Prisons and prevention
New IPPR report advocates devolving responsibility for low level offenders to local authorities and City mayors. But do we need another probation service?
27th January 2016
Here you can find over 750 posts tracking every major development in our prisons since 2011. You can read prison safety statistics, find out about prison reform plans and (often lack of progress), positive developments and abject failures. If you’re looking for something in particular, try the search box below.
New IPPR report advocates devolving responsibility for low level offenders to local authorities and City mayors. But do we need another probation service?
We know that employment is key to desistance from crime, surely the Prison Service should be doing everything it can to help prisoners reintegrate into the community and go straight?
With the closure of some Mother and Baby Units and others under threat, the future for mothers and babies in prison is uncertain and the options for many women in prison, particularly those serving longer sentences, to keep their families together remain extremely limited.
Segregation units and close supervision centres are complex places, where some of the prison’s most challenging individuals are confined alongside some of its most vulnerable people, within a small, enclosed space.
Synthetic cannabis in prison such a major problem that inspectors recommend the Prisons Minister oversees a comprehensive response
Most commentators agree that the rise in adjudications is linked to the increasing levels of violence reported in most prisons over the last two years by the official prison inspectors.
Prisons are an emotive subject and when the spotlight is on prison reform as it is now with new Justice Secretary Michael Gove’s emerging plans, it’s invaluable to be able to check your facts.
In the first few days of imprisonment, prisoners are particularly vulnerable and the risk of suicide is high during this time.
Once Michael Gove publishes more details of the nine new prisons he intends to build and we know for sure that they will be PFI, we can start testing out the Chancellor’s claim that the prison estate will be £80 million a year cheaper to run.
Two thirds of women in prisons in the USA are women of color and the situation is getting worse.
While there are clear advantages to inspectors having an outsider’s view and a fresh perspective on the service they are responsible for, they are also vulnerable to accusations of not understanding the context in which they are working.
Our history shows that when new prisons are built, they are too frequently filled with more prisoners while old prisons are not decommissioned at all.
