HM Chief Inspector of prisons has issued an Urgent Notification to the Secretary of State for Justice, demanding immediate action to improve the conditions in which children are being held at Cookham Wood Young Offenders Institution in Kent. What is an Urgent Notification? The Urgent Notification (UN) protocol requires the… Chief prison inspector demands urgent action after finding boys kept in solitary confinement...
Yesterday the Howard League’s Commission on Crime and Gambling Related Harms published its final report. The report calls for a “greater central drive” from the Home Office and Ministry of Justice, together with more funding to be provided locally and regionally, to develop a treatment and support infrastructure through the police,… The Commission recommends the creation of a national board to address crime linked to gambling – including senior representatives from the police...
Through this project a unique group of young adults were formed with lived experience of the justice system and care system, to become policy advisors and advocates for lived experience voices and change at the national level. The group has published a range of resources created by teams of young… The Young Justice Advisors was created in 2016 with funding from the Barrow Cadbury Trust by Leaders Unlocked. ...
This new research is based primarily on interviews with 30 women veterans aged between 38 and 67 years old. The women interviewed for this research had very different experiences of service life. Some found military service to have been a very positive experience and their difficulties only started when they left,… A new report from Salute Her UK and Forward Assists shines a light on the hitherto hidden population of women veterans in contact with the criminal justice system. ...
Domestic abuse is a pervasive problem in the UK, with an estimated 1.6 million women and 786,000 men experiencing domestic abuse in the past year alone[1]. Unfortunately, there are many myths surrounding domestic abuse that can prevent victims from seeking help or getting the support they need. Here are common… Anjum Mouj continues a series of articles on domestic abuse by looking at more than 20 common myths about the issue ...
A report from the Nuffield Trust “Living (and dying) as an older person in prison” sets out to understand the biggest health care challenges for our ageing prisoner population. The report analyses admitted patient care data and outpatient data from 2019/20 to examine how people in prison aged 50 or… The number of older people in prison has grown disproportionately over recent years according to a report from the Nuffield Trust...
The National Preventive Mechanism is the network of independent bodies that have responsibility for preventing ill-treatment in detention. In every jurisdiction of the UK –Northern Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales – the bodies in this network have the job of inspecting or monitoring every place of detention with the aim of… The UK’s National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) published its 13th annual report (covering the financial year 2021/22) in which it describes the crises of staffing, under-funding and slow COVID recovery ...
Most weeks His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons publishes reports on the state of individual prisons across England and Wales. Since the pandemic, almost all of these inspections have been severely critical of the standard of care provided to people incarcerated. Chronic staff shortages are the main (but certainly not the… Two inspection reports into the Long Lartin and Whitemoor maximum security prisons plumb new lows....
Today’s (5 April 2023) report from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation into weekends in prison says that purposeful activity in prisons – that is access to education, employment, exercise or time out of cell to take part in meaningful activity – has never been as bad as it is now,… The inspectors found that the high levels of lock-up reported during the week continue in the weekend and, in most cases, were much worse....
Section 28 (s.28) of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act (YJCEA) 1999 allowed eligible witnesses to pre-record their cross-examination or re-examination before the trial. It was intended that the s.28 recording can be presented during the trial without the witness needing to attend and experience fear or distress about… The Ministry of Justice has today published new research evaluating the use of pre-recorded cross examination (Section 28) for intimidated witnesses....