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Michael Gove says public prisons can succeed
Justice Secretary says autonomy for prison governors is critical to successful penal reform and that he has no plans for privatisation.

Deaths from legal highs
There has been a marked rise in the number of deaths connected to ‘legal highs’ between 2011 and 2013, when they more than tripled from seven to 23. These trends should be interpreted with caution as they are based on very small numbers.

Why do we always think crime is rising?
But the interesting part of the story is that even after crime had been falling steadily for over 15 – 20 years, just 1 in 5 American or English people thought this was the case with only 4% Japanese believing that public safety had improved.

Payment by Results and international aid
Oxfam and the other agencies are working in very challenging circumstances and won’t receive full payment unless they hit their targets on time. This makes realistic pricing very tricky and raises the key ethical issue of how much risk to pass on to local implementing partners; or, if none, how to ensure their motivation.

What does a good prison look like?
Excellent new discussion paper from Clinks looks to develop a constructive dialogue about how our soon-to-be-reformed prison system should look.

Limited competition for new probation market
The third post in my series on the National Audit Office Transforming Rehabilitation report reveals there was limited competition for new probation market.
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Russell has over 20 years’ experience as a researcher and consultant specialising in substance misuse and crime.
Prison, probation, police, substance misuse, commissioning & payment by results.
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