Tags are keywords. I put tags on every post to help you find the content you want. Tags may be people (Dominic Raab, say), organisations (The Howard League, PRT), themes (women offenders, homelessness) or specific items (heroin, racial disparity, ROTL). If you’re looking to research a particular issue, they can be invaluable.
Inspectors concluded that the MCTC was a model custodial institution. The contrast with their’ findings on the state of adult male and young offender institutions could hardly be more stark.
It is hard to imagine a more critical report, but even more concerning was the inspectors’ conclusion that there was very little strategic leadership or expectation that the poor conditions highlighted again in this report would be rectified.
Although it is reassuring to hear that immigration removal centres are basically safe centres where many detainees are well cared for, it is distressing to hear that there is no reliable access to legal advice.
The Chief Inspector again attributed some of the difficulties to cuts in staff numbers. Given the reduction in the number of children in custody, it should be an achievable goal for new Justice Secretary Michael Gove to turn the situation around.
It is notable that women’s prisons, although facing all the problems of having to operate within a male focused system, have largely succeeded in improving the service they provide when conditions in men’s prisons have deteriorated so far, so quickly.
It will be interesting to see whether the appointment of Michael Gove as Justice Secretary will have any impact on this parlous state of affairs. Clearly, the problems are becoming so entrenched that it will be difficult for much positive change to take place if, as is widely feared, the MoJ takes another big hit in the current spending review whose results will be announced in November 2015.
Nevertheless, he is forthright in saying that he shares the conclusion of the Justice Committee in attributing the main cause of this deterioration in the quality of our prisons to the financial cuts and, particularly the large reduction in the numbers of prison staff.
