How Not To Fix A Crisis

I've come at this a bit late in the day due to being engaged with a conference, but here's the widely trailed government statement on the prison crisis, together with some responses, starting with the Howard League:-

The Howard League for Penal Reform has responded to the government statement on prison overcrowding and sentencing reform, announced today (Monday 16 October).

Andrea Coomber KC (Hon.), Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “Two-thirds of prisons in England and Wales are overcrowded, so it makes sense to introduce targeted early release and limit the use of short sentences, particularly as the Ministry of Justice’s own research has proven they are ineffective.

“The government is right to prioritise using prison space for people who have committed serious and violent crimes, but the plan to keep those convicted of rape behind bars for their entire sentence raises concerns – especially if it means that they will be released without any form of probation supervision.

“We welcome any move to reduce the prison population and ensure that prisons can be safe and purposeful places where people get support to move away from crime. The Secretary of State’s announcement should signal a new approach to making sure imprisonment is used as effectively and humanely as possible.”

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Rob Allen highlights several issues here:-

Prison Capacity: Two Oddities

Lots of historical precedents for Alex Chalk’s policy manoeuvrings today. William Whitelaw introducing short sharp shock detention centres to offset more generous parole arrangements came to my mind. And two oddities in Chalk's speech have stuck there.

First his totally false claim that the reason the prison population is nearly double the level it was three decades ago “is not principally because of the growth in the sentenced population”.

The Ministry of Justice wrote three years ago that “virtually all of the prison population increase since 1993 has been due to the increased number of prisoners sentenced to immediate custody.”

I’m genuinely puzzled why Chalk either doesn’t know this or if he does why he would wish to mislead Parliament about it. And why civil servants would allow him to say something which is factually untrue.

Second his wheeze on early release. He told MPs he’s decided to use the power in section 248 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 to allow the Prison Service to move some less serious offenders out of prison on to licence up to 18 days before their automatic release date. This section allows the Secretary of State to release a fixed-term prisoner on licence if he is satisfied that exceptional circumstances exist which justify the prisoner’s release on compassionate grounds. Explanatory notes say that the kind of exceptional circumstances are where the prisoner is suffering from a terminal illness.

I wonder if it’s even lawful to use the power in the way he now wants to.

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The Probation Institute speaks up:- 

Statement from the Probation Institute

The Criminal Justice System is in crisis and currently there are record numbers in prison with capacity about to be exceeded. We share the aspirations to reserve prison for the most serious offenders and to use community sentences wherever possible. However, the current proposals to release some prisoners early and to increase courts' use of community sentences, give us cause for concern. Temporarily solving one problem in the system (prison overcrowding), runs the risk of pushing the problem on to another under-resourced agency - the Probation Service - that is already struggling. Probation workloads are too high and HM Inspectorate of Probation reports have drawn attention to issues of inadequate staffing and poor levels of performance because of this, most notably in managing public protection. The evidence suggests that Probation supervision can be very effective when properly resourced.

We take the view that the problems of prison overcrowding will not be solved until a fundamental review takes place, examining the Criminal Justice System as a whole and the way different parts of the system interact. Fundamentally, there needs to be a rational debate about the place of prison and community sentences within our society, if not a Royal Commission.

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Finally, this Editorial from the Guardian:-

The Guardian view on probation: the service has not recovered from a privatisation disaster

To ease the prisons crisis, improved management of offenders in the community is essential

The crisis in English and Welsh prisons is, reportedly, so acute that judges have been told to hold off jailing anyone else for the moment. The total number of prisoners last week reached an all-time high of 88,225, as reports on the malign effects of overcrowding, staff shortages, violence and self-harm continue to pile up. To relieve the pressure, the justice secretary, Alex Chalk, will allow more people to leave prison early and not send people to prison if their sentence is less than 12 months. Instead, Mr Chalk told MPs such “offenders will be punished in the community”. All this, however, seems to shift the problem from jails to the probation service, which is in an equally dire situation.

Probation was briefly a cause célèbre in 2021 when the partial privatisation overseen by Chris Grayling, in his disastrous tenure as justice secretary, was reversed. But while opponents of outsourcing were proved right when contractors failed to live up to expectations, the hoped-for improvement when the work was brought back in-house has not materialised. Last month’s annual report by the chief inspector, Justin Russell, was the last of his four-year term. In measured language, and while making an effort to highlight good practice, it delivered the grim message that the service has “if anything got worse”.

In the first three months of this year almost 7,000 people were recalled to prison, contributing significantly to overcrowding. The vast majority had not reoffended, but had broken one of their release conditions. These can include rules on drugs and alcohol, and keeping in touch with a supervisor. Inspection reports show that the proportion of probationers whose needs are met by the service has declined since 2021’s changes – making the recall figures unsurprising.

The lack of senior people, many of whom left when the service was privatised, is not helping. Currently the service is 1,700 officers short of its target of 6,160, with unmanageable caseloads contributing to high rates of sickness and poor staff retention. The return to challenging face-to-face work after the pandemic also caused difficulties. Like most public services, probation needs to be properly funded.

Mr Russell reserved his most serious criticism for grave failures in public protection. Last week saw the opening of the inquest into the deaths of Terri Harris and three children, who were murdered by Damien Bendall in 2022. He was on probation at the time and wrongly assessed as low/medium risk. The threat posed by Jordan McSweeney, who murdered Zara Aleena in east London last year, was similarly underestimated. Her family have been reported to be considering legal action.

But such catastrophic failures in individual cases point to deeper problems. The merging of probation with prisons looks like an error, with evidence that offender management works better when handled locally. This is how the system works in Scotland, and in English and Welsh youth justice teams – which achieve better outcomes. Devolving power would be a major U-turn: probation is now an entirely national service, having been once locally run and funded. Further integration with prisons is being planned. This should be paused, as unions are demanding. Mr Russell’s proposal for a review by someone outside the existing structure, and a reconsideration of whether the probation service would be better off if it had more independence, is a good one. The current situation is unsustainable, and fresh thinking is urgently required.