A Bit More on Scrutiny of Criminal Justice

Secretary of State Robert Buckland appears before the Joint Committee on Human Rights on Monday. He and Prisons and Probation Minister Lucy Frazer deserve credit for making themselves available to Parliamentary scrutiny before and during the recess, even if their evidence has not satisfied those who wish to see bolder action to safeguard the health of prisoners.  

The Committee has signalled that it will be asking him whether, inter alia, that to protect the right to family life for children of mothers in prison, he will institute early release for non-violent women offenders.

As well as pressing Buckland on this specific question, MPs and Peers may well want to clarify how many prisoners altogether have been released on Corona Virus Temporary Release and whether as was reported at the end of last week the scheme had been suspended.  Buckland will probably say that the prison population has fallen by 1,135 in the last fortnight with a proportionately greater fall among women than men. 

But given that the Howard League and Prison Reform Trust have threatened to seek judicial review of Buckland’s limited action to cut prison numbers in part because it is contrary to human rights duties to protect life and health- especially of those most vulnerable to the disease- the Committee has every right to press him on his plans and their implementation .  

The Human Rights Committee should also take an interest in the conditions facing people who remain in detention and how these are being monitored. The UK National Preventive Mechanism, comprising the 21 statutory bodies that independently monitor places of detention wrote to Buckland on 30 March but have not so far published any reply from him.

As well as raising the need to reduce detained populations to mitigate the inherent risk of maintaining people in close confinement, the NPM asked how the government will ensure skype, adapted mobiles and any other forms of contact are available to prisoners in the absence of visits. Harriet Harman should ask for an update on this as well as how the Prison Ombudsman and Independent Monitoring Boards are fulfilling their duties during the crisis.  

The Justice Committee have an opportunity to put similar questions to Chief Inspector of Prisons Peter Clarke on Tuesday when they take evidence from him in their relaunched inquiry on the ageing prison population.  Clarke has so far refrained from making public statements on what prisons should be doing to manage the crisis– ironic given that their inspection methodology across all forms of detention “consists of a series of broad thematic judgements known as healthy establishment tests”.

The Prison Governors Association -who were wrong in my view not to support Clarke’s proposals for one day light touch inspections- were however fully justified in asking him to join with others to seek a significant reduction in overcrowding. I don’t know why he hasn’t done so. MPs should ask him. 

Sir Bob Neill’s committee should also ask whether Clarke has been consulted about the new accommodation that is being constructed at pace to provide hundreds or even thousands of new single cells. If he is going to inspect them, its surely better for the prison service to involve him in their design.

These and many other matters could be raised by MPs - not least Buckland's new shadow David Lammy -in Justice questions scheduled for Tuesday. At the time of writing, they are still on the Order paper, although there's a suggestion they have been postponed.

If that's the case, Lammy should ask an Urgent Question on  the releases at least, as soon as he can.