Charity to provide essential services to prison leavers released on Friday

The new initiative will provide essential support services to leavers from two prisons in Yorkshire who are released on a Friday and who otherwise would face a lack in support across their first weekend in the community.  The charity has formed partnerships for the project with BME service provider Touchstone,… St Giles’ Trust, along with their project partners, has been awarded £456,558.30 for the initiative from the Ministry of Justice through the Prison Leavers Project. ...

Terrorism in prisons

The Ministry of Justice has published a report on Terrorism in Prison by Jonathan Hall QC, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation and its own response to the report. Mr Hall starts by reminding us that prisons are not cut off from the rest of the world or from each… Work with offenders on the report by Jonathan Hall and the Government’s response...

Court capacity 'an endemic issue'

The Justice Committee has called on the Government to do more to tackle the lengthy backlog facing the court system in a new report.   The Committee, chaired by Sir Bob Neill,  warns that while innovations in the court system are welcome it will require strategic planning and long-term resourcing… Work with offenders on this week’s Justice Committee report...

Prisons make women’s health worse not better

Prisons are unable to address the physical and mental health needs of women and in fact make them worse. That’s the rather demoralising conclusion of the first report to come out of an inquiry undertaken by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Women in the Penal System (APPG) and published… Work with offenders on a new parliamentary report...

Centres to keep terrorist offenders away from other prisoners

There are currently three Separation Centres in the Prison Estate, with a total capacity of 28 prisoners. The first was opened in June 2017, but a review published today has found that the use of them has “never fully taken off”.  The review, conducted by Jonathan Hall, QC – the… The most influential and dangerous terrorists will be placed in specialist units in a bid to prevent radicalisation. ...

What's happening to the prison population?

Something odd is happening in prisons. As readers will know, the prison population dropped considerably over the lockdown period for obvious reasons; lockdown meant less opportunity for many crimes and the courts weren’t sitting and so couldn’t sentence people to custody. There were 83,654 people in prison at the end… Work with offenders investigates the biggest drop in prison numbers for a generation....

The Centre for Justice Innovation

This is the sixth in our occasional series on key independent organisations operating within the criminal justice sector. The Centre for Justice Innovation is a UK spin-off of the Center for Court Innovation, a not-for-profit in New York that has been at the vanguard of justice reform in the US… Work with offenders profiles a charity dedicated to new ideas in the justice system....

Interpreting in the Criminal Justice System: the row over qualifications

Interpreters are a vital part of the Criminal Justice System, and a defendant’s right to have an interpreter is protected by the European Convention on Human Rights. In 2000, seven-year-old Victoria Climbié, from the Cote d’Ivoire had been interviewed by police and social services prior to her death. Language mediation… Currently, minimum qualification requirements needed to be an interpreter in court differ from those needed to interpret for the police. ...

Reoffending projects given government funding

Eleven new projects will be supported by the £20 million initiative, which itself comes from the £220 million package aimed at reducing crime. The Prison Leavers Project has been split into three different approaches; cross-sector teams, Local Leadership and Integration Fund and Prison Leavers Innovation Challenge. The 11 pilot projects… The Prison Leavers Project is a cross-government project that works to improve the re-integration of prison leavers back into society. ...

Government not doing enough to tackle fall in rape prosecutions

The House of Commons Home Affairs Committee has today published its report into the collapse in rape prosecutions over recent years. While the Committee welcomes the work being done by the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to try to reverse what it calls a “precipitous” fall in prosecutions over… Work with offenders on today’s report by the Home Affairs Committee...