Parole Changes Criticised

I see David Gauke has spoken out regarding Raab's parole meddling in this article from the latest edition of InsideTime. Interestingly he does not mention removing the right of probation offering a view regarding progression or release:-  

'Parole reforms are a mistake'

Former Justice Secretary tells Ben Leapman he disagrees with Dominic Raab’s rule-changes

When David Gauke last spoke to Inside Time he was the Justice Secretary in Theresa May’s government, responsible for prisons. Just days after that interview, Boris Johnson took over as Prime Minister and Gauke was out of a job – first quitting the Cabinet, then banished from the Conservative Party. Today he works for a law firm, and is a trustee of the Prison Reform Trust. He spoke exclusively to Ben Leapman.

Since the Tories came to power in 2010 there have been nine Justice Secretaries. It is hard to keep track. David Gauke was in the job for 18 months in 2018 and 2019, with Rory Stewart working under him as Prisons Minister. The pair were on the moderate, One Nation wing of their party, promoting policies which Gauke now describes as “liberalising”; both have since left Parliament.

‘Need to focus on rehabilitation’

Stewart recently called prisons “horrifying and shameful”, “filthy” and “very violent”. That’s quite an admission from a man who was recently in charge of them. Does Gauke agree with his former colleague? He chooses his words carefully. “Conditions are too often below acceptable standards,” he says. “There are immense challenges in terms of drugs, for example. There are prisoners who are locked up for much longer than they should be, and there is a need to focus on rehabilitation. We face significant challenges to a large extent because our prison population is as high as it is, so therefore we have issues of overcrowding. The staff are stretched, even though there are more prison officers than there were, and staff retention is difficult at the moment.”

Struggling to recruit

It is a description which most prisoners would recognise – but it’s not as punchy as what Stewart said, is it? “Well, Rory has a great flair for language,” Gauke smiles. “Essentially, I share Rory’s concerns about where our prison system is, and to be fair, where it has been for some time.”

Most Covid restrictions in prisons were lifted last May, but normal regimes did not restart as hoped, and many prisoners still spend much of their day locked in their cells, rather than in work or education. In large part, this is due to a shortage of prison officers. Why are prisons struggling to recruit and retain staff? Gauke, who was a ‘Remainer’ during the 2016 Brexit referendum, points to that as “a significant contributory factor”. He says: “Clearly Brexit has contributed towards the reduction in the number of workers in this country, and we see that played out in all sorts of areas, in the public sector and the private sector. Prisons are certainly not immune from that.”

More severe sentences

The number of prisoners in England and Wales has climbed by 70 per cent since the 1990s, and the Government recently put police cells on standby because men’s jails are full. As Justice Secretary, Gauke tried to reduce the prison population by abolishing short prison sentences, so that people sentenced to less than six months would serve a community sentence instead of jail time. After he left office, the Government dropped the idea. Gauke still thinks his policy could have helped, but says there is a bigger reason why prisons are overflowing: “I think the unappreciated story here is that sentences have become much more severe in recent years, and that is what is driving the prison population to increase.”

Veto mistake

It is judges who hand down the longer terms – the average tariff on a life sentence rose from around 10 years in 2002, to around 20 years in 2021 – but Gauke believes it is politicians who have driven the tougher approach: “I think that the Sentencing Council, and judges to some extent, respond to the mood music that politicians set, and if Justice Secretaries in particular talk a great deal about tougher sentences, that will be reflected in sentencing behaviour.”

What does Gauke think of the current Justice Secretary, Dominic Raab? He avoids personal criticism, but disagrees with changes Raab has made to the parole system. Following rule-changes last year, far fewer lifers and Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) prisoners are moving to open prisons. Raab now wants to go further by giving himself a veto over Parole Board decisions to release prisoners. “I think moves to increase the role of the Justice Secretary in individual parole decisions are a mistake,” says Gauke. He gives three reasons: “I don’t think these decisions should, as a matter of principle, be politicised … I think that very often society is safer if prisoners, when they’re released, have had time in an open prison to help them reintegrate … And I am sceptical that a Justice Secretary will ever have the time to properly perform that scrutiny role of a large number of decisions.”

Reckless

A decade after the endless IPP sentence was scrapped there are still around 3,000 people in prison serving them. Many senior figures have called for them to be released but successive Justice Secretaries have ducked the issue, and Raab has signalled that he intends to do the same. On this issue, Gauke has sympathy for Raab’s position. “There is an understandable nervousness about radical reform that could put a significant number of people, who the authorities believe are potentially quite dangerous, back into the population at large,” he says. “To be very candid with you, as Justice Secretary I believed I could make more progress on other aspects of the justice system, in trying to liberalise it, than taking measures that I worried could be seen as being reckless.”

Concerning numbers

One reform Gauke did introduce whilst in office was the introduction of PAVA synthetic pepper spray in every male jail. The weapon was issued to prison officers, at the request of the Prison Officers’ Association, despite warnings that it was likely to be used disproportionately against Black prisoners. The first figures have just emerged – and they show that between 2019 and 2022, Black men were seven times more likely to be pepper-sprayed than their White counterparts. So, does Gauke regret his decision? “Clearly those numbers are concerning,” he says. “The view we took was that PAVA spray could be a useful tool in assisting prison officers to maintain order, and that without it either we would see less order in prisons or potentially more damaging methods used. So, I would want to look at this issue in the round, with all the evidence, before jumping to conclusions as to whether it was a mistake or not.”

Taking a broader view of the political scene, Gauke is glad Johnson is no longer in Downing Street. “There are plenty of areas where I would disagree with Rishi Sunak,” he says, “but it strikes me that he is a conscientious and responsible figure, who takes governing seriously – and I think he is the best PM we’ve had for a little while.”

--oo00oo--

But I notice there's more from the Parole Board and Martin Jones writing in the Times on Monday:- 

Dominic Raab’s prison reforms put public at risk, says Parole Board chief

Dominic Raab’s controversial reforms of the Parole Board could put the public at risk from dangerous offenders, the head of the service has warned.

Last year the justice secretary made it significantly harder for inmates to be transferred to open prisons by introducing tough new criteria and also giving himself a veto over each transfer. The changes have led to Raab blocking the transfer of nine in ten of all Parole Board recommendations for an inmate to be moved to an open prison. However, Martin Jones, chief executive of the Parole Board, has warned that the changes make offenders even more of a risk to the public.

Criticising the justice secretary in a rare public intervention, he said open prison conditions were essential because it enabled inmates to be tested under “the controlled conditions of an open prison”. His comments will raise fresh questions about the process of releasing the most dangerous prisoners and come after revelations this month about major failings in the probation service. These led to Jordan McSweeney murdering Zara Aleena nine days after his release from prison, and the quadruple murder carried out by Damien Bendall while also on parole.

Only prisoners serving life sentences or those deemed a danger to the public must be approved by the Parole Board and the Ministry of Justice before being moved to an open prison and they make up about 10 per cent of all prisoners.

In an article as part of a wider report into the state of prisons, Jones has set out evidence to highlight the benefits of moving offenders to open prisons before their release. He writes: “For many years, [the Parole Board] has advised the secretary of state on whether a person serving an indeterminate sentence should progress to an open prison. The published evidence is strong; when a prisoner is afforded a successful period in open conditions it makes the public safer, and increases the chance that the individual can succeed on release by their gradual reintegration back into society.

“So it is hard not to be concerned that the secretary of state since June 2022 has chosen not to accept the board’s advice in a much higher proportion of cases, and his officials have chosen not to take our advice in nearly nine out of every ten cases where we have recommended a progressive move to open conditions.”

In order to gain a transfer to an open prison under the new criteria introduced last year, a prisoner must be assessed as having a low risk of absconding, the period in an open prison must be considered essential for their progression to release and their transfer must not “undermine public confidence in the criminal justice system”. The justice secretary also has the power to block transfers to open prisons even if the individual meets the criteria.

The changes were made after Paul Robson, a sex offender, went on the run from an open prison in Lincolnshire, sparking a major manhunt. Between June and November last year, of 140 inmates the Parole Board recommended for transfer to an open prison, only 14 were accepted by the Ministry of Justice. This 90 per cent rejection rate compares to just 6 per cent of cases that were rejected in the previous 12 months, when only 34 of 549 recommendations by the Parole Board were rejected.

Jones’s article will be published as part of an annual report into the state of jails in England and Wales by the Prison Reform Trust, a charity that seeks to improve prisons.

The report also points to research carried out by the Ministry of Justice in 2018 that found offenders who are released on temporary licence (ROTL), who are overwhelmingly authorised from open prisons, have a positive impact on reducing reoffending rates. This was because the individual was able to build family ties, find stable accommodation and employment before they were released from prison.

Raab has supported a greater use of open prisons for lower-level criminals, who do not need to pass the criteria or gain Parole Board approval before being transferred.

He introduced changes that allowed prisoners serving in them to get access to apprenticeships for the first time to help plug labour shortages. He said the move would provide a “missing link” between the qualifications that prisoners can attain while serving time and getting the crucial experience that they do not currently have access to.

Separately, a governor who runs a category C prison has also criticised Raab’s changes, revealing that the justice secretary had blocked five of his inmates from being transferred to an open prison. He said the men need to be tested in a more open environment telling a private event this month: “They are not ready to be released straight from closed conditions. This is putting people in danger.”

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “Public protection is our number one priority. We make no apology for ensuring dangerous offenders are kept behind bars and toughening up the test they must pass before moving into open prisons. Our reforms stand up for the rights of victims and place public safety at the heart of the parole process.”