So, coming hard on the heels of emergency prison releases and Operation Safeguard, according to this Criminal Law Solicitors' Association press release yesterday, we now have Operation Early Dawn:-
We have been informed this evening that the Lord Chancellor is triggering an emergency measure, Operation Early Dawn, to deal with the worsening problem of the prison population. Details are somewhat lacking but it appears to be an extension of early release and other measures, but there is a particular measure affecting Magistrates’ courts in England (but not Wales at the moment).
From tomorrow (Wednesday 15th May) many Magistrates Court cases will be delayed, the cause being a triage process for defendants being transferred from police custody suites to the Magistrates’ Courts and then likely to be transferred to prison. We understand SERCO will do the triage and priority will be given to defendants in the most serious cases.
The Ministry of Justice confirmed that defendants who are not prioritised will be released on police bail. The Ministry of Justice also said that it is expected to have some impact on defendants already on police bail, but cannot say to what degree.
Regrettably practitioners will not know if their clients’ cases will be effected and delayed for sure until they arrive.
We are awaiting further information regarding legal aid and wasted costs.
Details are at this stage lacking and we do not have specific details on which courts other than it is an England-wide policy. We must therefore assume it will have an impact of every Magistrates’ Court in England. Although similar policies have been used regionally before to our knowledge this is the first time it has been deployed on such a wide basis.
Members may wish to await confirmation their client will be in court before attending where possible to avoid wasted trips and extended waiting at court at a time when the criminal legal aid sector lacks the capacity to deal with increased volumes of work as a result of decades of underfunding.
We are appalled of the state of our Criminal Justice System and have been campaigning on this from our inception and whilst we recognise the need for some action, this is a symptom of a systemic problem caused by more than 40 years of neglect of our Criminal Justice System.
We remain deeply concerned about the future, or lack thereof, for the legal aid sector and call on the government to not only deliver in full on the recommendations of the Criminal Legal Aid Independent Review, but go further and invest much needed resources not only into Legal Aid but the wider CJS as a matter of urgency to save our once world-leading Criminal Justice System.
BBC website:-
ReplyDeleteSome court appearances will be delayed as part of an emergency measure because of prison overcrowding.
The aim is to better manage the flow of cases through magistrates' courts, the custody service and prisons in England.
Courts in areas with a lack of prison places will be affected for around a week.
A solicitors' group said many magistrates' court cases will be affected as officials decide which defendants will be prioritised.
The move is called Operation Early Dawn and began on Wednesday morning.
Separately, about 400 police cells are available for prison overflow as part of Operation Safeguarding, with about 200 police cells currently in use.
In addition from next week, some prisoners will be released 70 days earlier than originally planned. This is going up from 35 days, having previously been 18 days.
The operation means some defendants may have to remain in a police cell for extra nights before there is capacity to take them to a magistrates' court, and then on to an available prison cell.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman admitted magistrates and police were notified late last night due to extreme pressure on the prison system, although he said there was a lot of movement in and out of prisons.
When asked whether any defendants would be bailed as a result, he said that would be a police decision based on risk.
He told the BBC: "To manage this demand we have brought on thousands of extra places at pace and will introduce strategic oversight of the transfer of remanded offenders from police custody to magistrate courts to maintain the running of the justice system.
"This government is categorical that dangerous offenders should stay behind bars, which is why new laws will keep rapists locked up for every day of their prison sentence and ensure life means life for the most horrific murderers."
Tom Franklin, chief executive of the Magistrates' Association, said they were "very concerned about these further delays".
He said: "Every case that is delayed has real-life consequences for victims, witnesses and defendants - and leads to magistrates and court staff sitting around waiting, rather than administering justice.
"That is a waste of resources, at a time when there are already large backlogs."
Law Society of England and Wales president Nick Emmerson said they had asked the Ministry of Justice for more information "to understand the full implications of this emergency measure".
'Victims, witnesses, defendants and lawyers will today turn up at magistrates' courts across England only to find out that their cases have been delayed due to a crisis in prison and police cell capacity outside of their control," he said.
"As of now, we understand that this pattern will be repeated every day that this emergency measure is in place.
"What is crystal clear is the prison spaces crisis is a consequence of the government's approach to justice including over a decade of underfunding of our criminal justice system, which also sees chronic shortages of judges and lawyers, huge backlogs of cases and crumbling courts."
Government officials say the pandemic is partly to blame, because it led to an increase in the number of people being held in prisons for longer, awaiting jury trial.
Using the mechanism being activated on Wednesday morning is not unprecedented, but it is acknowledged by those in government to be a significant move in response to a difficult situation.
The operation was previously triggered in the north of England for a week at the beginning of March.
Sunak, either you are an abject lyer or your civil.servants are feeding you bullshit. I can tell you now that high risk prisoners have definitely been released early because one of my cases was released early despite being high risk of domestic abuse, knife crime, risk to children and known adult etc. A prolific offender and history of non compliance. Well.i argued and argued the case but seemed I had no choice, basically he was released despite my statement it was unsafe and could not be safely managed in the community. I was bullied and coerced basically. I want this fed back to Sunak and also to Kier Starmer because people are lying here and the public have a right to know. The system us not fit for purpose and needs root and branch reform.
ReplyDeleteThese policies aren't going to solve anything unless they have some plan to drastically reduce the number of people being sent to prison in the first place.
ReplyDeleteDelaying court cases will only mean that every place freed up by releasing prisoners early will already be booked up by those awaiting sentence.
They'll just stumble on, create more chaos until after the election and then it will be someone else's problem.
'Getafix
Responding to Operation Early Dawn, Tom Franklin, the Chief Executive of the Magistrates’ Association, said:
ReplyDelete“We have seen the reports that the Lord Chancellor is implementing an emergency measure, Operation Early Dawn, to deal with prison overcrowding by delaying the cases in magistrates’ courts.”
“We are very concerned about these further delays being imposed on cases reaching magistrates’ courts. Every case that is delayed has real-life consequences for victims, witnesses and defendants – and leads to magistrates and court staff sitting around waiting, rather than administering justice. That is a waste of resources, at a time when there are already large backlogs.
“It demonstrates the parlous state of the criminal justice system and the need for an injection of more resources at every stage of the justice process.
“It is also alarming that the amount of information on this is scant. Neither the Magistrates’ Association nor magistrates have been informed about this.”
“We are urgently seeking further information from the Ministry of Justice and HM Courts and Tribunals Service, and will update our members in due course.”
Absolute chaos. The pushback is all about the risk to the public, its also absolutely awful for people awaiting court hearings, people getting chucked out of prison with no release plans, and in some cases, accommodation. Absolute chaos, I reckon nobody is making any real decisions, they are just staggering along waiting for a general election. Which could be as late as next January.
ReplyDeleteIs it simply that the prisons are full or that they don't have sufficient staff including prison officers because so many leaving, often soon after being trained and simply cannot replace them faster than they are leaving? I suspect both and also suspect some prisons may have had to close wings because they have been deemed unfit/unsafe for human habitation. This government are hiding the true extent of the situation but hey, 'tough on crime,tough on the causes of crime'
ReplyDeletehttps://www.progressivebritain.org/the-dire-state-of-uk-prisons-puts-us-all-in-danger/
Delete1. Reduce the prison population to reduce crime
DeleteGood relationships are absolutely key to humane prisons that release citizens with something to contribute from their gates. The current staffing ratios make this near impossible. Rather than building new prison places, at a cost to the tax payer, the population could be modestly, safely reduced, which would also ease overcrowding and alleviate squalid living conditions. It currently costs around £48,000 per prisoner per year. Straightforward ways to reduce the prison population include: reviewing all prisoners on no-longer-used Indeterminate Public Protection (IPP) sentences. This may sound scary, but just last week an article revealed one IPP prisoner was jailed in 2012 for phone theft. There are currently almost 3000 IPP prisoners. For lower threshold crimes, courts could make greater use of robust community sentences – the Ministry of Justice’s own evidence demonstrates they outperform custodial sentences, cost a fraction of incarceration and avoid exposure to criminogenic prisons. A bolder move, which made progress under David Gauke’s tenure as justice secretary, would be to abolish short prison sentences (less than three or six months). This would prevent extreme revolving door cases (seven days in, out, another seven days in) taking up staff time and capacity, whilst being too short to deliver meaningful interventions.
2. Care for staff to improve prison safety
The high staff attrition and sickness rates tell their own story. A reduced prison population would ease stress on staff and create some much needed margin in the system. Staff pay should be benchmarked against those in comparable frontline roles like police and firefighters. Those in prison healthcare should be offered financial incentivisation to work in prisons, so staff aren’t haemorrhaged to home counties hospitals. Prison healthcare should become a core part of nurse and medic training, as well as a core specialism available for rotation to junior doctors and nurse trainees.
3. Implement the Lammy review
There are 35 excellent recommendations from one of our own, ready to roll, to address the systemic racism in the system that results in the over-representation of people of colour in prisons.
4. Greater use of restorative justice
Taking a restorative justice approach benefits victims and reduces the frequency of reoffending by 14%. Restorative Justice Council and Victim Support analysis showed that using restorative justice in 70,000 cases involving adult offenders would mean £185 million savings to the criminal justice system over two years, through reductions in reoffending alone.
Prisons and those living and working in them need our attention. Our Labour values of fairness, justice, equality and opportunity demand we stand in solidarity with all those affected by our broken system. We must work collectively to improve all public services, to enable the change our communities so desperately need and ensure the safety of us all.
Where’s Alex Chalk in all this? He seems to have disappeared. Where are senior HMPPS leaders? They should be out there giving the real story to the public not sat in Petty France hiding behind civil servants.
ReplyDeleteProbation service, prison service, courts service, what a mess. Ministry of Justice, no it’s Ministry of Injustice. Sunak, Chalk, Rees, they couldn’t have manufactured a bigger shambles.
ReplyDelete23rd May. Can Probation Keep us Safe. Panorama. Advertised on the BBC. Is this about all the SFOs?
ReplyDeleteCan Probation Keep Us Safe?
DeletePanorama May 23rd 9.00pm
When dangerous criminals leave prison, the Probation Service should monitor them and keep the public safe. But is it up to the job? As convicted criminals across England and Wales are released from prison early to tackle chronic overcrowding, Panorama investigates the Probation Service and asks if it's doing enough to manage high-risk prisoners. Serving probation officers warn that their caseloads are putting public safety at risk, and families whose loved ones have been murdered by convicted criminals on probation ask why the system failed them.
Ian Lawrence of Napo just on the news. He spoke about early release and the court operation. Didn’t mention the Probation Service or Probation Reset even once. Doesn’t he realise that when he says “our members” every 5 seconds nobody knows who “our members” are. I’m glad I don’t pay subscription to this failed union.
ReplyDeleteThe whole thing is total bollocks. Ok HMPPS bigwigs oversee the decision but when did they last listen to those of us supervising cases ? You know the people who know the cases inside out and go home at night worrying ? They make a purely political policy decision and we are the ones in the firing line when it goes wrong. And SERCO doing the screening - laughable - better off picking names out of a hat.
ReplyDeleteNo-one gives a flying fuck about the justice system until their daughter/son/grandchild/partner/parent is raped, killed or otherwise abused. Or maybe until a tree is cut down.
ReplyDeleteUK under the tories means:
Probation? What? Who? Why?
Prison? Just means you've been caught & put before a shit bench/judge
Dom Violence/Abuse, child abuse, violence against women? Can't be helped, can it? Its just how real men act & pathetic wimps can't cope.
Rape? There aint no victims, just stupid lasses & irresistible men.
Opposition? uh...?
An early morning footnote.
ReplyDeleteProbation, prison, criminal justice is once more in the limelight and people who make documentaries and write articles read the testimony on this blog. If you want to help politicians have the bottle to sort this unholy mess out, think about contributing your thoughts and experiences here. I'm always interested in publishing longer, reflective guest blogs. Anonymity guaranteed.
--oo00oo--
Can Probation Keep Us Safe?
BBC 1 Panorama May 23rd 9.00pm
When dangerous criminals leave prison, the Probation Service should monitor them and keep the public safe. But is it up to the job? As convicted criminals across England and Wales are released from prison early to tackle chronic overcrowding, Panorama investigates the Probation Service and asks if it's doing enough to manage high-risk prisoners. Serving probation officers warn that their caseloads are putting public safety at risk, and families whose loved ones have been murdered by convicted criminals on probation ask why the system failed them.