes attachment theory, a term used to describe the body of work about the emotional connection of a child to their carers, can appeal to probation practitioners because so many of the people they work with have grown up with loss and abuse. It concludes attachment theory can offer a practical lens for understanding the supervisory relationship. However, it warns against over-estimating the utility of the theory, and that it cannot offer any predictive powers at an individual level.
Transforming electronic monitoring services | The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has published a report on electronic monitoring services, finding HM Prison and Probation Service’s transformation programme for “tagging” has failed to change the service as intended. It also noted the government does not have sufficient data to understand the outcome of tagging, and the police and Probation Service continue to lack timely access to high-quality data needed to monitor people wearing tags. The PAC add it is still not known whether tagging reduces reoffending. Despite this lack of evaluation, it is noted the government is continuing with its £1.2 billion programme to expand tagging to 10,000 more people over the next three years, and the Committee argues there remain serious risks with the expansion of tagging.
Women
The value of women’s centres | A new report by Women in Prison shows that women’s centres generate a nearly triple return on public investment by keeping women out of prison and easing demand for other services. However, nearly half of women’s centres are concerned about their survival. New modelling shows that an example women’s centre receiving £1 million in a given year can support over 650 women and generate £2.75 million in public sector savings, while providing a lifeline for vital services and significantly improving wellbeing for women and their children. Women’s centres are services by women for women and provide support under one roof to address the root causes of offending including mental ill health, debt, domestic abuse, and homelessness.
Sentencing
Imprisonment for Public Protection: Psychic Pain Redoubled | The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies published a report reviewing the psychological impact of imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentences. It found that, as people remain in prison past their minimum tariff and encounter setbacks in obtaining release, the psychological impact of their circumstances becomes more acute. Moreover, it found obtaining permission to be released does not remove anxieties as people on licence can be recalled. The report makes a number of recommendations including launching a systematic programme of mental health assessment focussed on need and reviewing all forms of indefinite detention to arrive at common principles restricting its scope, defining clear limits, and establishing powers of review.
Young minds, big decisions | Fair Trials has published a report exploring the experiences of young adults, aged 18 to 24, pleading guilty to charges in England and Wales. The findings of the report include that young adults tended to make plea decisions based on immediate outcomes, rather than the long-term consequences. There was a lack of support and assistance to make an informed decision about their plea. Based on its findings, Fair Trials make a number of recommendations including for the review of sentencing guidelines to reflect the realities of how people make their plea decisions, which might include the outright removal of time-based incentives to plead guilty.
Youth Justice
Alliance for Youth Justice (AYJ) on the Rights of the Child | The Alliance for Youth Justice (AYJ) has responded to the Children’s Rights Alliance England’s call for written evidence to inform its Civil Society Alternative to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child 2022. Focussing on key developments across the youth justice system since 2020, the AYJ make a number of recommendations. These include the introduction of a cabinet level Minister for Children to work across departments to create and provide oversight and accountability for a national strategy for children; increasing the age of criminal responsibility to at least 14; and a review of the work undertaken by Youth Offending Teams to address the findings of the thematic inspection into the experience of racially minoritised boys.
Youth Justice Board Annual Report 2021/22 | The Youth Justice Board (YJB) published its annual report for 2021/22. It sets out that the number of children cautioned or sentenced has continued to fall. The YJB attributes this, in part, to the efforts of a range of agencies to divert and prevent children from entering or staying in the criminal justice system. It also describes its focus on building multi-agency collaboration at a local, regional, and national level to more effectively support children with more complex needs. The report recognises that some ethnicities are still over-represented in the youth justice system, despite reductions in the number of children in the system overall, and that children who have been looked after disproportionately enter the criminal justice system.
What is the One HMPPS programme? | Jim Barton, Senior Responsible Officer for the One HMPPS programme, has written a guest blog for Russell Webster. Barton explains that One HMPPS aims to focus on operational work and, as part of this, are exploring how closer regional working and a greater focus on the frontline can help to do this. Barton adds they are committed to keeping and maximising the distinct professional identities of the Prison Service and the Probation Service by looking at a range of models, including the current arrangements in Wales, and speaking to frontline staff and senior leaders. Barton concludes by saying they want to make sure the structure that wraps around the Prison Service and Probation Service is as effective and efficient as possible.
Short-staffing in prisons must be tackled | HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, Charlie Taylor, has written a blog on the issue of short-staffing in prisons, following recent challenges at HMP/YOI Woodhill and HMP Swaleside arising from a lack of staff. He explains that a shortage of staff prevents people in prison from completing accredited programmes that are needed for them to progress through their sentences. Taylor discusses the recruitment process, highlighting the high number of officers that leave quickly and the additional support that younger recruits need. He concludes by noting there is not an easy solution, but that situations as dire as those in Woodhill and Swaleside cannot be allowed to continue.
Racial bias and the bench | Russell Webster has written for Work With Offenders about new research from the University of Manchester which raises questions about racial attitudes and practices in the justice system, drawing on a survey of 373 legal professionals. The survey’s findings include 95% of respondents reporting that racial bias plays some role in the process or outcomes of the justice system. Whilst the survey found some judges are acting in an “anti-racist” way, by being aware and knowledgeable about racism and seeking to mitigate it, only a minority of respondents said they had seen a judge act in this way. Webster describes the research’s conclusion as being that the justice system is institutionally racist. Recommendations include an overhaul of the process of judicial appointments.
What works in youth justice – ideas for now and the future | The Chair of the Youth Justice Board (YJB), Keith Fraser, has written a summary of a report which brings together thoughts on achieving Child First youth justice system. Through bringing together over 200 stakeholders, the YJB wanted to explore how far away it is from achieving a “Child First” system, and what could be done to achieve such a system. The results of the stakeholder engagement highlighted a broad range of issues including the need to recognise the youth justice system as part of a wider system and make changes beyond it, such as improving understanding of why children commit offences; collect the right data and share it effectively with agencies; enable greater child workforce and collaboration; and challenge current reforms to go further.
The future of prison and university partnerships | Dr Ruth Armstrong has written a guest blog post for Russell Webster about the future of prison and university partnerships. She writes that there is a long history of universities working in partnership with prisons in the UK and outlines the work of a group of criminal justice and academic practitioners convened by HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) and the Ministry of Justice. The group has developed a draft framework agreement that can be used to enable partnership working. It includes plans for risk assessments and information sharing and recommends not categorically excluding any individual based on the type of conviction alone.
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This month's edition was written by...
Clinks Policy Officer Franklin Barrington
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