Burnham Doesn't Get It

Just as we thought, Andy knows nothing about the Criminal Justice System and the proof comes in his new government's announcement last night:-

Fixing the prison and probation crisis

The Government is taking action to keep the most dangerous offenders locked up, expand prison capacity and strengthen protections for victims and the public.

This Government inherited a prison system in crisis, putting the public at grave risk. Prisons were on the brink of collapse, with capacity dangerously close to being exceeded. That’s why the Government is taking decisive action.

1. The Government is building new prison places. By 2031, there will be more prison places than ever before

• This Government has already built around 3,200 new prison places and aims to create 14,000 by 2031, giving communities confidence that those who pose the greatest risk will be locked up.

• We are also speeding up the deportation of foreign criminals, saving money for taxpayers and protecting the public from dangerous offenders. Over 11,700 foreign criminals including murderers and rapists have been removed since July 2024.

2. The Government is making changes to sentencing so that prison places are used for the most dangerous criminals

• The most dangerous offenders must be locked up for a long time. That will not change.

• We are introducing reforms to prison release arrangements through the Sentencing Act 2026 which change the amount of time offenders will spend in prison. However, over 18,000 offenders serving life and extended sentences, murderers and those serving sentences for rape and serious sexual child and grooming offences, are completely excluded from these changes.

• For offences with sentences of 12 months or less, there will be a presumption against custodial sentences in favour of community sentences – including unpaid work, electronic monitoring tags, curfews and exclusion zones. Courts will still be able to send offenders to prison when there is significant risk of harm to the victim or public.

3. The Government is improving the monitoring of offenders when they are released from prison

• Prisoners who are released will not be free and can be recalled to prison at any time if they step out of line. Victims will have a say over tough new restrictions on offenders leaving prison.

• A record £700m investment going into probation by 2028/29, which has already helped us hire 1,000 new trainee probation officers, will enable 1,300 more to be added by March 2027.

• It also means we can ramp up the electronic tagging of offenders on release from prison, with nearly all offenders tagged and subject to curfews and exclusion zones to keep victims safe.

• Rape and certain child sex offenders will now face tighter controls than ever before after leaving prison, with more intensive probation supervision and a mandatory condition that will give constant access to their location via a GPS tag.

• We are also expanding other protections including chemical suppression for sex offenders, random drug testing, and bans from driving, pubs and events such as football matches.

4. The Government is improving support for victims

• The Government is introducing a stronger package of support for victims, including increased and improved contact to all affected victims.

• This will be supported by a £10m boost for victim support to fund extra local frontline services for victims to get trauma-focussed support.

• This is on top of the largest ever investment into specialist services that offer practical and emotional support to victims and witnesses. Over half a billion pounds of funding over the next three years will help charities and others deliver support like counselling and advice on attending court.

• A dedicated victim helpline will be available by October for all those affected by the reforms to provide emotional support and practical guidance.

--oo00oo--

The future appears to be already written. Published a few hours ago, here's the answer, here's the fix! I personally struggle with the logic of creating more routes to recall people back to prison whilst at the same time trying to free up space. Available capacity stands at around 1800 places. Early release scheme hopes to free up a further 1500 places. Recall figures however exceed 50,000 in the last year. My maths are not great, but I just can't see how they hope to achieve anything.

'Getafix

*****
The order of priority & language is essential to understand that nothing has changed in downing street or whitehall for decades & decades:

"As Home Secretary in Margaret Thatcher’s government from 1979 to 1983, Willie Whitelaw pursued a hard-line law and order agenda. He is best known for introducing the "short, sharp shock" policy for young offenders and embarking on major prison-building programs to tackle rising street crime."

Michael Howard: "Prison Works": Argued that keeping serious and persistent criminals behind bars reduces crime rates through incapacitation and deterrence.

Deterrence and Detection: Advocated for an across-the-board approach focusing heavily on measures to catch and punish lawbreakers rather than relying solely on social or economic explanations for crime.

Rejection of Fatalism: Maintained that rising crime is not an inevitable fact of modern life and can be reversed with political will.

The bliarweasel project: "Tony Blair famously defined his approach to law and order with the 1993 political slogan: "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime." This dual strategy balanced strict enforcement and punishment for offenders alongside social interventions addressing poverty, lack of opportunity, and family breakdown" - sadly he unleashed tough on criminals but failed to deliver when it came to "the causes of crime", viz- "The government policy under Tony Blair has been one of relentless attack on our civil liberties; the expansion of new police powers, the introduction of new offences, and harsher penalties with longer custodial sentences – all of which has been matched by an increased weakening of the safeguards in the criminal justice process."

Now we have burn'em & co:

1. The Government is building new prison places. By 2031, there will be more prison places than ever before "HUZZAHH!"
2. The Government is making changes to sentencing so that prison places are used for the most dangerous criminals "LOCK 'EM'UP"
3. The Government is improving the monitoring of offenders when they are released from prison "MAKE THE PUNISHMENT LAST AS LONG AS POSSIBLE"
4. The Government is improving support for victims

A serious point can be made here whereby prioritising & elevating the victim's status whilst confabulating it with the means or severity of the punishment is not healthy. It runs the risk of making the victim a 'legitimate' target (in the eyes of the perpetrator) & potentially places the victim in greater peril, e.g. if the victim can be silenced then the punishment might be less harsh. The victim's voice is undoubtedly important, but the justice system should be the arbiter of punishment, not the volume, articulation or skill of the victim's opinion. Similarly I would argue that the imposition of victim work upon the probation service was, again, a big mistake. It has led to some terrible conflicts of interest.

*****
And there it is again.

The Government’s shiny new “Fixing the prison and probation crisis” page tells the public that prisoners released under these reforms “can be recalled to prison at any time if they step out of line”, that nearly all offenders will be electronically tagged, and that short sentences will increasingly be replaced by community sentences.

Who exactly does Government think is going to manage all of this? Because every one of those policies creates work for probation. More people managed in the community. More licence supervision. More electronic monitoring information. More curfews and exclusion zones. More potential breaches. More decisions about whether behaviour represents escalating risk. And, inevitably, more recall decision-making.

Then comes the reassurance: £700m and recruitment. Except read the Government’s own words carefully. The investment has apparently helped recruit 1,000 new TRAINEE probation officers, with another 1,300 to be added by March 2027.

We have literally just been discussing Millsike, where the Government accepts that having physical capacity isn’t enough because inexperienced staff require time to develop the skills and confidence to operate safely. Apparently probation works differently. And Getafix raises another rather obvious problem. Government is desperately trying to create prison capacity while simultaneously creating more routes through which people in the community can be recalled back into those same prisons.

Meanwhile OFPS is supposed to release 25% of probation capacity by reducing the amount of professional supervision some people receive. Which part of this is the coherent strategy?

More people in the community. More tagging. More surveillance. More potential breaches. More recalls. Less practitioner contact. An inexperienced workforce being recruited at pace. And a WMT that’s about to disappear. Yet the Government page presents all of this under the wonderfully reassuring heading:

“Fixing the prison and probation crisis.”

From the frontline it looks rather more like moving the crisis out of the prison gate and expecting probation to carry it. And when that doesn’t work, I suspect we’ll hear the same thing we always hear: “Lessons will be learned.” Perhaps somebody could try learning them before this time.