The new Justice Select Committee met this week, but probation didn't feature much, something that I guess we're all going to have to accept, particularly as the new government has showed little interest in our plight. All the attention remains on the failing prison part of the forced marriage and how to build more places. I couldn't be bothered to watch proceedings, but happily Rob Allen's latest blog post provides an excellent update:-
Confidence and SupplyMuch of the focus on prison reform in recent months has been on managing burgeoning demand for places. The newly formed Justice Select Committee started their examination of Prisons Minister Lord Timpson this week by asking how long the space freed up by the SDS 40 early release scheme might last.
The answer it seems is next Autumn or maybe a bit longer. That’s hoped to be enough time to create longer term sustainability in the system by putting in place whatever legislative changes are recommended by the David Gauke Sentencing Review.
But is that realistic? Even if Gauke manages to report in the Spring, his proposals are likely to be controversial. Getting them on to the statute book and then implemented could easily take another year.
The MoJ handily has a couple of further demand reduction measures up its sleeve- a change to the process of recalling released prisoners to jail in April and extending to a year the period of release on a Home Detention Curfew for eligible prisoners, from June. So they may muddle through.
But what about the supply of new prison places?
MPs heard that the new all electric Millsike Prison in North Yorkshire is on track to open in April, (although like all new prisons will surely need time to reach its full capacity of 1500). A new houseblock at Rye Hill in Warwickshire will also be ready early next year which should add 450 additional places. Timpson also said that HMP Dartmoor - closed in the Summer because of high levels of Radon- will re-open when safe, making more than 600 places available.
Prison Service Chief Amy Rees told the Committee that planning permission had now been granted for 17,000 of the 20,000 proposed new prison places. (The outstanding decision on the one remaining new build prison near Wymott and Garth in Lancashire is due to be made by mid-December).
Planning delays have added between 18 months and 3 years to the original timelines according to Ms Rees. In future, planning for prisons will be treated as Crown development with urgent procedures for reaching decisions and more in the way of permitted development on existing sites.
On the downside, Timpson revealed that 100 projects in courts and prisons were affected when construction company ISG filed for administration in September. 79 will require re-procurement.
He also acknowledged the significant shortcomings in the physical condition of the existing estate although did not put a financial cost on the backlog of maintenance. It was £1 billion in 2021.
What we do know is that there are still 23,000 cells which require fire safety upgrades. According to my calculations, the necessary work has been progressing at the rate of about 3,000 cells a year- far too few to meet the commitment to complete the work by 2027. The latest HMPPS Annual report, published last week but curiously unmentioned in the Select Committee, says reaching the target is “finely balanced in terms of the future headroom position and we are likely to require additional places out of use in future years to achieve this aim.”
More broadly, inspection and monitoring reports have drawn repeated attention to often shocking failings in infrastructure. These aren’t limited to the 25 odd prisons dating from the Victorian era. The HMPPS Annual Report revealed that in May 2024, eight sites were confirmed as containing RAAC.
HMPPS have undertaken a comprehensive survey of conditions in the prisons. I was pleased to hear Ms Rees tell the committee that the report of the survey would be published shortly particularly as the MoJ had refused my FOI request to see it.
But then according to the HMPPS Annual Report, the Final Report of the Survey was published in June 2024. It wasn’t. I have asked the Justice Committee to try to clarify the position.
Rob Allen
--oo00oo--
Like many people, I'm rapidly getting fed up with Twitter and have therefore joined the millions migrating to bluesky.
BBC website this morning:-
ReplyDeleteThe Ministry of Justice has said it is aware of a data breach affecting prison in England and Wales.
Confidential prison layouts had been leaked onto the dark web in the past two weeks, according to The Times, external.
A former prison governor told the paper organised crime groups could use the information to smuggle drugs or weapons into prisons, or plan escapes.
The MoJ said that it had "taken immediate action to ensure prisons remain secure".
The Times first reported that prison authorities suspect that the leak may be linked to organised crime groups aiming to use drones to smuggle drug into prisons, while the blueprints could be used to evade security measures.
The leaked blueprints are reported to include the locations of key security features, such as cameras and sensors, making it easier for criminals to bypass security or exploit vulnerabilities.
The Cabinet Office and the Prison Service are said to be working to identify the source of the breach and assess who might stand to benefit from the stolen information.
The National Crime Agency said it was providing support in an advisory capacity, but that it would be "incorrect" to say it was investigating the incident.
A MoJ spokesman said: "We are not going to comment on the specific detail of security matters of this kind, but we are aware of a breach of data to the prison estate and like with all potential breaches have taken immediate action to ensure prisons remain secure."
The leak was first flagged in an internal alert issued earlier this month, which was seen by the paper.
ReplyDeleteBuilding more prisons just means there's more cells to fill.
Expanding the prison estate is nothing more then an admission of failure. The system is broken and we need a whole new approach to crime and punishment.
Interestingly, and unexpectedly the USA seems to be cottoning on to this.
From Inside Time.
https://insidetime.org/newsround/world-prison-news-48/
'Getafix
onehmpps, multiple clusterfucks and... not a single resignation or sacking of any of the 'excellent leaders'
ReplyDeletehttps://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/23/britain-best-paid-inmates-earn-more-than-prison-officers
Can’t see Telegraph article as paywall - however very misleading headline as they must be referring to a prisoner in open conditions who is working on ROTL. More shit stirring from the Torygraph
ReplyDeleteI’m going to release blue prints of all the probation offices in England and Wales on the dark web. I do this in the hope that staff can escape, smuggle in drugs, or just hide behind a false wall when yet more cases are being allocated.
ReplyDeletehttps://insidetime.org/mailbag/probation-was-no-help-at-all/
ReplyDeleteI am compelled to respond to the Mailbag ‘Lack of support from probation’ (Aug 2024). I too am deemed very high risk. It is clear that you’re not the only one in your situation. My time in the community was utter chaos due to the lack of support from probation, despite my COM (community offender manager) at the time telling me and the Parole Board I would have support in place. Which all turned out to be total BS. When I needed to ask for help, I was told that’s not my job. And what do you expect me to do about it? Magic something up overnight?
DeleteI had the constant threat of recall should I do something which probation didn’t like. I was also pushed from one post to another because my COM decided that the hostel staff could give any required support. Hostel stuff told me they do not manage me, therefore it’s not their place to support me. Either way, I was left in limbo and needing help.
You have to wonder whether probation just don’t care. They have to protect the community, and that includes you – it’s called a duty of care. However, probation always fail to see you, me, and everyone else with a criminal record. Probation only sees the offences. To see the individual behind those offences would mean probation having to earn their wages each month. This, in my opinion, is why the probation service is failing in the manner that they are.
Probation was originally set up to support offenders with issues like housing, employment and/or retraining through education, whilst protecting the public and putting the offender above the crimes committed. I believe probation have too much power over prisoners in the community and are using their power to recall excessively, therefore passing the buck back to an already-at-near-capacity prison service. Probation is a public disservice, and its serious failings are wasting public funds.
https://insidetime.org/comment/rehabilitation-3/
ReplyDeleteBefore the introduction of psychology programmes and courses in British prisons, which was not so long ago (the early 1990s), the way you showed the prison system that you were safe to be released, and that you had been rehabilitated, was by consistent good behaviour and co-operation throughout the sentence.
DeleteThe governor, and those below that grade, would tell prisoners to, ‘Keep your head down and your nose clean.’ This was the only bit of advice for getting through your sentence. There was no referral to psychology, unless you were a mentally-ill lifer. The only courses available were in trade skills, like motor mechanics, bricklaying, and plastering. Reconviction rates were nowhere near what they are today, and the prison population was half what it is now.
The obvious point is that sending someone to prison should be an opportunity for the system to try and change their criminal behaviour and mindset. It’s an opportunity for you, too. The fact that the British prison system has the highest reconviction rates in Europe is testament that something in that system is definitely not working. Not enough money is being invested in rehabilitation for prisoners. The wait for courses and programmes is overly long – and in some cases the sentence runs out before a place can be found. Hopefully, the latest government will recognise the need to get back to the rehabilitation of prisoners that has been sadly abandoned over the last decade, and invest in the system.
Unfortunately, there are still many people involved with the running of the modern prison system who believe that people are sent to prison to be punished. They miss the point that the actual punishment is the deprivation of your liberty – merely being held prisoner. The rest is just a couple of centuries of add-ons, basically designed to make prison life harder than it should be, or to try and make some sense of their own organisation and agenda. Let’s face it, if the aim of imprisonment was merely to punish, then you would just be locked in cells for 24-hours a day (apologies to those reading this that are actually suffering this very thing, as some in the system are) and there would be no real attempt to rehabilitate anybody.
It is no longer acceptable for prisoners to just ‘keep your head down and your nose clean’. These days you, as a prisoner, have to be pro-active in your own rehabilitation. It is on you to express the wish for change in your life and to seek out those within the system who will help you in your aim; particularly so in this overcrowded and underfunded system we have at the moment. Don’t just wait for help, ask, and if you get no help then keep asking until something changes. There are signs that those now in charge may make the changes to the system that are needed for it to work again. Let us hope so.
Probation is a broad mix of people believe me you may have been unlucky as many of the staff are useless dreamers there are though many talented officers who can at times make a real difference. Problem is the management don't want staff to do that.
Deletehave others found their posts being foiled by "failed to publish" messages?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.constructionenquirer.com/2024/09/20/prison-building-plans-facing-delays-over-isg-collapse/
ReplyDeleteISG is one of the biggest players in prison upgrade and new construction work as the country faces a chronic shortage of cells with offenders being released early from overcrowded jails.
The contractor started work earlier this year on a combined £135m upgrade for HMP Guys Marsh in Dorset and HMP Liverpool.
Its £79m project at Guys Marsh was due to deliver two house blocks, one with 122 cells, the other with 59, to increase capacity by 31%.
At HMP Liverpool its £56m is for a full overhaul to support the prison’s proposed change in status from a Cat B to a Cat C facility.
ISG is also lined-up as main contractor for a a £300m new Category C super prison in Buckinghamshire at a site next to the existing HMP Springhill and HMP Grendon.
https://www.ft.com/content/da53ade2-1a2d-4111-8feb-f87cd4fbb273
As the new Labour government seeks contractors to replace ISG, delays securing Manchester and other sites will further complicate its efforts to tackle what prisons minister Lord James Timpson has described as “a system teetering on the edge of disaster”.
ISG’s administrators EY said last month that no further work would be undertaken on the group’s UK contracts. The company’s collapse has become the most high-profile in the sector since government contractor Carillion went into administration in 2018, once again prompting questions about the businesses that the UK depends on to maintain its public infrastructure.
pay
ReplyDeletePrison 37 hours 39 hours 41 hours
Brixton £37,973 £40,367 £42,762
Pentonville £37,973 £40,367 £42,762
Wandsworth £37,973 £40,367 £42,762
Wormwood Scrubs £37,973 £40,367 £42,762
Prison officer salaries better than a PO now !
So what good luck to them . On top of their wages most of the officers in jails earn a good few quid handing out smart phones to inmates . My local phone warehouse was all out of stock as it was all bought for the local jail .
Delete