News Roundup 14

Having failed to find a buyer for their secure training facilities, the government seem loathe to take action against G4S despite another alarming inspection report. This from the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies:-

Comment on damning new report on G4S-run Oakhill

The controversial security company G4S should be stripped of its contract to run Oakhill secure training centre, the Director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, Richard Garside, said today, following a damning Ofsted report on the institution. Richard also called for the government to close the three secure training centres – Medway, Oakhill and Rainsbrook – as part of a plan to end the imprisonment of children.

The damning report on Oakhill is only the latest scandal to hit the controversial security company. G4S lost a contract to run the Rainsbrook secure training centre in September 2015, following a critical Ofsted report earlier that year. In July 2016, the management of another G4S-run secure training centre, Medway, was handed over to the Youth Justice Board, after a BBC Panorama programme exposed widespread abuse of the prisoners by G4S staff.

Earlier this month the Justice Minister, Phillip Lee, told the House of Commons Justice Committee that he was satisfied that G4S was fulfilling their contractual obligations at Oakhill. He also told the Committee that G4S was 'passionate about doing a good job at Oakhill' and were 'determined to continue to deliver a service'.

But he told the Committee that he would not rule out forcing the company to surrender its contract to run Oakhill if there was 'any doubt' about G4S' ability to fufil its obligations.

Speaking today, the Centre's director, Richard Garside, said:

"This is the third secure training centre in as many years where G4S has appeared incapable of running safe and secure services for imprisoned children and young people. It concerns me greatly that the Justice Minister, Phillip Lee, told MPs earlier this month that G4S was providing a 'satisfactory' service at Oakhill. This was clearly not the case when he made this statement. He now needs to make good on his commitment to end the G4S contract. Secure training centres are neither secure for the children imprisoned, nor do they prepare children for adult life. The government should end this failed experiment and close all three centres. It would be a fitting legacy if Oakhill, and those other children's prisons, Rainsbrook and Medway, were razed to the ground and something fit for human habitation built in their place."

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According to this in the Law Society Gazette, one wonders how the cash was recently found to pay extra to the failing CRC privateers:-

MoJ reveals massive budget cut as new advice deserts open

The deeply worrying scale of the budgetary pressures bearing down on the Ministry of Justice is laid bare in new figures which will dampen already faint hopes of public funding reform. In a written parliamentary answer, justice minister Dominic Raab revealed that the MoJ will have suffered a cumulative 40% real terms cut in its budget over the fiscal decade ending in 2020.

Current projections show the departmental spending limit will be £5.6bn by 2019/20. In real terms, the comparable budget in 2010/11 was £9.3bn and in the current financial year it stands at £6.4bn. This week’s budget is unlikely to see any change of heart over spending plans, with justice secretary David Lidington confirming to the justice committee last month that his department faces ‘real constraints’ on resources.

He told MPs: ‘I would always welcome being given a crock of gold by the Treasury, but I am conscious too [that] I sit around the table with ministers for departments of health, education, defence and work and pensions – all, like me, could make the argument ‘we could really use some extra money’.

Shadow justice secretary Richard Burgon, whose question prompted Raab’s release of the figures, said cuts on the scale indicated threaten to take the justice sector from ‘repeated crisis to a full-blown emergency’.

The impact of cuts continues to be felt keenly in legal aid, and further evidence has emerged of ‘advice deserts’.

The Legal Aid Agency said last week it had identified an ‘access’ issue for housing and debt services in the Buckinghamshire area. Since last year the agency has had to plug gaps in the provision of housing and debt services in at least seven procurement areas. A Law Society infographic last year showed that nearly a third of legal aid areas had only one solicitor provider who specialised in housing and whose advice was available through legal aid. The agency has also identified access issues for the Blackpool and Preston, and Milton Keynes housing court duty schemes.

The MoJ revealed last week that 36 offices advertising themselves as a law centre withdrew from their legal aid contracts between April 2012 and April 2017. Raab said: ‘The Legal Aid Agency regularly reviews market capacity and accessibility to make sure that there is adequate provision of legal aid around the country, and moves quickly to safeguard provision where gaps may appear.’

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Finally, Penelope Gibbs provides some further evidence as to why video links are damaging to effective practice, especially that of probation:- 

Video links make court into "another virtual experience" - a prisoner speaks

This week is a guest "blog" from a serving prisoner who wrote to me about his experience of video hearings having seen a Guardian article about our report "Defendants on video - conveyor belt justice or a revolution in access". He is serving a sentence for a non-violent offence:

"I am not arguing either against my conviction or punishment, but the way I was convicted and the severity of my sentence were both influenced by the use of video technology.

My first court appearance was via a video link from a police station. I was in shock. I did have a duty solicitor but she was not with me. I knew nothing of "the system" as this was my only offence. I was in one room, the magistrate in one small box on the screen, my solicitor in another. The images were OK but tiny, the sound quality poor and we all waited for one another to speak or tried to do so at the same time. The magistrate kept taking advice from a person I couldn't see, and necessary documents were not available. The whole process was both frustrating and surreal. The outcome was that I was remanded to appear in a couple of weeks.

The second appearance took place without me - I never discovered why! The third appearance was again via video link before which I had 15 minutes to speak to my barrister who I'd never met before. The judge then offered for the next "proper" appearance to be via video link. I believe her intention was to benefit me as she'd been told that many prisoners prefer a video link.

As I was offered the choice, I opted for a personal appearance at which I pleaded guilty. This was not at all a pleasant experience, and it would certainly have been less stressful for me to have simply had 30 minutes out of my cell for a video appearance in a prison room, rather than all day in a court cell for a 20 minute appearance in a real court. Hearing the prosecution listing his understanding of my thoughts and actions, and the judge reiterating them and then condemning me, had an effect no video link would ever have had. From even my brief experience of video links it was clear that I could have convinced myself that this was all merely another virtual experience. It was the real court experience that made me face up to my crime.

My assessment of the virtual court process is that the only people who could benefit are the truly hardened criminals who know the score, have little respect for the system and just want to get the whole thing over and done with. I doubt there are many who really fit this stereotype".

The prisoner has also been forced to communicate with probation on video link.

"It is hard enough to talk about having committed a crime, but when technical inefficiencies and the difficulty trying to establish some sort of rapport with a complete stranger many miles away are added, the whole process becomes almost impossible. Once I had pleaded guilty I was remanded for a pre-sentence report. This again took place over a video link. Naturally I was anxious and had no idea what was expected of me, or of the role of the probation officer. I was in a small room, much like a cell. The probation officer was in a similar room which sounded as if it was in the middle of a building site, with mechanical drills and hammers. Whether it was this noise, a delay in the audio feed, or the lack of clear visual cues, I found myself not knowing when to speak, interrupting her questions and rushing to fit in answers in any available gap. I'm sure I came across as an out of touch, incoherent person. That session was cut short when the officer said my time was up. As a result of this premature end, another session took place but this was a disastrous repeat of the first.

I feel the whole video process introduced a disconnect between me and the probation officer. It made it impossible for me to see her as a real person. One indication of her failure to understand my attitude towards my crime, was that in her report she said I was "in denial". This despite the fact that on arrest I'd admitted everything, given a full and open life history and, of course, pleaded guilty. As a result of this pre-sentence report, produced only from video interview, I was given a much harsher sentence than predicted by my legal team.

Since being sentenced eight months ago I have spoken to my appointed probation officer only once, again by video link. For this one interview I arrived late because of "operational reasons" within the prison, and again the link was ended before she could begin to know me - I certainly don't know her. I understand that it is a foundation of the probation service to "aim to reduce offending by establishing positive relationships with offenders..." I do not see how this can ever be achieved by using a video link with someone you have never met. I fear that the sentence plan my probation officer is producing, my time in prison, and my future on licence and thereafter will be determined by the flawed view she has of me as a result of relying on video technology".

I'm really saddened by this testimony. This prisoner's experience of the criminal justice system has been mediated by video, through no choice of his own. Who knows how typical his experience is? At no point since 2000 have defendants/prisoners been asked their views on video links. To say prisoners prefer them because they are more convenient patronises prisoners (who wouldn't "prefer" not to travel for hours in a disgusting van) and denies the importance of effective participation. Until we know through research how video links really effect participation, we should pause any programme to increase their use. Trust in our justice system is too fragile to risk damaging further.

Penelope Gibbs