NEWSFLASH | Launching Our Voluntary Sector-Led Manifesto for Criminal Justice Reform

Launching Our Voluntary Sector-Led Manifesto for Criminal Justice Reform!

Today we are launching our voluntary sector-led manifesto for criminal justice reform, produced with the intention of influencing the new government’s approach to criminal justice reform. 

The manifesto brings together a wide range of policy recommendations designed in consultation with the voluntary sector over a number of years, headlined by 6 key asks of the new govt:

1 - Funding reallocation:

Establish a Community Justice Investment Fund via a justice reinvestment programme

2 - Local approaches:

Implement a truly local approach to probation governance, commissioning and partnership working

3 - Reduction of remand and recall:

Significantly reduce the remand population and the number of recalls to prison including through a fast-track review of Custody Time Limits (CTI.S) and the introduction of a decision-making framework for recalls

4 - Community provision:

Increase investment in community provision including through an expansion of community accommodation services, division schemes and guaranteed universal coverage of Community Sentence Treatment Requirements

5 - Strengthened resettlement:

Establish an accessible resettlement pathway from custody into the community, including through the embedding of genuine learned progression into sentence planning.

6 - A Whole Systems Approach for women:

Implement a whole systems approach to women in contact within the criminal justice system.

Throughout the manifesto, you will find examples of voluntary sector expertise and best practice, and we are so grateful to be able to platform our members in this way. The thread that runs throughout is that by leaning into the expertise of the voluntary sector, the government will be able to build a more effective and humane criminal justice system.

Looking ahead, this is just the start of a process that, we hope, will culminate in the government taking forward many of the sector’s best ideas. We will be publishing a series of blogs linking to key recommendations throughout the manifesto in the coming weeks and months.

We will be using the manifesto to inform our ongoing engagement with ministers and officials. If you want to get involved in supporting this work, we want to hear from you! Get in touch with our Director of National Influencing & Networks, Sam Julius at sam.julius@clinks.org to find out more.

In the meantime, please read, digest, and share amongst your networks!