The Centre for Social Justice, the right-leaning Think Tank founded by Iain Duncan Smith in 2004, yesterday became the latest organisation to urge the government to make digital technology accessible to people in prison. The Centre’s new report, “Digital technology in prisons: unlocking relationships, learning and skills in UK prisons”… Work with Offenders on a new report from the Centre for Social Justice...
As most readers will know, the probation service will be reunified this June when the contracts of the 21 private Community Rehabilitation Companies will be terminated and all sentence management responsibilities will go to the National Probation Service (NPS). This means that, from June 2021, the NPS will be responsible… Work with Offenders looks at the latest briefing from the Centre for Justice Innovation...
Agenda and the Standing Committee for Youth Justice (SCYJ) today published a new literature review as part of their Young Women’s Justice Project which shines a light on the experiences of young women aged 17–25 years old in contact with the criminal justice system, including the experiences of girls transitioning… Work with Offenders looks at evidence from a new literature review...
Very many years ago when I was training to be a probation officer (to give you some idea of how far back in history we are talking about, one of my first cases was the post-release supervision of Cain for that well-known offence against his brother), deferred sentences were common… Work with Offenders examines a new briefing from the Centre for Justice Innovation...
Last week the Domestic Abuse Bill returned to the House of Lords where a coalition of the current and previous Victims’ Commissioners, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner and a number of women’s and victims’ groups succeeded in getting an amendment accepted which will create a new stand-alone offence of non-fatal strangulation… Work with offenders looks at a successful campaign by women’s & victims’ groups...
2021 is set to be a big year for probation and everyone that works in it. As regular readers will know, the Ministry of Justice has finally abandoned its plan to part-privatise the probation service under its Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) programme and the 21 private Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) will… Work with Offenders looks at new government plans to outsource probation training...
On December 18 the Justice Secretary Robert Buckland announced a new review intended to provide better support for people who have a range of neurodivergent conditions (such as autism, ADHD and dyslexia) and come into contact with the criminal justice system. Neurodivergent offenders often have speech and language needs which… Work with Offenders looks at a new MOJ initiative...
When the COVID-19 pandemic first struck, a coalition of penal reform charities, criminal justice commentators and all those concerned with the health and well-being of our prisoners called for a swift reduction in our prison population. There was agreement that prison conditions, with a minimum of 15,000 people in prison… Work with Offenders looks at a renewed risk to people in prison from COVID...
Last week the Ministry of Justice published new plans to strengthen the supervision and monitoring of convicted terrorists and others who pose a terror risk following an independent review carried out by Jonathan Hall QC which resulted in a 66 page report. The review acknowledged that well-established processes were already… Work with offenders looks at new specialist MAPPA guidance...
The quarterly criminal court statistics published jointly by the Ministry of Justice and the Office for National Statistics tell an interesting story. On the one hand, they chart renewed activity in our criminal courts following the initial lockdown restrictions earlier in the year, on the other, it is clear that,… Work with Offenders takes a close look at yesterday’s criminal court statistics...