2015 round up
It’s been an extremely eventful year in the criminal justice system. While some things could have been predicted last New Year’s Eve, there were many others that certainly couldn’t have been.
Here are some of the most significant events and trends of the year.
Some things went up
A lot of things were on the increase in 2015.
Some of these were positive:
- Restorative justice became increasingly integrated into every stage of the justice system and the annual RJ week had much positive progress to report.
- The range of online recovery resources continued to grow
- Meaningful involvement of service users in treatment services finally started to become commonplace
Others much less so:
- Levels of violence in prison soared, partly attributable to
- The increase in the use of legal highs inside
- Deaths involving heroin were up by two thirds in two years
- Hate crime was also up 18% (although some of this might be related to police forces taking it more seriously)
Some things went down
At the same time, many other things were on the wane.
We were able to celebrate:
- The continuing fall in crime rates
- A big reduction in the amount of alcohol that young people consume
- A drop in the number of people going through the criminal justice system
- A substantial reduction in the number of people stopped and searched
Much less heartening were the:
- Big reductions in the numbers of probation officers in the new Community Rehabilitation Companies
- The big drop in the prison and probation budget
Some things went round and round
Other things didn’t have such a definite trajectory:
- Payment by results continued to attract widespread criticism while the number of public services commissioned by PbR kept increasing
- The Home Secretary, Theresa May, spent most of 2015 telling the police that their budgets were going to be heavily cut, before George Osborne announced in the spending review that they would be untouched.
- And almost everything that Justice Secretary Chris Grayling did (limit books for prisoners, plan to introduce secure colleges for young offenders, provide consultancy for Saudi Arabia and introduce the criminal courts charge), his successor Michael Gove subsequently undid.
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And finally
Such a confusing mix of progress and decline makes 2016 very difficult to predict.
Will the continued reductions in public finances spell disaster for prisons and probation?
Or
Will Michael Gove make real progress on his promised prison reform?
I certainly don’t pretend to know the answer but I hope you will keep visiting this blog to follow the latest developments in drugs, crime and PbR.
One Response
Dead certs – CRC’s will continue to make a mess of probation, moan to MOJ regarding budget falls and Lower than expected WAV’s.
– More probation staff will be made unemployed
– More fudging of figures and targets in CRC
– More PR spin about TR being a success until someone sensible see it for the car crash it is.