The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill has been making its way through parliament for the last six months now – it is due for its second reading in the House of Lords next Tuesday 14 September 2021. The Bill The Bill is a huge piece of legislation, its formal… Work with offenders on the second reading of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill...
The Pet Theft Taskforce, established by the Government in May, published its first policy report last week. The Taskforce was established to gather evidence to understand the factors related to the rise in thefts of pets (especially dogs) during the pandemic and to recommend measures to tackle the problem. The… Work with offenders reviews a new report from the pet theft taskforce...
The Ministry of Justice has published new research “Exploring the nature of extremism in three prisons”. The research undertaken by Beverly Powis, Louise Dixon and Jessica Woodhams, sets out to explore the extent and nature of prisoner radicalisation in three high security prisons in England, how the establishments were managing… Work with offenders looks at new Ministry of Justice research...
Last Thursday, the Chief Inspector of Prisons Charlie Taylor, invoked the Urgent Notification (UN) Protocol which enables him to bring significant problems in a jail publicly to the attention of the justice secretary, who is required to respond within 28 days. HMP Chelmsford has joined just five other prisons who… Work with offenders looks at the detail of the latest “urgent notification” issued by the Chief Inspector of Prisons...
The Howard League for Penal Reform has been running a large-scale programme designed to reduce the number of children arrested since 2010. There is a consensus amongst experts that involving children in the criminal justice system should be avoided whenever possible. On the whole, troubled young children need support rather… Work with offenders updates a successful campaign by the Howard League for Penal Reform...
The latest edition of the Ministry of Justice and Office for National Statistics Criminal Justice Statistics quarterly gives a full picture of the impact of the pandemic on our court system. The figures cover the 12 month period ending on 31 March this year and so cover the main periods… Work with offenders looks at the latest published criminal justice statistics...
Further evidence emerged today of the damage done to the probation service by the government’s ill-advised Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) project. A new “thematic” inspection conducted jointly by HM Inspectorate of Probation and Care Quality Commission examined the community-based drug treatment and recovery work with people on probation and described it… Work with offenders looks at a critical new report from probation inspectors...
Last week, the twelve regions in the Probation Service (11 in England and one covering Wales) published their individual Regional Reoffending Plans. Following the reunification of the probation service and the new probation structures that took effect from the end of June 2021, the 12 Regional Probation Directors formally began… Work with offenders looks at the new regional probation strategy documents...
The Sentencing Council for England and Wales was set up in April 2010 to “promote greater transparency and consistency in sentencing, while maintaining the independence of the judiciary”. The main business of the Council is to issue guidelines on sentencing, which the courts must follow unless “it is in the… Work with Offenders looks at three new reports assessing the impact of the Sentencing Council...
In September 2019, the Ministry of Justice decided to pilot flexible operating hours in courts as part of their modernisation programme, or, in official language to look at: “maximising the use of time in specific court and tribunal hearing rooms to support a more flexible, efficient and effective justice system”.… Work with offenders looks at the evaluation of the pilot schemes...