There's widespread agreement that with government paralysed by election purdah, the prison overcrowding crisis is getting worse by the day and urgent action is required. This from the PGA yesterday:-
UK prisons play a vital role in keeping the public safe; this is partly achieved by allowing Courts the option of lawfully removing the freedoms and liberty of individuals who pose a risk to society and the overall safety of the State. The PGA believes that within a matter of days prisons across the UK will be full, and this is inevitably going to happen.
The Prison Governors’ Association (PGA) has today taken the unprecedented step of writing directly to the leaders of the main political parties who are competing for votes in the 2024 General Election. In our letter, we alert them to the fact that the public they are seeking support from are being placed at significant risk as the Criminal Justice System (CJS) fails.
As this happens, Courts and the Police will no longer freely and lawfully be able detain offenders; there will literally be no room to ‘lock people up’. Police cells, and Court cells, will quickly fill up with people detained who would normally have been sent to prison. When this happens, it will simply not be possible for the Police to detain any more people, and Courts will no longer be able to ‘send people to prison’. This will put the public at risk, as people who should be in prison are left to roam the streets.
In our letter to party leaders, we are imploring them to listen to our concerns, and immediately take the necessary legislative action required to avert one of the largest disasters about to happen across the CJS; without significant space in prisons the system will fail, the public will be put at risk. We are calling for a significant reduction in the sentenced prisoner population now. To fail to act will bring shame on all those who form the new Parliament and will most importantly put the public at risk.
--oo00oo--
Meanwhile, this extraordinary election campaign continues to make satire redundant. Having spent days stating natural justice required continued support for the two gambling Tory candidates whilst the Gambling Commission carried out their investigation, both were summarily thrown under the bus when it was confirmed the public really do care about ethics in public life after all.
Labour on the other hand were very quick to dump their candidate for betting against himself and apparently intend to return his £100,000 donation in a novel display of probity for a political party and something the public has not witnessed for some time. Discovering that five more police officers have also been to the bookies just serves to confirm my suspicion that 14 years of Tory power has served to spread corruption through much of our public and institutional life, something the public very much care about. I suspect it's this that will prove the deciding factor in this election and not the fake cultural warfare nonsense peddled by Tory supporting papers.
Talking of which, one of the most extraordinary moments for me was watching a five minute video rant from the new leader of Reform, the private company whose majority shareholder is of course the well-known snake oil salesman Nigel Farage. He appeared to be having the greatest difficulty reconciling the notion of truth with that of the Daily Mail, something I've always found to be remarkably straight forward.
He seems to have taken a very dim view of the Mail on Sunday accusing him of being a Putin apologist and a quote supposedly ascribed to Ukrainian President Zelenskiy that he was 'infected by the Putin virus'. Apparently the Daily Mail went further and 'following their contact with the Kremlin' stated he was regarded as an 'ally'. Such is his anger he has instructed Carter Ruck to initiate proceedings against said newspaper apparently.
Of course it would normally be expected that such a posh right wing boy as Farage would enjoy the support of the Mail, but it seems he has upset the owner Lord Rothermere who blames him for much of the woe currently being suffered by the Tory Party. Farage made it clear in his video rant that he finds this grossly unfair and in a lovely historical reference invoked the example of the Zinoviev letter from a century ago. This from Wikipedia:-
The Zinoviev letter was a forged document published and sensationalised by the British Daily Mail newspaper four days before the 1924 United Kingdom general election, which was held on 29 October. The letter purported to be a directive from Grigory Zinoviev, the head of the Communist International (Comintern) in Moscow, to the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), ordering it to engage in seditious activities. It stated that the normalisation of British–Soviet relations under a Labour Party government would radicalise the British working class and put the CPGB in a favourable position to pursue a Bolshevik-style revolution. It further suggested that these effects would extend throughout the British Empire. The right-wing press depicted the letter as a grave foreign subversion of British politics and blamed the incumbent Labour government under Ramsay MacDonald for promoting the policy of political reconciliation and open trade with the Soviet Union on which the scheme appeared to depend. The election resulted in the fall of the first Labour government and a strong victory for the Conservative Party and the continued collapse of the Liberal Party. Labour supporters often blamed the letter, at least in part, for their party's defeat.
The letter was widely taken to be authentic upon publication and for some time afterwards, but historians now agree it was a forgery. The letter perhaps aided the Conservative Party by hastening the ongoing collapse of the Liberal Party vote, which, in turn, produced a Conservative landslide. A. J. P. Taylor argued that the letter's most important impact was on the mindset of Labourites, who for years afterwards blamed foul play for their defeat, thereby misunderstanding the political forces at work and postponing what Taylor regarded as necessary reforms in the Labour Party.
Of course the Daily Mail and its owners have form where the extreme right is concerned and understanding history is often required in order to fully appreciate where and why we are where we are today.. Oh, and of course, it should serve to be a warning.
bbc world service news last night: 1,300 places remain out of the 88,000 in uk prisons... plans are afoot to release prisoners at 40% of sentence without exception & retrospectively.
ReplyDeleteExpect an imminent SFO shitstorm curated over the last 40 years of 'prison works' mantra which will be dumped upon the uk.
The battered & sickly remains of probation will simply collapse in a heap, but ...
... spurr, romeo & many others in moj/hmpps have been generously rewarded for their efforts, so that's okay then.
Put an extra bed in every prison cell. Prison capacity doubled. Problem solved.
ReplyDeleteStrangeways 1989
DeleteBBC website today:-
ReplyDeleteFailures “across multiple agencies” contributed to the death of Zara Aleena, who was raped and murdered as she walked home from a night out in east London, in June 2022, an inquest jury has found.
Jordan McSweeney was jailed for life with a minimum term of 33 years at the Old Bailey for the killing and sexual assault of Ms Aleena.
He had been released from prison on licence nine days before his late-night attack on the 35-year-old law graduate as she walked home in Ilford.
A probation report in January found he was not categorised as a high-risk offender when he should have been.
Ms Aleena died in hospital from a blunt force head injury and neck compression, the inquest jury said.
Area coroner Nadia Persaud paid tribute to Ms Aleena, who died two years ago to the day, and said: “I would like to send my deepest condolences to the family and friends of Zara.”
A video montage of pictures and videos from throughout Ms Aleena’s life was played to East London Coroner’s Court.
McSweeney was handed a life sentence with a minimum term of 38 years at the Old Bailey in December 2022 after admitting Ms Aleena’s murder and sexual assault.
In November 2023, he won a Court of Appeal bid to reduce the minimum term.
Ms Persaud had asked jurors to consider whether any failings by the prison and probation services or Metropolitan Police contributed to Ms Aleena’s death.
Police were unable to make contact with McSweeney after he was released on licence on 17 June 2022, but probation waited five days before initiating his recall to prison.
He missed his probation appointment on the day he was let out, and his mother told staff he had passed out drunk at her house, the inquest heard.
It was rescheduled twice but McSweeney did not attend either appointment, and when officers approached his mother again she said she did not know where he was.
Despite the lack of contact his recall was not initiated until 22 June and the recall report was signed on 24 June.
Police were given powers to arrest McSweeney at 16:10 the same day.
In the early hours of 26 June, McSweeney murdered Ms Aleena.
DeleteHis probation worker, recently qualified Austin Uwaifo, said McSweeney should have been graded high risk and, had he been, he would have pushed for him to have been recalled to prison earlier.
Mr Uwaifo said: “At the time, the thinking was that because he came out on the Friday, my thinking was to give him the opportunity to return - possibly he came out and decided to, for whatever reason, decided to go out and get drunk.”
Mr Uwaifo said the probation office was not staffed over the weekend but that he would have requested a faster out-of-hours emergency recall if McSweeney had been graded high risk.
The inquest was told the police officer who actioned McSweeney’s recall said initial inquiries into his whereabouts were closed prematurely and more checks should have been carried out.
Waiting 5 days to initiate recall is extreme poor practice,. whether high risk or medium. Recall is immediate for anyone who doesn't attend on day of release, unless they were released late by prison..say after 4pm. I'm shocked to be reading this.
ReplyDeleteRIP to Miss Aleena. It seems some good things have come out of this. PQIPS are more protected. They don't do duty for several months whilst undertaking VQ and degree and casework, although this increases the burden on already overworked staff. They do not see high risk cases unless they're co-worked by a qualified PO (not an NQO). Their dissertation is now 4,000 words, not 9,000. This may reduce the amount of people taking the PQIP and then leaving., which may have come about because of this avoidable tragedy and because of PQIP/NQO feedback. It seems that an NOQ's caseload is more staggered now too. Ultimately, with ECSL and HDC and all the other desperate attempts to dump on work on COMs that the prison and MOJ have not worked out what to do about with any success- (several ECSL cases are being recalled), they will end up assimilating into a normalised culture of long hours, anxiety, stress and plate-spinning. Work will be completed and there will be no time to breathe as more work beckons. Some little acorns of progress.
ReplyDeleteI am a PQIP and I was put on Duty after a month, we barely have any experienced POs left to co-work so we are placed with NQOs. We have 20 vacancies for POs in our area. It’s unfortunately getting worse. I’ve worked in probation since before the split, not in offender management and I’ve never seen it this bad, and I thought after the split it couldn’t get any worse, I think all of us PQIPs are having a moral dilemma at the moment.
DeleteI hear you. I'm 5 years in, including the PQIP and I'm just exhausted. It just never seems to end. The most senior probation officers where I work are two years post qualification and this can't be sustained. if it's not the high caseloads, it's other POs cases, your expected to co-work cases (It's a bit much asking us to be PTA facilitators), then we get the non-team players and the mickey takers. They make it all a little bit more draining. Add ECSL (not remotely chosen on the basis of risk) and HDC and this real lack of the human element of Probation Reset: our reset. Not the cases. Which is only being facilitated to reduce resistance to ECSL rather than it being a welfare of staff issue. It's no wonder PQIPS are having a moral dilemma and the 'experienced' staff are burnt out. This will not improve under Labour. It might be a bit more water added to dilute the taste of concentrate but you'll still taste that bitter of lemons.
DeleteFrom Twitter:-
Delete"Give the burnt out experienced staff mentoring or senior practitioner roles then staff retention might be higher!"
https://www.russellwebster.com/prison-service-neglects-race-and-equality-work/
ReplyDeleteAn urgent reprioritisation of equalities and diversity work is needed by the Ministry of Justice and HM Prison and Probation Service according to a new report published by the Prison Reform Trust yesterday (26 June 2024).
DeleteThe report is based on a national consultation, conducted by the Prisoner Policy Network (PPN)—a network of prisoners, ex-prisoners, and supporting organizations hosted by the Prison Reform Trust. It includes contributions from both prisoners and staff and seeks to understand how contributors’ own ethnicity had impacted on their time in prison; and explore their views on racial equality and discrimination in the system.
The PPN engaged with a variety of prisons across England and Wales, conducting in-depth discussion groups with prisoners and interviews with staff. It also received written responses, letters, emails, and conducted one-on-one telephone calls with individuals in the community. Following the conclusion of the prison service’s Race Action Programme earlier this year, the intention of the report is to stimulate positive action with clear recommendations for change.
HM Inspectorate of Prisons has previously highlighted the scale of the challenge that remains in bridging radically different perceptions of the extent of racism in prisons. Black prisoners and staff described examples of persistent race discrimination in their prison, while white staff felt there was very little or none.
Both staff and prisoners stated that training was important if cultural understanding was to be improved, although for some this needed to go beyond typical training programmes and needed to be rethought entirely.
Recommendations included supporting knowledge exchange between officers working in rural, less diverse areas and those working in areas where there is a greater collective and organisational understanding of how to work with people from various ethnic, racial and cultural backgrounds.
There was also a desire for more opportunities for prisoners and staff from various cultural backgrounds to share knowledge and experiences (and food) in a setting that is open and safe for all to participate.
“Being constantly named ‘China man’ by officers definitely didn’t help. People decided to pick on me. I was referred to in public and private as ‘Chinese virus’. When I collected food, people asked if I’d stop breathing and stop spreading coronavirus.”
The report found that in most of the prisons visited staff were concerned that equalities and diversity work did not have sufficient priority. This is despite the work and attention of the HMPPS Race Action Programme in place since late 2020. This is sadly a familiar pattern, where efforts by the prison service to address the persistent evidence of disproportionate treatment of people in its care quickly become overshadowed, as priorities change, and operational crises (such as the current prison capacity and staff shortage problems) divert attention.
DeleteThe report highlights the impact this has on those who live and work in our prisons. This includes a lack of diversity among staff—particularly in management positions; poor cultural awareness and stereotyping; differential treatment and discrimination; racial tensions; and a lack of accountability for the prison service.
Another prisoner responding to the consultation said: “Diversity in the staff group is different. If you’re in an inner-city jail, there are different people in the staff group. But at [a prison in the North of England] it’s totally different. No staff are Black or Asian and all the prisoners are white.”
This lack of awareness was considered by some as the cause of stereotypes, and also extended into religious practices. Speaking about his own experience, one prisoner said:
“I’m Muslim, so staff think I’m a terrorist. That suspicion puts you on edge all the time. They look at you as if you’re up to something. They over-think everything. I asked for eggs. They go, ‘But you can make a bomb with eggs.’”
Training needed
Both staff and prisoners stated that training was important if cultural understanding was to be improved, although for some this needed to go beyond typical training programmes and needed to be rethought entirely.
One staff member who participated in the consultation said:
“Most training is delivered through e-learning, and it doesn’t work. It’s click and forget; we need face-to-face learning for staff.”
I am someone on the other side of the prison divide to the owner of this blog and many of those that comment - that is to say I am a serving prisoner currently in open conditions and working out of the prison (hence my being able to write this).
ReplyDeleteThe open letter of 26th June 2024 from the Prison Governors Association does not tell anyone who has anything at all to do with prisons anything new; that is not to say that it is not a welcome letter (it is) but the information contained within it could have been written 2, 5, 10 or more years ago. That the prisons are in crisis is plain for all to see - we are rehabilitating no one and the prison service, and services ancillary to it, have an impossible task. I understand, as a prisoner, that we are the very bottom of the list - no one wants to spend money on us, our conditions or our futures when schools, hospitals, adult care and so on are all, also, in dire need of funds. But at the moment we may as well take the budgets that we have and simply set fire to them - because they provide no value for money whatsoever and perpetuate a system whereby we have record high prisoner numbers and similarly high levels of recidivism and not even an outline of a plan to resolve any of it.
I know, I know - lock us all up for longer, put more of us in each cell and throw away the keys. But once that infantile assessment is shelved, we do actually need to deal with the real problem at hand.
We can at least hope that a new government will look at things differently, but it will need to take very bold steps if it is actually going to make some effective changes. Indeed - one might be worried that in fact things goes the other way given that the prison population swelled by 32,500, to 83,887 as Labour introduced 19 new crime bills when last in government.
Whether the 40% of sentence suggestion takes root or not, it will be little more than a sticking plaster on a problem so significant that nothing other than root and branch change will make any real difference. Whilst my views are unpopular with some of my fellow inmates, and no doubt with the authorities too, I would suggest the following:
1. Make prisoners work for their keep - hours and hours spent locked up are nothing but a drain on the resources of the nation and teach prisoners nothing. There are plenty of jobs that could be done to make the prisons money with a huge labour force - some of which is already well trained.
ReplyDelete2. Impose mandatory education - if you leave prison not being able to read you are highly unlikely ever to get a meaningful job.
3. Make the majority of C Cats into D Cat-like pod prisons - if you behave then you stay and if you don't you go back into a C Cat and remain there. Allowing prisoners some semblance of normality and privacy will make better, not worse, humanbeings.
4. Carry out weekly MDTs - drugs are rife and the source of much trouble in the estate. Tackle them properly.
5. Pay prison staff and those ancillary to prisons properly - to attract those who see the role as important and valuable, those individuals need to be rewarded appropriately.
6. May probation a service more involved inside the estate - so that experienced probation officers can meet individuals before release and have meaningful input into their release plans; at the moment (and this is my experience only) the internal COMs are untrained and under-managed and, suffering from the lack of pay mentioned above, leave the service all too soon.
7. Give shorter sentences - I know; hugely unpopular but locking people up for 15 or 20 years for non-violent offences is a remarkable way to treat people in 2024 and achieves nothing.
8. Scrap sentences of less than 12 months - again they are entirely pointless.
9. Study those European nations with lower prison populations per capita and lower levels of recidivism and base decisions around crime and punishment on data and science and not on political posturing - leaving others to clear up the mess inevitably left behind.
Will any of the above happen? It is unlikely, but as you learn after a while behind the door - we can but hope.