In this month's edition...
Anne Fox, Clinks’ CEO chaired an employment roundtable with the Minister, Damian Hinds exploring employment for people in prison and after their release. (See Unlocking Aspiration in the “Publications” section below for a report from the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) on how to help more prison leavers into sustainable employment).
Clinks held its ‘In Conversation with Amy Rees and Phil Copple’ event at the beginning of May, which saw the senior leaders of HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) speak to Anne Fox about recent government activity and answer questions from the voluntary sector. Topics covered at this event included funding and the impacts of the efficiency and savings review, future commissioning, the One HMPPS programme, developments around the Race Action Plan, vetting, supporting and sustaining resettlement, staff recruitment and retention in the criminal justice sector, and relationships between the voluntary sector and frontline prison and probation staff.
Following the resignation of Rt Hon Dominic Raab MP as Deputy Prime Minister, Lord Chancellor, and Secretary of State for Justice, the Prime Minister announced the appointment of the Rt Hon Alex Chalk KC MP as Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State. Mr Chalk moves to the role from the Ministry of Defence, but he was previously a Parliamentary Under-Secretary in the Ministry of Justice, Solicitor General, and a member of the Justice Committee. Following his appointment, Anne Fox has written to Mr Chalk to welcome him to his role and highlight the experience and expertise of the criminal justice voluntary sector.
Christopher Stacey, Clinks’ Director of Support and Development, has now left the organisation to take up the role of CEO at Prisoners Abroad. We would like to wish Chris all the best in his new role. Following this, Angela Lucas moves from the Head of Area Development to become Interim Head of Support and Development.
Ministry of Justice action plan for SMEs and VCSEs | The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has set out an action plan which represents its desire to drive engagement and sets out its statement of ambition to create a strong, prosperous, and sustainable supply chain. The plan sets out objectives for the next two years for the MoJ to collaborate and engage with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and voluntary organisations. The plan also supports how the MoJ will contribute to the government’s levelling up agenda. It goes on to highlight the infrastructure grant awarded to Clinks for 2022 to 2025 by HM Prison and Probation Service, and the work this funds Clinks to do to support small and medium-sized voluntary organisations, facilitate strategic engagement between the sector and MoJ, and to chair the Reducing Reoffending Third Sector Advisory Group (RR3).
Government responds to Justice Committee report on custodial remand | The government responded to the Justice Committee’s report into custodial remand. Of the Committee’s 25 recommendations, the government accepted 13, partially accepted seven, and rejected five. The recommendations accepted include HM Prison and Probation Service should ensure people on remand are not deprioritised for services such as mental health assessments, drug treatment, education, training, and employment due to their lack of release date. The government only partly accepted the recommendation to remove the provision of the Bail Act 1976 for remanding people to custody for their own protection in all situations. The government argued, for a small cohort of cases, it is important to retain the ability to remand people to custody for their own protection. Read more about the Committee’s recommendations in our blog.
Offenders (Day of Release from Detention) Bill Second Reading | The Offenders (Day of Release from Detention) Bill received its second reading in the House of Lords on 21 April, following its passage through the House of Commons. Being sponsored in the Lords by Lord Bird, this saw peers debate the general principles of the Bill, which will now move to committee stage. The provisions of the Bill aim to allow people to be released from prison one or two days earlier if they would otherwise be released on a Friday. Early release would be at the discretion of the Secretary of State, but in practice this would be delegated to prison governors.
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 84,372 people in prison on 31 March 2023, and 240,431 people on probation at the end of December 2022. There were 322 deaths in custody in the year to March 2023, a 12% increase on last year. The number of self-harm incidents in prison rose 3% in the year to December 2022, with the rate of self-harm incidents per 1,000 people increasing 36% in female establishments and decreasing 9% in male establishments. The annualised rate of self-harm per 100 children in the CYPSE increased 176% in the quarter to December 2022, compared to the same quarter last year. The proven reoffending rate for the April to June 2021 cohort was 24.8%.
Reappointment of Chair of the Youth Justice Board | The Ministry of Justice announced that Keith Fraser has been reappointed as Chair of the Youth Justice Board (YJB), for a further term of two years, which began on 14 April 2023. Mr Fraser was first appointed as a member of the YJB in 2018, and he became Chair in 2020. In March 2023, he became a member of Governing Committee for the Youth Endowment Fund and was a Commissioner for the UK Race and Ethnic Disparities Commission. Previously, Mr Fraser was a Superintendent and Chief Inspector in the West Midlands Police, and served in the Metropolitan Police for 20 years.
VCSE contract readiness programme | The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has launched its Voluntary, Community, and Social Enterprise Contact Readiness Programme, designed to enable the voluntary sector in England to better compete for government contracts. It primarily provides fully funded and tailored training to voluntary organisations, complemented by offering public sector commissioners ways to increase their awareness and understanding of the sector. The programme is being delivered by School for Social Enterprise in consortium with Social Enterprise UK, and Voice4Change England, running until the end of the 2024/25 financial year. Organisations can sign up for the programme here, and can access the Public Services Hub here. The Hub is an online platform with resources and opportunities to help advance the role of the voluntary sector in public sector commissioning.
Letter to the Justice Committee about magistrates’ court sentencing powers | The Minister for Courts and Legal Services has written to Sir Bob Neill, the Chair of the Justice Committee, outlining the changes made to magistrates’ courts sentencing powers. Mr Freer explains that the previously granted extension of magistrates’ courts sentencing powers has been rescinded. But he stresses that “this change is no reflection on the magistracy or their use of the extended powers”. Instead, the Minister explains that the “downstream pressures” in the criminal justice system resulting in the use of Operation Safeguard require a “cross-system response to growing pressure”. The extension of sentencing powers was judged to be a factor in this “pressure”, and so the government will use this pause to review the measure, with a review to reinstating the powers if supported by the evidence.
Reoffending
Escalation in the severity of offending behaviour | The Ministry of Justice has published a study that identifies the previous offences that were most frequently committed by people who went on to commit “very serious” offences. The report concludes that specific offences and groups of offences are associated with differences in the likelihood of someone moving to commit homicide or serious sexual assault. Many prior offences are associated with a higher risk of only some forms of more serious offences, and others are associated with a mixture of higher and lower risk of more serious offences depending on the offence type and victim group. Therefore, the report argues advice to HM Prison and Probation Service practitioners needs to communicate these detailed patterns, rather than asserting a single pathway for all serious offending.
Problem-solving courts: a guide to practice in the UK | The Centre for Justice Innovation (CJI) has published a guide giving an overview of problem-solving court practice in the UK. The CJI outline problem-solving courts as a diverse group of court models with common features including specialising in a specific set of issues, such as substance use or domestic abuse, or a specific group of people, such as women. Courts then look to deploy a multi-agency team/partnership to provide intervention and supervision, integrated with judicial monitoring to create a procedurally fair environment focussed on improving outcomes. The CJI’s guide explores several different kinds of problem-solving court and then sets out a number of key considerations for their implementation.
Unlocking Aspiration | The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) has published a report which sets out how to help more prison leavers into sustainable employment. The report, with forwards from Mark Libby, CSJ Regional Manager (North East) and Rt Hon Damian Hinds MP, Minister of State for Prisons, Parole and Probation, makes 37 recommendations to help prison leavers into work. The recommendations are based on in-depth evidence gathered through an online call for evidence, multiple site-visits, opinion polling, interviews and group discussions with organisations working across the criminal justice system nationally. The recommendations include: rolling out digital technology across the estate; ensuring “through the gate” services support the transition into work; improving employment outcomes data tracking; building stronger relationships with transformative local charities; and, getting appropriate accommodation place.
Race
Understanding ethnic disparities in reoffending rates in the youth justice system | The Youth Justice Board (YJB) commissioned Transverse, an independent research organisation, to conduct research into the “drivers of ethnic disparity in reoffending rates”. The research found four key thematic drivers of this disparity: marginalisation of individuals and communities; individual, institutional, and systematic bias; weakness in prevention and intervention; and negative experiences of the wider youth justice system. Based on these, the report makes a number of recommendations including that funding should be prioritised for local services aimed at children, there should be an increase in funding for youth justice services, youth justice practitioners should be empowered to tailor interventions to children’s individual needs, interests and aspirations, and youth justice practitioners should be embedded in police custody suites.
Lived experience of gambling, gambling-related harms, and crime within racially minoritised communities | This report from the Howard League for Penal Reform is based on interviews and focus groups utilising peer researchers. It found participants had a range of pathways into gambling and gambling-related harm including growing up around gambling, migrating to the UK and the role of assimilating to a different culture, and the role of gambling as a means of hope in relation to addressing socio-economic disadvantage and escapism from their wider lives. Participants also disclosed having committed a range of offences related to gambling, and their experiences of the criminal justice system illustrated a lack of understanding of gambling-related harm and inadequate provision of support. The report’s recommendations include the need for clearer national and local strategies in relation to racially minoritised communities and their experiences of gambling-related harms.
Women
Mapping the UK women and girls sector and its funding | Rosa has published a report providing a snapshot of specialist women’s and girls’ organisations in 2021, particularly charities. There were 7,396 such specialist organisations in the UK in 2021, with 7,079 being registered charities, making up 3.5% of all registered charities across the UK. These charities had an income of about £1.3 billion in the financial year ending 2021, just over 2% of total UK charity income. Women’s and girls’ charities are smaller on average than charities overall, and they receive a small proportion of all grant funding with recipients disproportionately registered in London. Recommendations include increasing the data coverage of organisations held by regulators, and further steps are taken to ensure government contracts and commissioning processes are accessible to all organisations who want to participate.
Civil society
Running hot, burning out: the state of the charity sector | Pro Bono Economics published a report looking at the landscape of the charity sector overall, based on a survey of organisations. It found 54% of charities have vacancies and 83% of those organisations are finding it difficult to recruit to meet rising need. This has seen 24% of charities cite staff burnout as a cause of retention difficulties. 46% of charities do not expect to meet demand over the next three months, with 51% reporting that they were using their reserves to meet operating costs. In charities experiencing recruitment difficulties, 52% said staff were working more hours as a result. Due to recruitment challenges, 52% of organisations are delaying the development of new services, and 29% are having difficulties introducing new work practices.
Youth justice
Family contact in youth custody | The Children’s Commissioner for England published a report on family contact in youth custody. It found as the number of children in custody declined, the number of settings also fell with many secure children’s homes closing, which have the highest staff to child ratios and the highest cost per place. In addition, 44% of children in custody received no visits from family or friends between 17 October and 13 November 2022, with the report finding these poor figures are not necessarily due to lack of resources, but inadequate leadership, poor oversight, and a lack of priority given to family visits. Recommendations include requiring every youth custody institution to appoint a member of the senior team responsible for family contact.
Supporting children’s compliance on community supervision | HM Inspectorate of Probation published its latest Academic Insights report, looking at engaging children with their community orders. The report concludes that while breach proceedings are the ultimate intervention of community supervision, the threat of a court appearance for not complying with a community order is likely to hold limited weight for marginalised and disenfranchised children and young people. Therefore, it argues meaningful strategies to encourage compliance need to be sufficiently flexible to accommodate differing and changing motivations and barriers. It suggests substantive compliance is more likely when children and young people are motivated by reasons like perceiving the system, and their treatment, as fair and legitimate, and that evidence indicates a relational approach provides a good foundation for supporting compliance.
Youth Justice Board business plan, 2023 to 2024 | The Youth Justice Board (YJB) has published its business plan for 2023 to 2024. Setting out how it plans to use its resources, realise the benefits of its New Sense of Purpose change programme, work towards its vision of a Child First youth justice system, and the activity it aims to complete. The plan sets out the YJB’s three strategic pillars: to drive system improvement; to effectively deliver its unique statutory oversight function; and to be an exemplary public sector organisation and employer. These will be combined with the annual steer the YJB receives from the youth justice minister, who has asked the Board to focus on further improving youth justice services in the community, sharing best practice, and monitoring significant government investments, like the Turnaround programme.
Young adults
Young adults and the parole system | Transition to Adulthood (T2A) published a report on young adults and the parole system. The report notes the young adult cohort is distinct from the usual cases reviewed by the Parole Board, and argues for a distinct approach for this group, in line with the adaptations across the criminal justice system for young adults. The report makes a number of recommendations for the Parole Board and HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS), including that the Board’s policy and guidance should be strengthened and extended to young adults 25 and under, and that the application and impact of its young adult guidance and policy is monitored. Recommendations to HMPPS include policies on sentence planning, parole, and recall should be tailored to the needs of young adults.
Older people
Living (and dying) as an older person in prison | The Nuffield Trust has published a report that used hospital data to look at the healthcare needs of older people in prison. It found more than 40% of men in prison aged 50 or over admitted to hospital in an emergency showed signs of frailty, risking poorer health outcomes. This is a much higher proportion than in the general population. The report also found that while the number of older women in prison is relatively small, they were found to have significant healthcare needs associated with depression. The report sets out a number of considerations for policy makers including ensuring prisons have access to the resources and equipment necessary to support older people in prison living with frailty.
Courts
Procedural fairness toolkit | The Centre for Justice Innovation (CJI) published a guide on procedural fairness, developed to support court practitioners seeking guidance on how to improve court users’ perceptions of the fairness of court processes and interactions. Procedural fairness refers to the degree to which people perceive those in authority as legitimate and their decision-making as fair. The CJI sets out four key elements researchers identified of people’s perceptions of fairness: understanding how decisions are made and what is expected of someone; respecting individuals so they feel they are treated with dignity and respect; neutrality of decision-making with decisions perceived as unbiased and trustworthy; and the voice of the individual being given an opportunity to be heard. In addition to setting out the evidence, the CJI provide a range of resources for practitioners.
Simplifying the Probation Commissioning Dynamic Framework – upcoming changes and future developments | Clinks’ Development Officer - North, Natalie Maidment, has written a blog about upcoming changes and future developments to the Probation Commissioning Dynamic Framework (DF), the system through which organisations can bid/apply for contracts and grants to deliver rehabilitation and resettlement services. Following previous feedback provided on the DF, changes are being implemented by August 2023. Changes have already been made to streamline procurement documents, to simply the detail and ensure they are proportionate to the size and value of the competition. Upcoming changes include plans to introduce “statement of suitability” to give providers more flexibility in how they respond to the Selection Questionnaire, and revisions to the financial onboarding process for the £100,000 to £1,000,000 threshold to adopt a simplified system. More details about the changes and upcoming events about the DF can be found in Natalie’s blog.
If our justice system is to be for the future, charities must lead the way | Revolving Doors published a blog by Theo Clay, who leads consultancy NPC’s criminal justice portfolio. He notes the total income of charities working in criminal justice compares to about a sixth of the annual budget of the Ministry of Justice. Of this, analysis found 86% of charitable funding is supporting people after they have been released from prison. So, he asks whether charities are “enabling a broken system to continue limping on, hiding its fundamental flaws and contradictions”. Clay goes on to argue that charities should lead the way in creating a justice system fit for the future, by innovating – he says charities have the “unique ability to expand our notion of what is possible” – and influencing wider change – noting charities do this at many levels.
What’s changed five years after the landmark Lammy review? | Chair of the Transition to Adulthood (T2A) Alliance, Leroy Logan MBE, has written about the lack of progress on the Lammy Review’s recommendations, and its implications for racially minoritised adults. He describes being “bitterly disappointed” at the lack of progress the government has made on its commitments, especially with the racial disparities that exist in the criminal justice system. He notes over 40% of 18-to-24-year-olds in custody are racially minoritised. Logan proceeds to call for greater training materials to be available to practitioners, to support them with things including how to talk about race and learning more about implicit bias and discrimination, based in lived experience. He also notes it will be important to support young adults to move from a “pro-offending to a pro-social identity”.
Tackling the roots of crisis and crime – a human rights response | Revolving Doors published a blog by Alex Firth, Research and Communications Officer for Just Fair. He argues “it is time we pivoted away from trying to police poverty to instead look for a human rights based solution”. Firth says that “if crime is partly a symptom of poverty and inequality, then it makes no sense to address the problem as we are currently attempting to. You cannot arrest people out of poverty”. To address this, he calls for protecting economic, social, and cultural rights in domestic law, transforming them into “objective standards that must be met” by the government, meaning money would have to be spent removing the conditions that contribute to the causes of crime in the first place.
Secure training centres at 30: the good, the bad, and the ugly | Rob Allen has written about secure training centres (STCs), 30 years after they were first announced. In this, he discusses the history of STCs, from that announcement in 1993, to legislation in 1994, and the opening of the first centre in Medway in 1998. As a former Youth Justice Board (YJB) member, Allen noted his unease at reluctantly supporting more STC places to reduce the number of children held in prison establishments, as this came with a reduction in places in secure children’s homes. He goes on to consider the performance of STCs, highlighting both historic and recent challenges at Rainsbrook, Medway, and Oakhill. In a forthcoming blog, Allen commits to setting out possible reasons for the “catastrophic failures of STCs”, and any lessons for the new secure school.
Women’s trust in police at an all-time low | Jess Southgate, Deputy Chief Executive of Agenda Alliance, wrote a guest blog for Russell Webster following the Casey Review into the Metropolitan Police Service. She notes the Review’s findings highlight the urgent and serious need for reform, to ensure the Met meets the needs of the “communities it serves yet fails to protect”. Southgate also looks at their Young Women’s Justice Project, highlighting how behaviours noted by Baroness Casey impact the lives of racially minoritised girls and young women in contact with the criminal justice system. It calls for Police and Crime Commissioners, including the London Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, and HM Prison and Probation Service to provide training and guidance to ensure frontline staff can recognise and respond to the needs of racially minoritised young women.
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This month's edition was written by...
Clinks Policy Officer Franklin Barrington
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