Welcome to the October 2024 edition of the Clinks Policy Briefing. Let us know your thoughts about this newsletter, or any of the things it has covered by emailing the Policy team.
This month:
- Our Policy Work: including the continued work Clinks has been doing to bring the voluntary sector together with officials on SDS40 releases.
- Latest Justice News: including the new support for women announced by the Government, and the published statistics on Prison Education and Accredited Programmes.
- Parliamentary News: what is coming up in Westminster, following the Conference recess.
- Sector Insights: recent publications from across the sector, including the HM Inspectorate of Prisons annual report, and a further report on the progress to tackle separation of children in custody, an analysis of Police use of Out of Court Disposals, and the impact of Community Sentence Treatment Requirements.
- Get Involved: including the continued work Clinks has been doing to bring the voluntary sector together with officials on SDS40 releases.
Today (Tuesday 8 October) Clinks held a further session on the Government’s SDS40 policy in preparation for the second tranche of releases on Tuesday 22 October. SDS40 refers to the changes made to the automatic release dates of certain people serving standard determinate sentences – from 50 to 40% of their sentence – and the second tranche will include people serving sentences of five years or more, subject to exceptions. This session focused on accommodation and how lessons learned from tranche 1 could be applied to tranche 2. To learn more about previous sessions and how we are supporting the sector read our blog.
Lord Timpson, the Minister for Prisons, Probation and Reducing Reoffending, attended the September Reducing Reoffending Third Sector Advisory Group (RR3) meeting at which he discussed his priorities in his new role. He also heard from the Group’s members on a range of policy priorities, covering recall, employment, families and women. The minutes for the meeting will be published on our website in due course.
The work of the RR3’s Special Interest Group on Community Provision continued with a session covering mental health services. Participants highlighted current challenges in accessing and delivering mental health services for people in contact with the criminal justice system and explored a range of solutions to the issues raised. The findings will be published in the New Year, alongside those from the first session on substance misuse services.
State of the Sector 2024 research is now underway. Alongside the team from NVCO, we are holding focus groups across England and Wales to understand how the work, needs and vison of voluntary organisations working across the criminal justice sector have been shaped and changed by the last few years. We want to hear from a broad range of organisations in the sector — whether small community groups, regionally focussed hubs, or national organisations. To express your interest in joining a focus group, please complete a two-minute survey and the NCVO team will contact you to arrange participation. Express your interest here.
Support for Women
The Lord Chancellor announced the formation of a new ‘Women’s Justice Board', which will be tasked with ‘reducing the number of women in prison’, and with the ‘ultimate ambition of having fewer women’s prisons.’ The Board will be based in the Ministry of Justice and will publish its first strategy in Spring 2025, on three areas: early intervention to divert women away from the criminal justice system, where appropriate, improving community support as an alternative to prison, and the specific challenge of young women in custody. Clinks are engaging with the Female Offenders and Health Team at the Ministry of Justice on these changes and will provide further updates to the sector in due course.
Prison Education and Accredited Programmes
In public prisons across England, 47,712 prisoners completed an initial maths and/or English assessment during the reporting period. Most results were at Entry levels 1 to 3, making up 73% of maths and 71% of English assessments.
Over half (55%) of prisoners who took an initial assessment and enrolled in a course were identified with a learning difficulty or disability (LDD). This varied by ethnicity, with 58% of white prisoners and 40% of Asian/Asian British prisoners identified with LDD.
The number of Accredited Programme starts and completions in custody increased significantly between April 2023 and March 2024, with 5,383 starts (up 12%) and 4,886 completions (up 18%). Additionally, two new programme categories were introduced: Mixed Cohort programmes had 92 starts and 53 completions, while Next Generation programmes saw 44 starts and 14 completions.
Inside Time has published an article focusing on these statistics, highlighting the significant increase in prisoners taking an initial assessment identified with LDD in 2023-24, compared with 28% the previous year. This is due to changes in how the data is categorised. The article points to previous concerns raised in regard to the urgent need for effective support systems for those with neurodivergent conditions in prison.
Select Committee Chairs
Before the party conferences, MPs elected the chairs of Select Committees. This saw Andy Slaughter (Labour; Hammersmith and Chiswick) elected as the Chair of the Justice Committee, Dame Karen Bradley (Conservative; Staffordshire Moorlands) elected as the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, and Sarah Owen (Labour; Luton North) elected as the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee. The full breakdown of the committee chair election results can be found on the Parliament website.
Upcoming Business
Both the House of Commons and House of Lords returned from the Conference Recess on Monday 7 October. This week, Women and Equalities questions take place in the Commons on Wednesday 9 October, with the Second Reading debate on the Renters' Rights Bill taking place that afternoon. With settled accommodation significantly reducing reoffending, this Bill seeks to improve the rights of tenants. It includes provisions to abolish section 21 'no fault evictions', limit rent increases to no more than once per year, and make it illegal for landlords to discriminate against tenants who receive benefits, amongst others. During the Second Reading debate, MPs will discuss the broad principles of the Bill, before it gets sent to Committee Stage for line-by-line scrutiny. On Thursday 10 October, the MP Sojan Joseph (Labour; Ashford) will lead a debate in Westminster Hall on Improving support for mental health. This debate will include a response from a Minister.
Over in the House of Lords, Baroness Smith of Llanfaes (Plaid Cymru) led, on Monday 7 October, an oral question on the report of the Commission on Justice in Wales. The Commission was set up by the Welsh Government and undertook a review of the justice system in Wales between 2017 and 2019, publishing a report setting a long-term vision for the future of justice in Wales in October 2019.
Next week, the House of Commons will debate at Second Reading the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill, which is the legislation that will enact what is often described as 'Martyn's Law', aiming to improve protective security and organisational preparedness across the UK, with those responsible for certain premises taking steps to reduce the risk to people at those premises in the event of an attack occurring. Certain larger premises and events will also have to take steps to reduce the vulnerability of the premises to terrorist attacks. On Tuesday 15 October, there will be Health and Social Care questions, and on Thursday 17 October, Culture, Media and Sports questions.
In the Lords, on Tuesday 15 October, Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Conservative) will lead an oral question on procurement guidance and operations under the Procurement Act 2024, and on Thursday 17 October, Baroness Wilcox of Newport will lead an oral question on promoting equality of opportunity in the education sector, particularly in schools.
On Monday 21 October, there will be Home Office questions in the Commons, and over in the House of Lords, Lord Sandhurst (Conservative) is leading an oral question on preventing people who have been released under the prison early release scheme from reoffending. The next session of Justice questions will take place in the Commons on Tuesday 5 November.
SDS40
Switchback have expressed concerns about insufficient support for individuals released under the SDS40 policy, risking homelessness and reoffending. They are increasing efforts to support people leaving prison, working with probation to take referrals, and enhancing support and advocacy through an increased presence in prisons to reach more young men on wings.
Prisons
HMI Prisons has released its annual report for 2023-24, based on findings from 79 inspections. Of the 32 closed prisons included in the report, 30 received a rating of ‘poor’ or ‘insufficiently good’ for purposeful activity. Instead of engaging in interventions aimed at reducing reoffending and supporting mental and physical health, inspectors observed a troubling increase in illicit drug use, self-harm, and violence among people in prison. The report also highlights serious issues in the children’s estate, describing it as being marked by ‘drift, decline, and failures’. Additionally, there is growing unrest in immigration detention centres, exacerbated by Home Office delays in decision-making.
The Prison’s Inspectorate followed on from this report with a key findings paper, finding that more than two-thirds of people in prison spent most of their day locked in cells, with 24% having less than two hours out. Conditions were worst in men’s reception prisons, where half of people were locked up for over 22 hours on weekdays. This lack of time out of cells has remained a problem since pandemic restrictions in 2020 and continue to harm people in prison’s physical and mental health. Many have limited access to exercise, education, work, or rehabilitative activities, and only 33% with limited time out of cells felt they could lead a healthy lifestyle.
The Guardian have published a long-read titled 'Places to heal, not to harm', exploring how we can create better spaces for people in prison in relation to design and architecture. With issues like overcrowding, poor conditions, and inadequate maintenance, it is both poignant and unsurprising that when asked, ‘what colour is prison?’ one young woman in prison responded, ‘purple, like a bruise.’ Professor of criminology Yvonne Jewkes calls for custodial environments designed to make occupants ‘feel like people rather than prisoners’ and raises the important question: ‘What would an architecture of hope look like?’.
The blog post "Food for Thought" highlights widespread dissatisfaction with prison food, citing complaints about quality, portion sizes, and service times across various facilities. An HMIP survey cited in the post, reported that only 18% of people in prison at HMP Erlestoke said they got enough to eat. Though initiatives like ‘Food Behind Bars’ aim to improve prison meals, challenges persist. Poor food can affect people in prisons’ well-being, with experts advocating for better meal provisions to enhance health, self-esteem, and reintegration. The post emphasises that expanding prison capacity without enhancing kitchen facilities could exacerbate problems further.
Probation
HM Inspectorate of Probation has published its latest Academic Insights titled ‘Building choice in domestic abuse perpetrator interventions: reflections on what clients, victims and practitioners need.’. The authors outline key strategies for effective work with domestic abuse perpetrators. They emphasise the importance of establishing a sense of safety for victim survivors, building trusting relationships with perpetrators, and engaging their interest in making meaningful change. A secure environment can help create openness in perpetrators, but positive outcomes are more likely when practitioners have the time, resources, and support to foster change.
Sentencing
The Ministry of Justice’s latest evaluation pilot examines the impact of Community Sentence Treatment Requirements, exploring the rate of successful completion of community sentences and proven reoffending measures. The study found that the 67% of Alcohol Treatment Requirement (ATR) recipients, 41% of Drug Rehabilitation Requirement (DRR) recipients and 78% of Mental Health Treatment Requirement (DHTR) recipients successfully completed their community sentence (without early termination). Reoffending rates were very similar between ATR recipients, those with a CSTR, and short custodial recipients. However, ATR recipients took 12.42 more days on average to reoffend compared to those on a community sentence without a CSTR. Reoffending rates for DRR recipients showed no statistical difference between recipients without a CTSR or short custodial sentences. Analysis indicates those receiving an MHTR had lower reoffending rates than those without a CSTR by 8 percentage points (27% compared to 245), and short custodial sentence recipients by 9 percentage points (27% compared with 36%). The findings demonstrate why additional investment and development in CSTRs has been pursued in recent years.
The Howard League for Penal Reform have published a paper raising serious concerns about the state of sentencing of law and practice in England and Wales. With the highest rate of imprisonment per capital in Eastern Europe, and the prison capacity crisis, the increase in the number of custodial sentences and their lengths points to an unsustainable situation. The paper puts forth radical solutions around strong investment to reduce offending and reoffending, and accelerated routes of custody for those serving lengthy sentence. These include urgent and decisive action to safety release all IPPS who are over-tariff, with suitable support in community upon release, a review of ‘minimum terms’ for people serving indeterminate sentences, and a significant increase in size and number of the Open (Category D) prison estate to facilitate return to work, education and family for those serving long sentences.
The Sentencing Council’s latest literature review, authored by Dr. Jay Gormley, examines the effectiveness of sentencing from the perspectives of offenders, the public, the victims, and sentences. It explores factors like deterrence, punishment, and procedural justice. The review suggests that increasing custody rate or sentence length does not deter crime, however suspended sentences may offer special deterrence if they protect key factors reducing reoffending, like families ties and housing. Public perceptions of sentencing are influenced by limited understanding of practice, and the perceptions of sentences have profound implications for work on the effectiveness of sentencing. Existing work has raised notable areas for further research concerning communication with sentencers and issues about the availability of community sentencing.
The Ministry of Justice published analysis of Police use of Out of Court Disposals (OOCD) to support adults with health vulnerabilities, which include drug use, alcohol use, physical health, mental health, neurodiversity, and learning disabilities. The report found that approaches and protocols varied considerably amongst police forces with some forces missing significant OOCD opportunities, even those that had high levels of OOCD usage. Across the 37 forces 189 services were identified that could be attached as conditions to OOCDs, however most force areas reported that local provision of mental health-related services was generally not sufficient for the needs of the vulnerable individuals with OOCDs. In relation to effective data collection and evaluation, the study found that despite police forces collecting much of the required data, only some of it is used for reporting, meaning it is difficult to establish if OOCDs are implanted correctly and have an impact.
Women
The Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) annual report 2023-2024, reported on challenges at HMP Downview due to a 75% increase in the prison population since 2020. The influx has led to more complex prisoner profiles, increased instability, and a rise in the use of force and assaults. There are concerns over delays in transferring severely mentally unwell women to secure psychiatric facilities. However, staff have shown great compassion, and healthcare support has improved. Family engagement remains a challenge, impacting prisoner behaviour and wellbeing.
Seven new Chairs have been appointed to Mother and Baby Units (MBUs) within women’s prisons in England and Wales, starting from October 2024. MBUs aim for mothers in prison to stay with their babies in a safe environment, supporting mother-child bonding. The new chairs, with diverse backgrounds in social work, law, and safeguarding, will oversee admission and stay decisions for mothers and children. These appointments align with the policy framework addressing the needs of mothers in prison.
Youth Justice
Keith Fraser, Chair of the Youth Justice Board (YJB), reflects on Black History Month by highlighting Black contributions to British society, particularly in justice and policing. He acknowledges persistent racial disparities in the youth justice system, urging ongoing action toward fairness, inclusion, and recognising Black voices in the workforce. Fraser emphasises learning, listening, and acting beyond just the month of October.
HMI Prisons review of progress report into the separation of children in young offender institutions (YOIs) highlights the sustained failure to improve outcomes for children in custody. A 2020 report shocking finding of widespread solitary confinement, where children were held in isolation for more than 22 hours a day without meaningful contact oversight, or adequate access to education or exercise. Despite commitments to change, these issues have largely persisted. An accompanying blog by lead inspector Angus Jones, notes that funding is not the issue. As of 2023-24, YOIs are characterised by high levels of violence and disorder, resulting in the separation of 479 children from their peers. The Youth Justice Board issued this statement in response to the report.
A policy briefing endorsed by a range of national and local organisation in the youth justice and youth work sectors, looks at the government’s plan to introduce Young Futures Hubs, to support young people, with a focus on providing accessible mental health, employment, and youth support services. The briefing puts forth a number of recommendations that could ensure the effectiveness and success of the hubs, based on the LASTS principles: 1.) Long-term- The pursuit of long-term collaborative, community-level impact, 2.) Area-based- Hubs should be contextualised to meet local needs and localised in their commissioning, design and delivery, 3.) Shaped by youth voice: Hubs must be guided by the voices of local young people, 4.) Tailored to relational working: Hubs should provide conducive conditions for relational practice and cultural humility, 5.) Social infrastructure- Hubs should become youth social infrastructure - rather than just a physical base for the delivery of services.
Clinks Events and Training
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Clinks has a training session coming up in November: 'Working and volunteering in prisons’. This three-hour session will take place online on Thursday 14 November, and costs £95 for Clinks members. It is designed for voluntary sector staff and volunteers to increase awareness of the prison environment, and covers essential topics like staffing structures, prison procedures, and current challenges working in prisons.
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This month's edition was written by...
Clinks Specialist Policy and Communications Officer, Bronte Jack
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