This is a short and slightly disappointing report which seems intended merely to place a marker for the next government. Little substantive work has taken place since the Justice Committee’s initial enquiry into women offenders in March 2013. As a consequence, the report is reduced to expressing the hope
How does the new Justice Secretary direct extra resources at interventions that achieve the departmental objective of reducing reoffending, while managing what is likely to be a further 20-30% cut to the departmental budget? A brave leader would use this opportunity to end the madness of the highest prison population in Europe – costing taxpayers over £3 billion per year, a high proportion of which is
The Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 is one of those wide-raging criminal justice acts which create numerous new offences, make substantial changes to sentencing and try to address lots of minor anomalies in a way that has become increasingly popular in the last two decades.
The Coalition’s policy of making prison “not smaller but cheaper” has left the system in a parlous state, endangering prisoners, staff and the wider public. An urgent rebalancing of penal policy is required to create an affordable and effective approach to people in conflict with the law.
The reasons for this litany of poor practice have nothing to do with resources or politics. The findings are particularly shameful because the inspectors also found numerous examples of excellent work in custody and community and, where this was the case, the children in question had not reoffended.
My final policy for the day would be to commission a review of NOMS. Ever since its inception it has been criticised as a bureaucratic, expensive and unnecessary arm of the MOJ. I would be asking senior NOMS managers some difficult questions such as: what does it actually offer? Why do we need it? And if we do, then how can we make it more diverse, more affordable, more accountable to public scrutiny and more efficient?
The PbR model appears to be incentivising delivery as intended and there is no evidence of perverse incentives. The ethos of the provider organisations means that they are both committed to continuing support for those who remain on the streets.
The UK has one of the largest prison populations in Western Europe and it comes at a significant economic and social cost – not least the high rates of reoffending. This is particularly true for women – with HMP Holloway and HMP Bronzefield being the largest women’s prisons in the EU.
The ACMD found that “the majority of users consume cocaine powder relatively infrequently and, even among users, there appears to be a reasonable level of awareness that cocaine powder is not a ‘safe’ drug.”
Although it is obvious that the main reason that such large quantities of drugs get into prison is to feed the demand of the many dependent drug users inside, it has long been a significant concern that as many as one in five heroin users took the drug for the first time in custody.
In times of austerity it becomes more important than ever to acknowledge that safe and decent prisons only come about by listening to staff and inmates. I would seek to dismantle the present MoJ command and control structure and return to a position where Governors have authority to innovate and find local solutions that can improve each regime as they see fit.
The Committee highlights under-resourcing again and says that unless staffing shortages are addressed and the backlog of risk assessments cleared, the new probation providers will be hampered “considerably” in their efforts to provide a better through-the-gate service and reduce reoffending.
