The clueless new Justice Minister Alex Norris is clearly following his minders instructions at the MoJ and HMPPS. This from the big release day October 1st:-
Toughest restrictions ever imposed on offenders on licenceOffenders leaving prison from today will be monitored under the toughest supervision in British history, as new powers to restrict their movements come into force.
- World-first restriction zones will keep offenders in areas just a few miles wide
- Bans from pubs, clubs, football matches and public events
- A record number of offenders are being tagged, as Government rolls out biggest ever extension of tagging
- Victim-focused approach to justice will see national helpline for victims and trauma-focused local support services
The tough new rules mean the prison gate is no longer where punishment ends, creating a prison in the community to protect the public and victims.
For the first time anywhere in the world, new restriction zones will tightly control the movements of the highest-risk sexual and violent offenders - confining many to an area just a few miles wide, keeping them away from those they have harmed and allowing victims to rebuild their lives without fear.
The biggest ever expansion of electronic monitoring in British history is also being rolled out with a new presumption that offenders will be electronically tagged and monitored when they leave prison. New technology rolling out this year will give probation near-live access to tagging data, helping probation staff spot breaches and act quickly when offenders step out of line.
Cracking down further still, offenders can also now be banned from pubs, clubs and public events like football matches to prevent disruption and harm to the community. From next year, the government is also launching random drug testing for thousands of offenders.
Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, Alex Norris, said:
"Today we are introducing the toughest ever range of tools to control prison leavers and better protect the public.
We understand the anxiety victims face ahead of offenders’ release dates, but the greatest danger to victims would be prisons running out of cells for dangerous criminals which was the crisis this government inherited.
Our plan will make sure this never happens again by building 14,000 prison places while subjecting offenders to the toughest ever controls – leaving them nowhere to hide and under no doubt that we are watching them."
Unfortunately for him this reality came out from HMI Probation on September 24th:-
HM Inspectorate of Probation has published its national findings following a review of public protection measures delivered by all 12 regions of the Probation Service across England and Wales.
Martin Jones, Chief Inspector of Probation, said: “Frontline probation staff are working hard to keep communities safe, often in very difficult circumstances. However, public protection work was not being delivered consistently well enough to provide the assurance that victims, communities and partner agencies were entitled to expect.
“Persistent staffing shortages and workforce instability, combined with inconsistent information-sharing with the police and children’s services, meant that practitioners did not always have what they needed to identify, understand and manage risk effectively. As a result, opportunities to recognise patterns of harmful behaviour, safeguard children, protect victims and respond to escalating concerns were too often missed.”
Findings
- Vetting delays remain a significant barrier to recruitment, hindering the timely filling of vacancies and, in some cases, causing successful candidates to withdraw before appointment.
- Increased workforce instability, and decreased resilience across probation staffing, is directly impacting the quality and consistency of risk management practice; these are longstanding problems, and recruitment shortfalls and staff shortages do not simply mean a busier workforce, they contribute to a heightened risk to public protection.
- Information-sharing with the police has improved, but in almost one in five cases (18 per cent) information received about domestic abuse was of insufficient quality to be meaningful in assessing risk; information-sharing with children’s services remains a more significant and persistent weakness, with information of insufficient quality to inform risk assessment in nearly a third of relevant cases (31 per cent).
- Even where information was available, practitioners did not always make effective use of it: in more than half of cases inspected (54 per cent), critical information was not sufficiently interrogated, analysed or translated into robust risk assessment and management activity.
- There is currently no agreed national strategy setting out overarching principles for how probation should work with the police and children’s services, meaning individual Probation Delivery Units are left attempting to solve the same shared problems in isolation.
- Public protection outcomes were consistently strongest where regions and Probation Delivery Units had the flexibility to use their initiative and apply locally innovative solutions, within a clear national framework.
Mr Jones added: “Our findings show that regions cannot resolve these issues alone. National action is needed to stabilise the workforce, strengthen information-sharing with the police and children’s services, and support practitioners to make full and confident use of the information available to them. We also need the right responsibilities sitting in the right place: clear national consistency where it matters most, alongside room for regions to use their initiative, where our evidence shows the best outcomes are delivered. If our recommendations are adopted, the foundations for sustained improvement will be in place.”
And then by happy coincidence this came out with more reality just before the big release on Thursday:-
HM Chief Inspector of Probation, Martin Jones CBE, said:
“The findings of our inspection are clear: electronic monitoring is expanding rapidly, but the systems, processes and frontline practice needed to make it effective have not kept pace. Until those issues are addressed, the criminal justice system risks relying on a technology whose potential is not being fully realised.
“There is a real danger that electronic monitoring creates a false sense of assurance if the technology is not matched by effective professional practice. Expanding tagging programmes without addressing their weaknesses risks overpromising and underdelivering on public protection.”
HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Service, Michelle Skeer OBE QPM said:
“In the cases we examined, alleged breaches of electronically monitored bail conditions did not consistently lead to structured consideration of risk to victims, witnesses or the wider public. Poor record-keeping, information-gathering and analysis made it difficult for forces to understand either the demand generated by electronically monitored bail or the effectiveness of their response”.
“The findings of our inspection are clear: electronic monitoring is expanding rapidly, but the systems, processes and frontline practice needed to make it effective have not kept pace. Until those issues are addressed, the criminal justice system risks relying on a technology whose potential is not being fully realised.
“There is a real danger that electronic monitoring creates a false sense of assurance if the technology is not matched by effective professional practice. Expanding tagging programmes without addressing their weaknesses risks overpromising and underdelivering on public protection.”
HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Service, Michelle Skeer OBE QPM said:
“In the cases we examined, alleged breaches of electronically monitored bail conditions did not consistently lead to structured consideration of risk to victims, witnesses or the wider public. Poor record-keeping, information-gathering and analysis made it difficult for forces to understand either the demand generated by electronically monitored bail or the effectiveness of their response”.
--oo00oo--
I note a reader and contributor has added the following:-
A selection of SCS staff responsible for this shitshow include:
- Antonia Romeo, now head of the country's civil service
- Amy Rees, now Chief Executive of Homes England
- Jo Farrar, now Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Justice
- Phil Copple, who baled out last year, now describes himself as a 'prisons & probation operations expert'
- Mc Ewen's export has been in post for a year
- There's supposed to be a Chief Probation Officer, but no-one's seen or heard of her for nearly 3 years
Finally, we would all do well to recall this posted on Twitter recently by former Prison Governor John Podmore:-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ck9qrqq53nj3o
ReplyDeleteThe Conservatives have promised to build 50,000 new prison places in England and Wales to stop criminals being released early, if they return to government.
The party said it would cost £2bn per year to build and run the new prisons, funded by spending cuts including to the foreign aid budget.
On Thursday hundreds of prisoners were released early, under new rules introduced to prevent jails reaching capacity, with around 4,500 due to be freed by next summer.
Labour blamed the previous Tory government for leaving "our criminal justice system at breaking point" and said the party's proposals were not "credible".... etc etc blah blah
_________________________________________________________
Without sentencing reform, prison numbers are forecast to outstrip capacity
England and Wales prison capacity and population with and without reforms, Jan 2021 to Nov 2032
Source: Institute for Government, Ministry of Justice
(This relates to a graph which I can't paste here)
see also:
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainer/prison-early-release-scheme
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/prison-population-projections-2025-to-2030/prison-population-projections-2025-to-2030--2
What strikes me reading all of this is how completely the political language of “toughness” risks obscuring the actual question of public protection.
ReplyDelete“Toughest supervision in British history.” More tags. More restrictions. More exclusion zones. More prison places. More surveillance.
It all sounds reassuringly muscular.
But HM Inspectorate has just told us that staffing instability is already affecting risk management and that in more than half the cases it inspected, important information wasn’t being sufficiently analysed and translated into effective risk-management activity. Then, two days before these changes began, the electronic-monitoring inspection explicitly warned about the “false sense of assurance” created when technology isn’t matched by effective professional practice.
Surely that should stop us in our tracks.
A tougher licence condition is only as effective as the system managing it. A tag can generate information; somebody still has to understand its significance and act upon it. An exclusion zone can create an alert; it cannot decide whether that alert represents escalating risk. Fifty thousand additional prison places might increase physical capacity, but they don’t answer why demand keeps increasing or why so many people cycle repeatedly between prison and the community.
Perhaps the political argument has become trapped between two versions of the same downstream thinking: release more people because prisons are full, or build more prisons so we don’t have to release them.
Where is the serious national conversation about reducing the flow in the first place?
Housing. Drugs. Mental health. Domestic abuse. Employment. Rehabilitation. Effective supervision. Recall. Sentencing. Prevention. All considerably less suited to a “toughest ever” headline, but rather important if the objective is fewer victims rather than simply appearing tougher on offenders.
Public protection isn’t measured by how restrictive a policy sounds.
It’s measured by whether fewer people are harmed.
And if the independent inspectorate is warning that the professional infrastructure required to turn all these new powers, restrictions and information into effective risk management is already struggling, perhaps that deserves rather more attention than another announcement about being tougher than anybody has ever been before.
I write this from a position that perhaps doesn’t fit comfortably into the current political narrative. I am a probation practitioner. I am also a victim of crime.
ReplyDeleteSo when the Government tells me victims are “front and centre” and that we now have the “toughest supervision in British history”, I want that to be true. But my professional experience makes me deeply concerned about the gap between the rhetoric and the reality.
I know what public protection looks like from the other side of the desk. It is rarely a slogan. It is having enough time to notice something has changed, join information together, recognise an escalating pattern, make the home visit, speak to police or children’s services, ask another question and act before another incident creates another victim.
Technology can assist with that. It cannot replace it.
And this isn’t simply a frustrated workforce saying so. On 24 September HM Inspectorate of Probation reported that persistent staffing shortages and workforce instability were directly affecting the quality and consistency of risk management. In 54% of inspected cases, critical information was not sufficiently interrogated, analysed or translated into robust risk-management activity. Days later, the electronic-monitoring inspection warned of a “false sense of assurance” if technology was not matched by effective professional practice. Then Government announced the “toughest supervision in British history”.
Please reconcile those things.
As a victim, I do not want a false sense of assurance. I don’t want to hear that somebody is being monitored if there isn’t sufficient professional capacity to understand and act upon what that monitoring reveals. And I don’t want victims used to justify increasingly restrictive measures while the professional infrastructure required to make those measures protective is struggling.
As a practitioner, I worry that probation is increasingly being redesigned around how many people the system needs us to absorb rather than what effective supervision actually requires. Please do not mistake control for public protection, surveillance for supervision, contact for intervention or administrative compliance for effective probation.
I don’t simply want the person who harmed me punished. I want fewer people harmed. That means meaningful rehabilitation matters to me too. Work around domestic abuse, drugs, housing, mental health, relationships and behaviour matters. Professional judgement matters. Having enough time to know the person you supervise matters. Victims and rehabilitation are not opposing interests. Effective rehabilitation is victim protection when it prevents the next offence.
So by all means tell me how many people are tagged, how much money has been invested and how many staff have been recruited. But also tell me whether practitioners have enough time to do the work properly, whether experienced staff are staying, whether workloads are manageable and whether the quality of risk management is improving.
You cannot solve a prison capacity crisis by quietly creating a probation capacity crisis. And you cannot protect victims by weakening the professional service upon which so much of that protection depends.
I say that as somebody delivering probation. I also say it as somebody who knows what being a victim means.
If victims really are “front and centre”, listen to this one.
Oh bbc, what a glorious secret note you have sent us:
ReplyDelete"The Conservatives have promised to build 50,000 new prison places in England and Wales to stop criminals being released early, if they return to government."
Does the comma do enough to hide the true message?
In other news... why stop at 50,000? Why not 300,000? Its surely cheaper to turn, say, Milton Keynes into a prison community by erecting a fence around the perimeter than bother with planning permissions etc for new builds all over the place?
There are very worrying signs here that the deficiencies in the CJS are being laid firmly at the door of the practitioner and that we are the fall guys for this…….
ReplyDeleteseeing as tech is at the core of the govt's plans for everything from nhs to probation, this is worrying news:
ReplyDelete"The government has agreed to spend £992m on contracts with Palantir Technologies since 2014, the Nerve can reveal."
https://www.thenerve.news/p/palantir-1bn-pound-cost-britain-uk-contracts-nhs-fdp-mod-police-peter-thiel-andy-burnham
"Martin Wrigley, a Liberal Democrat MP, said the scale of spending “begs the question of why Palantir isn’t on the Cabinet Office’s strategic suppliers list”. He has asked the Commons public accounts committee to investigate."
* The NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP) is a funded digital infrastructure project by NHS England to connect separate health and care data systems
** Total UK State Spending: Cumulative spend or committed value with Palantir since 2014 sits at approximately £992 million, with roughly £372 million of that remaining unpaid pending full contract terms
Why not try to make it more relevant instead of tougher?
ReplyDeleteThere's a universal approach being used to offending that obviously is not working.
People who offend and go to prison are criminals. A criminal is by definition a criminal. All criminals are equal and therefore need to be dealt with all the same way.
A one size fits all approach will never work, because one size only will only ever fit some.
With a recall rate of 51,000+ last year, then surely making it "just tougher" is only going to expand that figure, and the whole point of releasing people early becomes self defeating ?
'Getafix
Most of an article in the Trlegraph.
DeleteCan't fill the recently emptied cells quick enough.
Magistrates handed new powers to jail criminals for longer
Justice Secretary aims to ease Crown Court backlog by allowing JPs to impose two-year prison sentences
Magistrates are to be given new powers to jail criminals for up to two years.
As part of Labour plans to combat record Crown Court delays, the Government is proposing to increase magistrates’ sentencing powers beyond the current maximum of 12 months.
They will be raised to 18 months, with an option to go further and increase to 24 months, in an attempt to keep some of the more serious cases out of Crown Courts, which have a backlog of more than 80,000 cases.
Until two years ago, magistrates’ sentencing powers were limited to six months.
Alex Norris, the Justice Secretary, is also expected to go ahead with plans to remove the historic right of defendants to elect a Crown Court jury trial. This would give magistrates jurisdiction to decide whether so-called “either way” cases were heard by them or passed to a higher court.
Combined with the new sentencing powers, it could result in a 15 per cent increase in the number of cases heard by magistrates.
Lammy, as justice secretary under Sir Keir Starmer, planned to create judge-only courts to hear cases where defendants faced prison sentences of up to three years, but these are expected to be scrapped.
Labour’s Courts and Tribunals Bill will restrict the right to a jury trial, but not to the extent proposed under reforms drawn up by the Mr Lammy.
Andy Burnham had expressed scepticism about the plans, saying last month that his instinct was “not to reduce access to jury trial”.
The expansion of magistrates’ powers will hinge on the success of a recruitment campaign aimed at increasing the number of JPs from 15,259 to 21,000 by 2028-29. Labour has recruited 3,000 since taking power, from a low of 12,500 in 2022.
A Ministry of Justice (MoJ) spokesman said: “Magistrates are the backbone of local justice, which is why we have just launched a multi-million-pound recruitment campaign to ensure we’ve got the magistrates we need.
'Getafix
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/2252958/horror-impact-labours-early-release/amp
ReplyDeleteProbation officers are at “breaking point” and the service in crisis even before thousands more offenders are released early from prison, opposition MPs and union officials warned.
DeleteAs of this week, inmates will have their time in custody slashed and be let out to free up jail space, despite concerns over public safety and crime victims being let down by the justice system.
Yet more than 6,000 offenders, including those jailed for sex crimes and violence, were added to probation officers’ workloads in just nine months.
By December there were 248,568 being supervised, up 2.5% on the number at the end of March. This included an extra 1,202 sex offenders, taking the total to 27,541, an increase of 4.6%.
There were also an extra 1,554 on probation for committing violence against a person, up 2.5% to 64,180.
Also there are an additional 991 for public order, an increase of 10.6% to 10,351, and 958 for miscellaneous crimes against society, an increase of 5.9% to 17,305.
Shadow justice minister Nick Timothy said: “This increase is concerning as the Probation Service is already at risk of being overwhelmed thanks to Labour’s early release scheme.
“Thousands of criminals will be freed early starting from next week and we know that most will not be tagged before they are released.
“Public safety is at risk, which is why these criminals should be behind bars where they belong.”
Probation officers said they are already understaffed and are preparing to vote on strike action which could throw the supervision of convicted criminals into complete disarray.
Tania Bassett, National Official of the trade union for probation staff said: “NAPO is deeply concerned about the additional work the early releases and other aspects of the Sentencing Act will have on our members.
“Probation has been in a workload crisis for three years now and it has got progressively worse.
“The unsustainable high workloads are having a detrimental impact on probation staff and as a result we are see high levels of sickness in an already understaffed workforce.”
Ian Lawrence, General Secretary added: “Our members are at breaking point and that is why we have announced that we will be going to a formal ballot for industrial action next month.
“We have repeatedly given HM Prison and Probation Service opportunities to work with us to reduce workloads and fully recognise the crisis we are in and they have not taken up our offer.
“Instead we have seen a sticking plaster approach that has not seen any real benefit for our members.”
The political class(less) are utterly shameless in every respect:
Delete"Shadow justice minister Nick Timothy said: “This increase is concerning as the Probation Service is already at risk of being overwhelmed thanks to Labour’s early release scheme."
The tories instigated & doubled-down on the egregious intentional & managed decline of the probation service.
As for nick timothy:
Nick Timothy (West Suffolk MP and Shadow Justice Secretary) faced major political backlash in March 2026 after describing a public Ramadan iftar and mass Muslim prayer event in London's Trafalgar Square as an "act of domination" and part of an "Islamist playbook"
He also failed to declare a beneficial personal interest (i.e. membership of some jockey club thing) whilst lobbying for favourable business rates for racecourses.
* The Jockey Club Rooms is a historic private members' club and 4-star boutique hotel... Free cooked or continental breakfast (dress code requires long trousers for breakfast)
https://www.parliament.uk/globalassets/documents/pcfs/rectifications/mr-nick-timothy-mp-rectification.pdf
Long trousers for breakfast ? I’d prefer a full English !
DeleteFor interest sake. Has there been any Request for Recall by practitioners of the cohort of prisoners released on 01 October 2026?
ReplyDeletehttps://the-european.eu/story-67124/uk-prisoner-release-plan-faces-a-major-lag-as-tougher-rules-risk-sending-inmates-back-to-jail.html
ReplyDeleteAround 700 UK prisoners were released early yesterday under new sentencing rules, but campaigners warn that tougher restrictions, soaring recall rates and an overstretched probation service could send many straight back behind bars
Hundreds of prisoners freed early yesterday could soon find themselves back behind bars because of soaring recall rates and tough new licence conditions, a justice campaign group has warned.
Around 700 inmates were expected to be released across England and Wales under the Government’s new sentencing arrangements, designed to tackle chronic overcrowding. Thousands more are due to follow over the coming months.
Under the Sentencing Act 2026, many eligible prisoners serving standard determinate sentences can now be released after serving a third of their sentence, rather than the previous 40 or 50 per cent. Different rules apply to certain serious offenders, while others are excluded from the scheme altogether.
New powers also mean probation officers can confine certain high-risk offenders to areas just a few miles wide and ban them from pubs, clubs, football matches and other public events.
Electronic tagging is also being expanded, with a new presumption that offenders will be monitored on release. Random drug testing is due to follow next year.
But critics fear the additional restrictions introduced to supervise offenders could undermine the scheme by sending prisoners back to jail for breaching their release conditions.
The warning comes as Ministry of Justice figures reveal 13,193 licence recalls between January and March this year, a 31 per cent increase on the same period in 2025.
The number recalled exceeded the 12,977 prisoners released from custodial sentences during the quarter, illustrating the pressure already facing the prison system.
Campaign group Inside Out Justice argues that longer periods under supervision, combined with additional restrictions, could increase the number of offenders returned to custody, including some who have committed no new offence.
Its founder, Scott Dylan, said: “Today the front door of our prisons opens a little wider, but the back door is already spinning faster. Recalls rose by more than 11,000 in a single year; this scheme will release around 4,500 people by next summer. You do not need to be an economist to see which number wins.”
Inside Out Justice is now calling for an independent review of recall decisions, greater use of community sanctions for technical licence breaches and additional investment in probation services and housing for former prisoners.
It also wants guarantees that offenders will not be recalled because of delayed electronic tagging or a lack of approved accommodation, alongside monthly publication of recall figures as the release scheme progresses.
from April 2024 - yep, over two years ago:
ReplyDeletehttps://revolving-doors.org.uk/recalls-in-crisis-what-needs-to-change/
"... the number of people recalled in England and Wales has risen by 85% in the period from 2017 to 2023, and the average time an offender spent in custody following recall increasing by about half... We believe that the whole concept of recalls must be fully reviewed, shifting focus away from punishment for those who have often committed no further crime. Instead, the emphasis for those on probation after release from prison should be on rehabilitation and support within the community... One in three people on probation after release from prison are recalled to custody, with a staggering 64.5% of all recalls in 2018 being 14-day fixed-term recalls (recalls for those originally sentenced to less than 12 months)...
... Recalls and the revolving door
Crucially, most recalls do not happen because someone has committed a new offence. Rather, out of all recalls in October-December 2023, only about 26% involved a charge of further offending, whereas 77% involved non-compliance, 34% involved failure to keep in touch, and 26% involved failure to reside – often code for failing to secure an address, and far more symptomatic of the housing crisis than of wilful disobedience."
The robots will be overcome with excitement at the prospect of recalling all those individuals , absolutely delighted as they have zero skills in engagement communication or empathy , true PQIP
ReplyDeletefrom 2025... https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sentencing-bill-2025/sentencing-bill-progression-measures-factsheet
ReplyDeleteSentencing Bill: progression measures factsheet... Updated 27 November 2025
"This new Progression model sets a minimum release point of one third for those serving standard determinate sentences which currently have an automatic release of 40 or 50%. For those serving SDS with an automatic release point of 67 percent, their minimum release will now be 50 percent. Release eligibility is conditional on offenders not behaving badly in prison... We are removing the legislative requirement for Post-Sentence Supervision (PSS) to simplify the system and reduce pressure on probation services... we are reforming the recall process for Standard Determinate Sentence (SDS) offenders by acting on recommendations from the Independent Sentencing Review. We are introducing a new 56-day fixed recalls for most SDS offenders, replacing both shorter fixed recalls and standard recalls... we are also implementing public protection measures to ensure that individuals who present a significant risk are not eligible for automatic release and excluding certain offenders from receiving a 56 day recall..."
The lies, misdirection & utter nonsense contained in that are staggering:
* Nov 2025 - "We are removing the legislative requirement for Post-Sentence Supervision (PSS) to simplify the system and reduce pressure on probation services"
OR
* Oct 2026 - "Offenders leaving prison from today will be monitored under the toughest supervision in British history...The biggest ever expansion of electronic monitoring in British history is also being rolled out [giving] probation near-live access to tagging data, helping probation staff spot breaches and act quickly when offenders step out of line."
2024: "a staggering 64.5% of all recalls in 2018 being 14-day fixed-term recalls... The brevity of fixed-term recalls means that people lose whatever progress they have made since release, such as finding accommodation, and get little to no rehabilitative support during their time back in custody... We believe that the whole concept of recalls must be fully reviewed, shifting focus away from punishment for those who have often committed no further crime..."
OR
Oct 2026: "We are introducing new 56-day fixed recalls for most SDS offenders, replacing both shorter fixed recalls and standard recalls"
Better yet:
DeleteNov 2025: "We are removing the legislative requirement for Post-Sentence Supervision (PSS) to simplify the system and reduce pressure on probation services"
OR
Nov 2025: "The Bill introduces a new recall model for Standard Determinate Sentence (SDS) offenders. It replaces short-term recalls of 14 or 28 days with a single 56-day recall period, ***after which offenders will be automatically re-released on licence... This approach gives probation more time to manage risk and set appropriate licence conditions*** ."
We're spending £millions of public money to introduce the same thing with a different name, procedure & (most likely) even more catastrophic outcomes.