Courting Trouble

 

The prison population projections out today are produced to aid policy development, capacity planning and resource allocation within the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS). Odd then that they take no account of the Sentencing Bill that will almost certainly become law early next year and start to have a downward impact on prison numbers as soon as it comes into force.

The extent of that impact is uncertain but suspending most short sentences, releasing most prisoners a third of their way into their sentence and limiting periods of recall are bound to have some effect. So the headline estimate that prison numbers will increase to between 98,000 and 103,600 by March 2030, with a central estimate of 100,600 will be way off the mark.

More understandably, the projections don’t take account of government policies in response to the Independent Review into Criminal Courts, announced in outline (but no more) this week. Should they reach the statute book what impact on prison numbers is likely to result from increasing Magistrates’ courts sentencing powers to 18 or even 24 months and the new Judge only Crown court arrangements for those facing jail terms of three years or less if convicted?

On the face of it keeping more cases in the lower reaches of the court system should lead to reductions in the custody rate and in the average length of prison terms. Swifter courts could reduce the time defendants spend on remand too.

But as things stand only just over half of those sentenced in the Crown Court for either way offences go to prison, and the average sentence length is about two years. Maybe the new arrangements will produce a more rather than less punitive approach.

Commentators have suggested that speedier courts could mean an  uptick in perpetrators sentenced under the reforms leaving prisons unable to cope; or that the three year limit may create a perverse incentive for the defence to characterise alleged offences as more serious to get the case before a jury. Greater sentencing powers for magistrates may lead them to impose jail terms just over the 12 month threshold below which they’ll be expected to suspend them.

Presumably when legislation is introduced, an impact assessment will be published based on modelling of various scenarios. It seems surprising that for now all we’ve got to go on is a short statement in parliament, a letter to stakeholders and a press release.

Should the court reforms come into effect, one body that could play a crucial role in determining outcomes is the Sentencing Council who will need to prepare fresh allocation guidelines. As the Lady Chief Justice told MPs last month “if the Gauke reforms and Leveson come in, it is more important now than it has ever been”.

But she thought the Justice Committee should know that the mood in the Sentencing Council is pretty bleak. There is deep uncertainty hanging over its head. Her view is that clauses in the Sentencing Bill designed to increase democratic oversight have the potential significantly to undermine confidence in and the independence of the Council.

This may be just one example of a failure to properly consider the interactions between the reviews of sentencing and of courts.  A comprehensive and properly reasoned response to both – and to Anne Owers review of prison capacity -is surely not too much to ask.

Which Way for Youth Custody?

 

Radical stuff from the Childrens Commissioner in her Longford Lecture this week- urging that Young Offender Institutions are closed now, that children aren’t remanded in custodial settings and that alternatives are developed even for those who commit the most serious offences.

Rachel de Souza is right that her message is politically inconvenient. But is it coherent in terms of policy?

I was surprised to read Rachel dismissing the Secure Schools initiative as a mere “tweak”. Despite current failings at Oasis Restore, replacing YOIs and the Secure Training Centre with more Secure Schools and Secure Childrens Homes has always looked a reasonable if ambitious long-term blueprint, despite its glacial progress so far. But it doesn’t satisfy Rachel’s desire for yet more fundamental change and the need to develop “genuine decent alternatives”.

The government response to the review on girls in custody also out this week illustrates the scale of the challenge of even modest reform to the system for this tiny group. Because as things stand a Secure Childrens Home can’t be required to accept every child referred to it, there’ll always be a need for a backstop form of custody to guarantee a court decision that a child should be detained can be implemented.

An enhanced protocol will see SCH’s working together to ensure more children deemed suitable for a placement can be accommodated in them. It’s a stretch to think that all of those currently held in YOI’s, mostly 16 and 17 years of age could easily be held safely in care-based facilities without significant investment not only in the number of places available but in staff capacity and regime development.

As for developing more wide-ranging alternatives to custody, it’s clear that the care sector is struggling to meet the needs of the children it’s already responsible for.  The  huge rise in the number of children deprived of their liberty by the High Court who can end up for months  in unregulated settings has in part been fuelled, according to the Nuffield Observatory, by the welcome falls in youth custody. Some children get locked up instead via the welfare system. The extent of what used to be called “transinstitutionalisation” needs further investigation.

Legal change and increased funding for open and secure residential care should bring down the numbers deprived of their liberty in this way over time. But the issue makes the case for a more integrated governmental approach to meeting the needs of all children in trouble. For example, by moving responsibility for youth justice to the Education Department. Or by broadening/reinventing the role of the Youth Justice Board. Without this, I can’t see Rachel’s radical vison taking root.

Also needed is proper consideration of the processes by which children end up behind bars. Neither the Gauke Sentencing Review nor Leveson’s Courts review looked at the effectiveness of arrangements for children. The interesting ideas for reforming the youth court in Charlie Taylor’s 2016 Youth Justice Review sit in some long grass somewhere in Whitehall. It’s time for a fresh look at these and other proposals for ensuring that decision-making about children in trouble across the board is appropriate to the task.  This is particularly true in respect of remand decision-making which is so often in Rachel’s memorable phrase “ a production line of pointlessness”

The Children’s Commissioner has opened up an important debate about how far and how fast we can go with youth justice reform. The disgraceful abuse faced by young men at Medomsley Detention Centre highlighted this week shows what can happen when punitive short sharp shock policies take hold in the justice system. Reform UK’s plan for “High Intensity Training Camps “has a worryingly familiar ring.

Labour has the opportunity, and many would say duty to chart an altogether more constructive course for youth justice.

More Questions than Answers on Fire Safety in Prisons

 

Prison fires and subsequent injuries remain of serious concern according to the recently published 2024-25 Annual Report of the Crown Premises Fire Safety Inspectorate (CPFSI). It’s a much more timely and useful publication than usual- the 2023-24 Report came out just four months ago- and it’s a troubling one.  

The latest update reveals that the 116 prisons in England saw 534 fire related injuries in the last financial year, 60 fewer than in 2023-4 but still three times more than occurred five years ago. Fire incidents have doubled over the last five years from 1308 to 2932.

The data in the Report, which includes all recorded fires, not only those where the Fire Service attends, shows double the rate of fires in private sector prisons than in public ones.

2,263 fires were recorded in the 101 public sector prisons – an average of 22.4 fires per prison. 669 fires were recorded at the 15 private jails, a rate of 44.6. The sectors are not directly comparable- for one thing there are 11 publicly run Open Prisons accommodating low risk prisoners and none in the private sector. It’s concerning to read that three private prisons accounted for more than 300 fires last year.

95% of prison fires are started deliberately with vapes responsible for causing more than two thirds of them. CPFSI is optimistic that a new Safer Vape Pen will prove a “significant advancement in prison safety” when it’s rolled out shortly. The device hasn’t been linked to any fires in the eight prisons where its being trialled.

But Young Offender Institutions for under 18s have also seen more fires in recent years although vapes aren’t available there. At Werrington and Wetherby misuse of electrical wiring was responsible for causing 97% of fires.

As the Report points out prisoners start fires for numerous reasons: challenging prison regimes, conflicts with other prisoners and staff and to inflict harm. It seems naïve to think new vape pens will eradicate prison fires altogether.  

Chief Inspector Peter Holland accepts that the figures in his Report clearly demonstrate the need for further concerted action to reduce the frequency and impact of fires. He says that 44% of prison cells still do not have suitable in cell fire detection. Presumably this is in line with  the Prison Service estimate of 21,000 cells failing to meet fire safety standards which was recently shared with MPs. The total number of actual cells (singles, doubles, and multi occupied rooms) in the system as a whole is not however clear -to me at any rate. 

I suggested that in their latest inquiry into the Ministry of Justice the Public Accounts Committee investigate the true extent of the fire safety challenge in prisons and the timescale over which HMPPS are looking to fix it.  They didn’t take up the suggestion so perhaps the Justice Committee should do so. It may not seem the highest priority just now, but issues like fire safety never are until they are.

Beyond the Doors ? Whats happening with the Secure School.

 

 

Up to £6 million is needed to fix 184 faulty doors at the Oasis Restore Secure School (ORSS) which closed last month, MPs have been told. Replying to queries from the Justice Committee, new Youth Justice Minister Jake Richards wrote that concerns were first raised about “internal door functionality” in February, when vandalism exposed weaknesses in the locking systems and fabric of some doors. This increased risks to the safety of children and staff at the school in Kent.  

There were ten children at ORSS when the closure was announced, eight children were moved into different establishments whilst two were released having served their sentence or the end of their period on remand. The furthest distance a child moved was more than 200 miles to Parc Young Offender Institution in South Wales.

Responsibility for the fiasco lies with the Ministry of Justice which is accountable for the school’s infrastructure. An Independent Review is looking at the decision-making which led to the inadequate specification for the original doors.

Richards says a proportion of the costs of replacing them will be recovered from a budget surplus arising from the temporary closure of the school- but up to a million pounds a month will be spent to retain staff and essential services there.

It’s not clear when the school will reopen although the MoJ's new Permanent Secretary, Jo Farrar, has now told the Public Accounts Committee she hoped it will be in March next year. Specialist architects have identified the available replacement options for the doors with site visits from suppliers underway to develop detailed specifications. 

Neither is it clear how far problems at Oasis Restore may go beyond building failures.  

According to Richards:

“Caring for children with complex needs in a secure setting is extremely challenging and the secure school model was new and innovative. Whilst it is inevitable that there would be learning to take, the issues experienced with the site in recent months are not an acceptable outcome for children or staff. For these reasons, the Department is working at pace to learn from these issues and rectify them as quickly as possible”.

In the meantime, secure school staff are undertaking training, placements at other sites and other “improvement work” in response to issues raised in recent Ofsted inspection reports.

By coincidence, on Friday the House of Lords is debating the Secure 16 to 19 Academies Bill which would reduce the minimum notice period for termination of a secure schools funding agreement from seven to two years. Although it’s a Private Members bill, it has government support. Unless things improve at Oasis Restore, the government may need to use its provisions.

Young Adults in Custody- Yet Another Challenge for Prisons

  

Failings in secure institutions for children are all too familiar, but a report out today paints an equally disturbing picture of life in a prison where many of those serving long sentences are transferred when they turn 18.  

Among the findings of the local watchdog during the course of the year to April, HMP Swinfen Hall saw  

·         “no go” areas for staff too scared to challenge young men in their care

·         uncontrolled meal queues leaving some prisoners with insufficient or no food

·         serious assaults in unlocked cells and unsupervised association rooms and

·         PAVA incapacitant spray deployed more than twice a week    

The Independent Monitoring Board describes the Staffordshire jail as fundamentally unsafe with violence becoming more serious during the year with stabbings and assaults via kicks and stamps to the head. A ban on razors has led to an increase in more dangerous weapons being used. It’s shocking but perhaps not surprising that one young man had isolated himself in his cell for more than three years.

The prison receives young adult men from all over the country, most under 21 with complex needs and presenting high risk of harm. It’s a very challenging cohort but it looks like the prison is simply not equipped to cope with them.  There have been some welcome efforts to identify and support neurodiverse individuals, but every aspect of the prison’s overall effectiveness was undermined by the limited regime on offer.

The main reason is that staffing levels are “pared down to the minimum”, day and night, made worse by staff absence and unfilled vacancies. So staff who are there struggle to manage the basics.

A review of a very serious incident revealed that staff involved did not have all the resources needed to prevent injury in the case of a serious in cell fire. Food trolleys were filthy, waste food was left unbagged all around the prison, faulty kitchen equipment remained out of action for months. Staff culture is such that the chance of prisoners getting any positive feedback or thanks is nigh-on impossible.

It's a dismal read, miles from the direction of travel I set out for places like Swinfen Hall 12 years ago in Young Adults in Custody The Way Forward. The report for the Transition to Adulthood alliance recommended that young adult prisons should be remodelled as Secure Colleges with an integrated programme of education and training at their core, a normalised regime and the possibilities of progression to open conditions.

It’s a model which has been successful in Germany and elsewhere. It requires first and foremost a recognition of the distinctive needs of young adults and a genuine commitment to meet them. I wonder whether there’s the political will for the first let alone the second.  

 

(A bit) More on the Secure School

 

We learned last month that the Oasis Restore Secure School was to close temporarily following a monitoring visit by Ofsted which raised concerns about safety and the quality of the buildings- in particular a large number of broken doors. The report of Ofsted’s visit which took place at the end of July has now been published. Does it tell us more than we already know?

On timing, the report reveals that while new placements were to be halted immediately, the temporary closure would be “in or around September 2025”. So it’s not altogether clear whether there are still children there. The period of closure is to allow for the environment to be fully assessed, for new security doors to be delivered and installed, and for other essential works to take place. There’s no indication of how long this might take.

On the problems themselves, the report confirms that several “security doors” were badly damaged, compromising the safety of children and staff. Other aspects of the safety and security of the School were also compromised “due to the installation of items that do not have the required resilience for a secure environment”.  The items are not specified. The report mentions other weaknesses- very high temperatures in the education block and poorly maintained outside spaces.

The report’s focus on infrastructure failings makes it hard to assess whether there’s more to this story than badly designed doors and how well Oasis have been managing the School.  Ofsted report an increased use of single separation, when a child is locked up alone in their room. It’s a measure which has a negative impact on children and should only be used when necessaryto prevent injury or serious damage to property.

There is also a reference in the report to “serious safety and security issues” in two areas of the School which managers undertook to remedy urgently - but no detail is provided.

On the whole, the report is more critical of the Ministry of Justice than of Oasis, making it clear that the MoJ is responsible for the building, “including expediting repairs and ordering necessary items, but it has failed to ensure that the replacement items needed are available and installed within a reasonable time frame”.  The more fundamental question is why such repairs are needed so soon after £40 million was spent getting the place ready.

Although the Public Accounts Committee might take this up in their current inquiry into the MoJ, I’d like to see the Justice Committee hold a one off session with officials and Oasis to get to the bottom of what went wrong.

More on Fire Risks in Prisons

 

Last night I finished watching the excellent if harrowing BBC series on the 1988 Piper Alpha disaster- a tragic and catastrophic case study of what can happen if safety concerns are not properly identified and addressed.

Today I read that there’s still a “significant fire risk” to the women who reside in 15 houses at Styal prison according to the local watchdog.  In their annual report for 2024-5, the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) says that despite some work to improve fire safety, the Crown Premises Fire Safety Inspectorate (CPFSI) has issued two enforcement notices after identifying areas of concern, particularly with regard to asbestos in boiler rooms, and compartmentalisation of the houses, leaving no natural fire breaks. The fire risks at Styal have been reported for at least four years. 

A “Mini Fire Safety Improvement project” is underway to provide wired, automated detection in 27 cells to support the Governor in managing fire starters. This is much needed given that there were 26 cell fires at the prison last year up from six in the previous year.

But much more work is obviously needed. The IMB ask the Prison Service in their report what additional resource will be made available to mitigate the serious fire safety concerns they’ve highlighted.  

What’s happening at Styal looks a microcosm of what’s happening across the prison estate- a troubling increase in prison fires, some welcome remedial fire safety work going on but not at the required scale or speed.

Styal also illustrates weaknesses in inspection processes. In 2022-3 the IMB  reported that the houses there were  now fully compliant with fire safety regulations. That seems to have been wrong and misleading.

They now report that CPFSI issued two notices last year but not whether they have been complied with. The Styal notices don’t appear at all in  the register on the CPFSI website which significantly understates the number of notices issued in respect of prisons.

Shortcomings in safety inspections was one of the findings of Lord Cullen’s inquiry into the Piper Alpha disaster. What would he make of the arrangements for prisons?

Prison Fire Safety Delay ?

 

21,000 currently occupied prison places -almost one in four- do not meet fire safety standards, MPs have been told. In a letter sent in July but published today, Prisons Chief Phil Copple told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that despite an extensive remedial programme, around 6,000 prison places may not meet the required standards by the end of 2027. This is the deadline agreed with Fire Safety Inspectors for all cells to be fire safety compliant. The prison service has a red line commitment not to use non-compliant cells after that date. 

Until now. Copple also told MPs that “we continue to review our plans to minimise the number of cells that will not be compliant by the 2027 deadline and review the correct procedures for managing non-compliant cells after this date”.  This sounds like civil service speak for postponing the deadline.

In another letter, Copple explained that 77 Ministry of Justice Projects were delayed when construction firm ISG went into administration last year. Some of these have involved fire safety work in prisons. Given that replacement contractors do not seem to have been found for all the ISG work, it’s quite possible that the 6,000 figure may rise.

The PAC is following up recent scrutiny with the MoJ so should definitely ask whether the 2027 deadline has formally been revised and whether the Crown Premises Fire Safety Inspectorate is content with the revision.

Capacity Assessment

 

If the Independent Review of Prison Capacity was designed to remind the public how badly the last government managed the penal system, it’s probably succeeded. Will it help the current and future governments do much better? I’m not so sure.

Like Gauke’s review of sentencing and Leveson’s on the courts, Dame Anne Owers final report  in the trilogy is stronger on diagnosing the problems than prescribing remedies. An independent advisory body for the system, a ten year strategy to develop probation and an evaluation of the prison service may help- or just deliver more talking heads.

Much more promising are the proposals for local multi-disciplinary management of offenders, modelled on youth justice; and improved addiction, health, housing, and employment services.

But they’ll need money. I’d like to have seen a recommendation that these approaches could be resourced from some of the billions earmarked for prison expansion on the basis that they will reduce the requirement for it. Could the time be ripe to revive the idea of Justice Reinvestment ? Alongside some new prison places we surely need more hostels and halfway houses, secure hospital beds and residential drug treatment- institutional measures that can act as effective alternatives to custody.   

There are two other concrete recommendations I’d also have liked to see. First that the Sentencing Council plays an enhanced role in balancing supply and demand for prison places.

The Council reports each year on how changing sentencing practice impacts on prison, probation and youth justice services; and on how “non-sentencing factors” such as the numbers in court, and release and recall decisions affect the resources needed to implement sentences. This has been a watchdog that never barked if ever there was one. It should be urged to use its vocal chords and even be given some teeth. It gets no mention in the Capacity Review.   

Second, the Review could propose more to limit the use of custodial remand. Oddly Anne Owers says those remanded to prison were looked at by the Gauke Sentencing Review. They weren’t.  Leveson looked at remand a bit and may return to it in the second part of his review on Court Efficiency. His first report says he was looking forward to what the Capacity Review had to say on the topic. He may be disappointed.

While Anne Owers rightly notes “the very lengthy periods…prisoners are now spending on remand has had an extremely detrimental impact on them (as well as on prisons)”, there is no recommendation about how to address the problem.  There is a suggestion that more alternatives could be considered but something more specific is needed- a tightening of the Bail Act and guidelines for Magistrates and Judges for example. The whole subject has fallen between the gaps of the three reviews.

A trilogy originally referred to three related tragedies. Whether the mismanagement of criminal justice in recent years amounts to a tragedy I don’t know, but it certainly needs urgent action to put right.

I’d thought the post- Gauke Sentencing Bill would have been published before the Summer Recess but although most of its recommendations have been accepted, I hear that getting Ministers to make detailed decisions isn’t easy. The Bill’s now expected next month.  The response to Leveson’s first review will be in the autumn but there is no timetable given for a response to the Capacity Review.  

While the prison place emergency the government faced last year may have eased, there is no excuse in delaying the delivery of a more effective and sustainable system.

 

Groundhog Week for Youth Custody

 

It’s Groundhog Week for  youth custody, as the Justice Secretary is told today to take urgent action to improve Oakhill Secure Training Centre (STC) where inspectors have found serious and systemic failures putting children there at risk of harm. On Monday, inspectors reported that only a third of children at Werrington Young Offender Institution felt cared for by staff with most spending too long locked up and not getting enough education.  

The Oakhill failings are particularly troubling, the latest in a long line of crises to engulf STCs over the last 30 years- and the second time Oakhill itself has been subject to an Urgent Notification. Four years ago it “barely met minimum standards of human decency” and despite some short lived improvements it’s back in a shocking state- unsanitary conditions, unresponsive healthcare, inappropriate use of separation and restraint and safeguarding in disarray.

Perhaps the most worrying part of the Ofsted Chief Inspector’s letter to Shabana Mahmood is the revelation that the Director of the G4S run centre and one of the deputy directors were formally suspended from their duties earlier this month and the other deputy director was recently fired.

30 other staff have been suspended in the last eight months, most because of concerns about “conduct with children”.  All of the 18 investigations completed have led to “various managerial actions including dismissals”. Some staff facing serious allegations have been allowed to continue to work with children. Staff convey a culture of fear, mistrust and reprisal, with some saying they have been left feeling unsafe while working alone on a unit.

Ministers should be worried too that the Youth Custody Service (YCS) -responsible for contractual management of private sector sites- has failed “to identify and/or take sufficient action to help safeguard children and to ensure that children receive good quality care”.  After the first Urgent Notification, in 2022 YCS assessed that despite limited improvements in G4S’s management of Oakhill STC, “there remained a risk that these improvements may not prove sustainable”. YCS should therefore have been much more on the case since then.

So what is to be done? It’s almost nine years since the then government agreed that Young Offender Institutions (YOIs) and STCs should be replaced in the longer term by smaller secure schools situated in the regions that they serve. Since then one Secure School finally got off the ground last year. It’s progress has been disappointing- an inspection coincidentally out today finds it needs improvement to be good.

Oasis Restore is not yet delivering good help and care for children and young people- and it’s of concern that the effectiveness of leaders and managers there is rated as inadequate. However, “there are no serious or widespread failures that result in children’s welfare not being safeguarded or promoted”, unlike at Oakhill.  Such failures tend to be even less common in Secure Childrens Homes, whose capacity in my view should have been expanded instead of creating the Secure School. But we are where we are. That doesn’t mean we have to stay here forever.

The Oakhill contract runs until 2029 and would probably cost too much to end early. But that could and should be the target date for the government to remove children from YOI’s and STC’s using Secure Children’s Homes and Secure Schools instead.  

Catching Fire

 

Quietly published last month was the latest annual report of the Crown Premises Fire Safety Inspectorate, (CPFSI) the body which enforces fire safety legislation in most government buildings including prisons. It’s long overdue, covering the financial year to March 2024- and it’s troubling.

The year 2023-24 saw one prisoner die as a result of fire – the fourth since 2019- with 16 suffering major injuries such as serious burns or severe smoke inhalation.  Across the estate 19 more, and 21 prison staff suffered minor injuries with well over 500 other individuals in prisons given precautionary medical assessments following their involvement with fire. The number of people affected by prison fires rose in line with the increase in fires. The CPFSI report says there were 2,477 fires in 2023-4 up 74% from the previous year.  Data for the calendar year 2024 suggests a continuing rise through last year with almost 3,000 cell fires.

CPFSI Chief Inspector Peter Holland reports that 95% of prison fires are started deliberately and the significant increase is mainly due to the misuse of both vapes and electrical equipment by prisoners. Vapes were responsible for causing two thirds of prison fires, with mishandling of non-faulty electrical wiring causing a further 12%. Holland says there’s a need for improved compliance with the Fire Safety Legislation “and further concerted action to reduce the frequency and impact of fires”.

So what is the Prison Service doing? Fire safety is ostensibly a high priority, governed by a detailed Prison Service Instruction. HMPPS has recently achieved conformity with the British Standard for Fire Risk Managment Systems.

On primary prevention, a new ‘Moja’ vape pen is being introduced with a battery cell welded directly to the circuit  board, preventing rewiring and misuse of the heating element. In April, trials involving 1,138 prisoners were underway at HMP Swaleside and HMP The Mount, with five additional prisons due to join last month. It’s been reported the new safer pens will be rolled out to all prisons by October although this looks ambitious to me.

There have been local initiatives too. In the three Leeds prisons, cell fires reportedly reduced when prisoners’ property was subsequently removed for decontamination or destruction - though many fires are still started by new arrivals who do not yet have enough personal property to deter them. More positively, fire crews have been working with respected members of the prisoner population at HMP Wealstun on the risks of cell fires so they can help deter newcomers during their induction period.

In West Yorkshire a new Incident Reporting Form has been created to try to increase the use of prosecution following cell fires. The Fire Service say there have been instances in the UK where up to two years were added to a sentence, which could serve as a powerful deterrent. It’s not clear that tougher punishment will work. The CPFSI report says “inmates start fires for numerous reasons: challenging prison regimes, conflicts with other prisoners and staff, and to inflict harm”. Current CPS guidance says that a cell fire may be an attempt to commit self-harm, and these cases should not normally be referred by the prison to the police.

As for responding to fires, HMPPS has a major fire safety improvement programme which aims to bring all cells up to standard by the end of 2027 through automatic fire detection and suppression measures. MPs on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) concluded earlier this year that the deadline won’t be met, in part because of the collapse of construction company ISG. Whether the red line commitment not to use non-compliant cells after that date will be maintained presumably depends on population pressures at the time. PAC have asked the MoJ how they plan to meet the maintenance backlog in prisons more broadly. The latest MoJ delivery plan includes making more cells fire safety compliant but not where and when.

One urgent priority must be to ensure that prisons comply with enforcement or alterations notices served by CPFSI. The latest list  includes notices in force on two public and two private prisons, but the list is incomplete. I know of one other prison served with an enforcement notice and am seeking information about any others.

CPFSI has recently been moved from the Home Office into the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. I hope this will stimulate a more urgent and comprehensive approach to the oversight of fire safety in prisons. Neither Independent Monitoring Boards nor the Prison Inspectorate look systematically at fire safety during their visits to prisons. I was surprised to learn that the latter no longer has a formal protocol in place with CPFSI about the sharing of information. They should agree one in my view.

Ex abundanti cautela

 

  

When I worked in the Home Office thirty years ago, my boss, a former barrister, was fond of bandying around Latin legal tags. His comments on my draft submissions to ministers often included the principle of being on the safe side.    

This certainly seems the approach the Sentencing Council has adopted in response to the new law on sentencing guidelines and pre-sentence reports (PSRs).  It has not only paused the new guideline that led to the rumpus – a revised version of the “Imposition of community and custodial sentences” will now come into effect on 1^st September.  The Council has also amended a number of existing guidelines with immediate effect. They say they’ve done so “to be confident that all sentencing guidelines comply with the new legislation”.

But have they gone further than they need to?

The revised version of the Imposition guideline has of course removed what were considered the offending paragraphs about the cohorts for whom a PSR would normally be considered necessary. While neither young adults nor women are mentioned specifically in the new law, courts will no longer be advised that when considering a custodial or community sentence for them they should normally ask the Probation Service for a pre-sentence report.

But the guideline does continue to say that “further information on age and/or lack of maturity can also be taken into account by courts when sentencing a young adult;” and that “it is important for the court to ensure that it has sufficient information about a female offender’s background”.

As for mothers with dependent children, pregnant and post-natal offenders, the court should obtain “detailed information” before sentencing them.

The Council has done as much as it could to keep the message that for these cohorts at least courts should generally be finding out as much as possible about their personal characteristics. In practical terms this, hopefully more often than not, will be by asking for a PSR.

The Council has also felt the need to amend the detailed explanations it includes in drop down form in its digital guidelines. Here I’d say they’ve gone too far. In the section on assessing the remorsefulness of an offender, they’ve removed the phrase “If a PSR has been prepared it may provide valuable assistance in this regard”. Also gone is the suggestion that a court will be assisted by a PSR in making an assessment of whether an offender has addressed an addiction or their offending behaviour.  Both of these statements are incontrovertibly true and it’s hard to see how they breach the new law.

Most worrying is the change the Council’s made to its guideline on sentencing children and young people. The original version stated that in making an assessment of whether a child under 18 is dangerous “it will be essential to obtain a pre-sentence report”. This has now been struck out. So, it seems, it is no longer essential.

The guideline continues to say that “the assessment of dangerousness should take into account all the available information relating to the circumstances of the offence and may also take into account any information regarding previous patterns of behaviour relating to this offence and any other relevant information relating to the child or young person”. So it might be argued – as with women and young adults- getting sufficient information to reach the best decision will in practice often mean obtaining a PSR. But to replace the word “essential” with – well nothing- is to my mind a mistake.

The Imposition guideline which set off this unseemly and unwelcome chain of events did not even deal with children. On this revision at least, the Council should think again.  

 

 

Unacceptable Violence

 

One of many troubling findings in the national annual report of Independent Monitoring Boards (IMB)out this week is “a level of acceptance among some staff and detained people, with poor conditions becoming normalised after years of inaction and minimal change; prisoners often feel there is no point in complaining and staff have become desensitised to seeing people in acute distress”.

I daresay losing the ability to be shocked can be a risk for local volunteers and professional inspectors too as it is for those of us who largely rely on their work to understand what’s happening in prisons.

Today I was shocked, reading the IMB report on HMP/YOI Hindley in Wigan. Not by the extended periods of lockdown due to staff absences in which prisoners are held in their cells 23 hours a day; nor that in one month last year more than three quarters of prisoners tested for drugs returned a positive result with occurrences of men found to be under the influence virtually daily. The scale of these problems may be high at Hindley but they’re sadly all too common across the estate.

What troubled me is a reference to the actions of trained and experienced officers from across the high security estate invited in to conduct comprehensive searches for illicit items.  Not surprisingly they found many phones, drugs and weapons. But the watchdog says that

“the level of violence used by a few external officers was unacceptable to the Board and Governors, who have pursued the matter through the official complaints process, with some matters referred to the police”.

I may be naïve but that does not seem normal to me. Not the violence necessarily, but certainly of a kind that results in a Governor referring prison service colleagues to the police. There are no further details about the incident but with recent calls for a substantial escalation in the force available for prison staff, it surely requires a fuller investigation.

I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so.

 More trouble at the new Secure School. Ofsted visited in April after concerns were received about children’s safety and well-being. Inspectors found  a high number of internal doors need to be replaced. This is because they are not sufficiently robust and "do not prevent children from passing through them when they are locked, particularly when children are upset or frustrated and are demonstrating this through their behaviour".  Presumably they'd to all intents and purposes been kicked in. 

This would be extraordinary enough given that nearly £40 million was spent fitting the premises out before it opened last summer. 

But the inspectors go on to say that "several doors were badly damaged during a short period. This caused some anxiety for children and staff. There has been an increase in instances of children making weapons out of everyday items. Some children say that this is because they have not always felt safe recently." 

This sounds a euphemism for serious disorder to me. 

As a result the number of children living at the home run by Christian charity Oasis Restore has had to be reduced. There were just 9 when Ofsted inspected, when it should be taking 22 (and eventually 49). It looks like the Secure School currently has no Principal and no Registered Manager.

I have never visited the place but unlike some who work in the sector, I've always had worries about an organisation with no experience of secure care being able to cope let alone implement their lofty ambitions to revolutionize youth justice. In the same building 30 odd years ago, Medway Secure Training Centre (STC) suffered a serious disturbance not long after opening. Deja vu all over again?  

Four years ago I wrote that "Given the inappropriateness of Young Offender Institutions and STCs, there is part of me that wishes this initiative well. But it looks too much like a risky experiment.  Secure Childrens Homes already offer a proven model – it’s they which should be being scaled up. Instead the number of places has gone down. 235 last year compared to 250 in 2015 not long before the Secure School was dreamed up. 

A Good Try- but can it be Converted?

 

I met David Gauke a few years back when our sons were on opposite sides in a rugby match. I was impressed that he recalled our touchline conversation when we talked briefly again this January at a Sentencing Council seminar. He told the seminar that whatever else it might do, there was an arithmetical imperative his Sentencing Review’s recommendations should effect a sustained reduction in demand for prison places to prevent continuing recourse to the emergency measures we’ve seen over the last couple of years.

His wide ranging and largely welcome report is more a review of the execution of sentences than it is of sentencing. It says little about addressing the rampant sentence inflation which the first part of the review identified as the cause of the capacity crisis.

But it does contain important proposals which are estimated to result in a fall in the prison population of 9,800 places. Unfortunately, the report lacks the kind of detailed cost benefit analysis that generally accompanies legislation in the form of an Impact Assessment signed off by ministers. That’s a shame, particularly as the Lord Chancellor’s rejection of some of Gauke’s proposals will undoubtedly bring the 9,800 figure down. But by how much it’s hard to say.  

Take the proposal that short custodial sentences are used only in exceptional circumstances. Gauke reckons this will save 2,000 places. But a similar measure proposed by the last government in 2023 was estimated to save between only 200 and 1,000 places. The Lord Chancellor has described the Gauke scheme as “a presumption against custodial sentences of less than a year – in favour of tough community sentences.” The 2023 version involved a duty to suspend a prison sentence- a subtle but important distinction which may account for the difference in the assessments.  But without the detailed workings it’s impossible to say.

A larger reduction in prison places is expected from Gauke’s early release proposals. Unfortunately, the Lord Chancellor hasn’t accepted them in their entirety. For those serving Standard Determinate Sentences (SDS), Government plans to ditch an upper limit to the proportion of the sentence they serve in prison will eat into the 4,100 places that would be saved. Gauke wanted the more dangerous prisoners serving Extended Sentences to be able to earn a Parole hearing at the halfway point of their sentence. MoJ says no and they’ll have to continue to wait until two thirds has passed. So the 600 places that would have been saved presumably won’t be.

The government say they’ll “introduce a tougher adjudication regime so that bad behaviour in prisons is properly punished”. Under the earned release scheme, offences against discipline, such as engaging in any threatening, abusive or violent behaviour, or possessing unauthorised articles would result in the offender’s release point being pushed back. It’s not clear that the Review team took a tougher disciplinary regime into account when assessing the numbers of SDS prisoners who’ll qualify for release at the earliest point.

The Lord Chancellor told Parliament today that as things stand, they’ll be short of 9,500 places by 2028. Gauke’s certainly had a try at bridging the gap. But can it be converted?

 

 

 

 

Sentencing Review: Three Things to Look Out For

 

Unless something’s been kept under wraps, many of the broad recommendations of the Sentencing Review have already been trailed as has the Government’s likely response. The central elements seem to comprise reducing short jail terms, a new scheme of earned early release and stronger community sentences. Here’s what I’ll be looking out for tomorrow.

Short Sentences: Chalk or Gauke?

When he was Lord Chancellor six years ago, David Gauke saw a “a very strong case to abolish sentences of six months or less altogether, with some closely defined exceptions, and put in their place, a robust community order regime.” He didn’t get a chance to act on it but five successors on, Alex Chalk’s Sentencing Bill  would have introduced a presumption on the courts to suspend short sentences of 12 months’ custody or less.  The election intervened so will successor number six go for abolition or suspension and what will the upper limit be? Perhaps more than 12 months?

What will prisoners have to do to earn early release?

It’s been reported that those qualifying could spend a third of their jail term behind bars with a further third  at home subject to electronic monitoring and the final third on licence with a liability to recall. Those who don’t earn the extra freedom are likely to spend a half their sentence in prison. The proportions may turn out to be slightly different but the bigger issue is what to do to get out early?

One option is simply to reward good conduct, measured presumably by the avoidance of disciplinary sanctions or reaching and maintaining the enhanced level on the scheme of Incentives and Earned Privileges. While this looks straightforward, developing a fair decision making process will have challenges. Prison Inspectors said last year that “staff regularly failed to challenge poor behaviour on the wings. In some prisons, rules were broken with near impunity because leaders had not established clear boundaries, and drug testing and adjudication processes were not used effectively”.

Another, or additional option is a Texas style points system which gives credit for participation in purposeful activities such as work or education or more formal rehabilitation programmes  aimed at addressing offending behaviour.

Given the limited and variable access prisoners have to positive activities even in training prisons, this looks even more problematic.  The Chief Inspector told MPs last week that assessments of purposeful activity have been consistently the lowest scoring of their four healthy prison tests since 1982. Only two out of 32 closed prisons inspected in 2023-24 were rated good or reasonably good for purposeful activity. Questions of fairness arise if prisoners in those two jails can reach the threshold for release more easily than those in worse performing jails who simply don’t get the opportunities to accumulate the points needed to reach the threshold for release.

Whatever the scheme entails, the Prison Service will need to devise a fair, timely and efficient process for assessing eligibility. The Inspectorate reported last year that staff  shortages were impeding effective offender management and prisoners’ ability to work through their sentence plans. How will a Lord Chancellor very committed to equality before the law make sure prisoners have a level playing field?

Will community supervision be able to step up to the plate? 

The new arrangements will entail a welcome shift of emphasis away from imprisonment to the community. As well as the need for the spending review settlement to reflect this, there looks to be a specific problem with electronic monitoring, highlighted in a recent Channel 4 documentary.

Financial penalties have been levied on Serco every month since they took on the service on 1 May 2024 because of poor performance. It turns out that their proposal to run the tagging scheme was classed as an Abnormally Low Bid but eventually approved.

If the new arrangements are to work well, the government will need to ensure not only that the Probation Service is given the resources they need to do the job but that tagging is run effectively and efficiently. What will the government do to strengthen supervision in the community?

No doubt, the Review and response to it will raise many other questions; for example if and how the new release arrangements will interact with existing processes like Home Detention Curfew?  But given the capacity crisis, perhaps the biggest one of all is how many prison places the new arrangements are expected to save. I hope there is a detailed impact assessment alongside the government plans but I am not holding my breath.

Dutch Lessons

 

Prisons at bursting point, insufficient staff to run them and maintenance backlogs threatening to make them unusable. This isn’t the UK but the Netherlands. A country not long ago renting out its unused facilities to other countries is now having to consider putting mattresses in cells to increase its own capacity.

Delegates at the ICPA Research Symposium in Belfast heard senior officials from the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security tell an all too familiar tale- prisons closed when numbers fell, sentences (particularly for drug offences) increasing in length and politicians loathe to spend the necessary financial and political capital needed to cope with the looming crisis let alone avert it.

Until now. The Dutch have embarked on developing a ten year strategy for a sustainable justice system- a kind of Gauke Review plus- looking not only at sentencing but at the drivers of crime, at public health and drug policies and at the shape of the correctional response that might be needed in the future. As the conference heard “the problem is too big for the prison system.” Delegates from England and Wales were left thinking if only we’d set up something like that.

The Dutch rate of imprisonment per hundred thousand of the population is still well under half what it is in England and Wales but like us the Netherlands is being forced to take some unpalatable short term measures.  These include using police cells and reopening some closed prison units.

In addition, there are currently 8,000 people sentenced to prison in the Netherlands who are at home. They are on a waiting list to serve their term when a space comes up.  

It’s not ideal in all sorts of ways but I’m surprised the so called prison queue has not been debated here as part of the plans to counter the prison capacity crisis which have been further laid out by the Lord Chancellor this week.

Could courts not be asked to keep out of prison all convicted offenders who have successfully spent their remand period in the community? If they do impose a custodial sentence, could it not be suspended, deferred, or postponed, depending on the circumstances?   

Perhaps Mr Gauke’s review, expected imminently, will propose it.

Incapacitating Children in Custody

 

Two days after announcing a trial into the use of Conductive Energy Devices (tasers) in adult male prisons, the Justice Secretary has authorised the use of PAVA, (synthetic pepper spray) in the three publicly run Young Offender Institutions (YOI) which hold children under 18.

A Ministry of Justice study on use of force spells out the overwhelming and painful effects of being on the receiving end of PAVA. Adult prisoners described feeling unable to breathe, and how the effects lasted more than an hour after exposure. One prisoner said: “My face felt like it was on fire, I couldn't see. I was just left on my own”.

Some of those affected were provided with a laminated paper outlining what should happen by way of aftercare but weren’t able to read it due to the impact of PAVA. Exposure to fresh air after an incident, and timely access to healthcare, “seemed inconsistent.”

Is this what we have come to in dealing with the youngest people in the prison estate?

Yes, there is a real and serious problem of violence in youth prisons. Latest data suggest it has been getting worse still, with assaults in 2024 up almost 25% on the previous year. But there are surely better ways to reduce it. After all , the availability of PAVA has not been conspicuously successful in curbing violence in adult jails, where assaults on staff reached a new peak last year. Before then Prisons Minister Rory Stewart rolled out its use in 2018, a pilot scheme “was unable to conclusively demonstrate that PAVA had any direct impact on levels of prison violence”.

So what is the answer? Monitors at Cookham Wood Young Offender Institution have recently reported on the final few weeks before the YOI closed last year. They found that “when the number of boys was very low, there was a glimpse of what a more positive regime could look like. This was an entirely different establishment, humane, offering a good amount of education and other activities; and where officers had the time to work more closely with individual boys.

Moreover “the small units were able to support the needs of boys with very challenging behaviour, including violence. Increased time out of room calmed the boys; they were occupied with education and increased association time.” The watchdog found it “very sad that the Youth Custody Service (YCS) had been unable to offer this type of regime previously at Cookham Wood.

This surely is the way forward for youth custody. To be fair, Shabana Mahmood told MPs in the longer-term, “we intend to move away from the current estate based on the evidence of what works for young people in custody. We will learn from the pilot of the first ever Secure School and the operation of Secure Children’s Homes (SCH).

But ministers have been saying much the same for more than seven years. In November 2017, a then Justice Minister told MPs he expected “that over the next 10 years or so, because it will take time, we will replace everything with secure schools.” Successive governments have neither sustained the political will nor found the money to do it. The daily cost of a place in a YOI is about £350, compared to £950 in a SCH.

According to the Chair of the Prison Officers Association, “a 17 year old armed with a knife is just as lethal as a terrorist prisoner.”  Let’s hope we aren’t going down a road  which leads to children in custody eventually being tasered too.

How Goes the Revolution? A difficult start for the first Secure School

 

The Oasis Restore secure school opened to great fanfare last Summer, promising a revolution in the way children accused and convicted of the most serious offences are treated. Two recently published inspection reports provide a mixed and somewhat sobering assessment of what’s been achieved so far.

Oasis Restore has been visited twice by Ofsted this year, in January to monitor its progress as a Secure Academy and a month later under the social care common inspection framework (SCCIF). The facility is both a school and a secure childrens home but quite why two separate inspections were needed is beyond me- particularly as the SCCIF covers children’s education and learning.  What’s more the two reports are by no means consistent.

The educational monitoring found that most children attended education and even those with previous negative experiences “participate fully”. The broader inspection a month later reported that attendance at lessons was not consistently good for too many children. Both assessments can’t be right. Disappointingly, both reports find that the breadth of the education curriculum is not sufficient to meet the needs of children of compulsory school age- surprising in view of Oasis’s track record as an education provider.

There are other puzzling findings which don’t match some earlier observations at Oasis Restore. Last October the Youth Justice Board Chief Executive remarked on “artwork on the walls, and soft blankets and sofas in the shared living spaces”.  She rightly considered these “incredibly important to help children learn to cohabit and foster a sense of community and responsibility”.  How come inspectors have now found that “communal areas are not decorated in a way that makes them feel homely?”

The first journalist allowed to visit the centre last year observed that to make the secure facility feel more like student accommodation or even a family home than jail children “can choose their own duvet cover and put up posters if they want”. Yet inspectors found “most children’s bedrooms do not have personal items that reflect their interests and identity”.

More troubling still are the inspectors findings about staff. Oasis make much of the ethos and habits of their staff and the YJB’s boss last year observed a highly trained team committed to providing responsive, psychologically informed and developmentally appropriate models of support and education, and “to loving the children like their own.”

A few months on, the Principal who set up the school has left, and Ofsted are reporting on the inexperience and low morale of a staff team that do not have consistent boundaries and expectations. Managers and staff working directly with children do not demonstrate an approach to safeguarding children that is consistently good. Teachers do not consistently support children to develop appropriate behaviours.

Such have been the difficulties recruiting and retaining suitable managers and staff, Oasis is accommodating fewer children than the home is currently registered for.

It is still early days of course and perhaps not surprising that the Secure school is judged to require improvement to be good. There are plenty of positives in the inspection report. Children say they can speak to staff if they have any worries or concerns and benefit from key-work sessions.  When incidents between children occur, staff respond sensitively and make effective use of de-escalation techniques. As a result, the need for physical restraint is kept to a minimum and is proportionate. Children speak positively about the range of activities on offer at the centre.

History shows that all too often the noble intentions behind secure institutions can give way to an altogether more troubling reality, most notably in Secure Training Centres. There are certainly some warning signs for the Secure School.  Several staff members are reportedly deeply concerned about the current staffing arrangements, demonstrating to the inspectors “a disconnect between the views and experience of staff and the senior leadership team”. 

Fixing this is surely the top priority for a new Principal when they start work. 

Learning the Right Lessons

It is entirely understandable that families whose lives were so tragically torn apart by the actions of Hashem Abedi should find it so hard to believe he has allegedly caused yet more serious harm, while serving his sentence. Our thoughts should primarily be with them, and with the prison officers seriously injured at Frankland High Security Prison. Let us all hope they make a full recovery.

Less understandable is the rush to judgement from some commentators about the lessons to be drawn from the awful event. One former Prison Governor and Inspector has written for example that the concept of self-catering facilities in ultra-high secure units is “utterly insane.” Their use in Separation Centres has now been suspended.

But the Prison Inspectorate expects prisoners in Separation Centres “to have a varied, healthy and balanced diet which meets their individual needs, including religious, cultural or other special dietary requirements and safety and hygiene regulations.” One indicator that this expectation is being met is that “prisoners can cater for themselves.”  So there is a rationale for the policy. It is not insane, though it looks to have been badly implemented in this case.

After a shocking assault, it is easy to argue that the risks posed by a particular prisoner should have meant they were prevented from accessing the means of committing it, in this case culinary items.

I have never visited the Separation Centre at Frankland but according to the Inspectorate report three years ago, it was “on a narrow corridor. There was a small room for association and an area for prisoners to cook and prepare food.”  In a small unit, how feasible would it be to stop one prisoner there from using that area?

With hindsight, that is what should have been done in this case. Perhaps, the alleged perpetrator was unsuitable to be placed in a Separation Centre, whose primary purpose is on preventing the radicalisation of others. Should he have been in another form of unit with closer supervision?

We need to trust the police investigation and independent review announced by the Ministry of Justice to answer those questions. They need to get to the bottom of what happened in the Separation Unit and to produce necessary recommendations for changes in how it is run.  I do not think it is helpful to anyone to speculate in advance.