In its report the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee says the Ministry of Justice’s “meagre ambition” to reduce the Crown Court case backlog – which has nearly doubled since March 2019, to 59,928 – by “less than 8,000 by March 2025” is “unlikely to address unacceptable delays to justice… Work with offenders on the Public Accounts Committee report which revealed a 340% increase in the Crown Court backlog ...
A new pilot launched at family courts in North Wales and Dorset aims to improve information sharing between agencies such as the police, local authorities and the courts. The pilot is known as Integrated Domestic Abuse Courts and follows a review of Family Courts which found that an adversarial process… Work with offenders on a new family court pilot scheme...
The category C prison, which will be the first of six of its type, is based in Wellington, Northamptonshire. It was opened to inmates last month. Offenders who have made good progress with their sentences and demonstrated that they could be managed with greater levels of freedom will be those… The Justice Secretary has denied claims that a newly designed ‘smart’ prison will be a ‘soft touch.’...
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation has today (2 March 2022) published its annual report entitled “inspections of probation services 2021”. The report includes a survey of 1,534 (one in ten) Probation Service staff, who were asked about their experiences since the unification of the National Probation Service (NPS) and Community… Work with offenders takes a look at the annual report from the probation inspectorate...
Just for Kids Law (JfKL) has published a new briefing paper ‘It’s horrible when they keep you in there at night’, which was launched at a national conference on 21st February. The report considers the overnight detention of children in police custody looking at the latest data and developments on… Work with offenders on a new report from Just for Kids Law...
The latest publication in the probation inspectorate’s “Academic Insights” series will be particularly valuable for people working in the voluntary and community sector with children and young people in contact with the criminal justice system who need to demonstrate their impact to funders and commissioners. Academic Insights are aimed at… Work with offenders on a helpful new framework...
The National Preventive Mechanism published its 12th, and arguably most important, annual report today which looks at the impact of the pandemic on people deprived of their liberty. What is the National Preventive Mechanism? The UK National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) is made up of 21 bodies that monitor and inspect… Work with offenders looks at today’s National Preventive Mechanism annual report...
Workforce figures from Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) portray contrasting pictures of the health of the prison and probation services. The figures provide information on the number of staff employed across HMPPS on 31 December 2021. Prisons There were 22,156 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) band 3-5 prison officers… Work with offenders on the latest HMPPS workforce statistics....
The Ministry of Justice today announced the latest stage in its huge prison expansion programme which aims to create an additional 20,000 modern prison places by the mid-2020s. Justice Secretary Dominic Raab (perhaps the only Justice Secretary never to use his title of office, preferring always to be referred to… Work With Offenders looks at the latest details of new and refurbished prisons....
HM Inspectorate of Prisons has taken the unusual step of publishing a briefing paper “Focus on women’s prisons” alongside a critical inspection report of HMP Foston Hall. The briefing paper reveals both the impact of COVID but also a number of key concerns not related to the pandemic. The inspectorate… Work with offenders on a new briefing from HM Inspectorate of Prisons...