What Will Court Reform Mean for the Prison Population?

 

It’s good to see the House of Commons Justice Committee asking the government tough questions about the controversial Courts and Tribunals Bill. The Committee has issued a call for evidence to inform its scrutiny of the Bill and has already engaged the Lord Chancellor about the likely impacts of the legislation, including on the prison population.

Diverting more cases into the Magistrates Courts will reduce periods spent by defendants remanded in custody, and demand for jail places. But the resulting space freed up in the Crown Courts will accelerate the sentencing of defendants on bail charged with complex and serious crimes; those who get custodial terms will do so sooner than they otherwise would, upping pressure on prisons.     

The government’s impact assessment (IA) published alongside the Bill last week estimates the net effect will be an increase of 900 in prison numbers by 2033 before they gradually start to fall. It’s not a huge amount but neither is it negligible, given that the IA accounts for the measures in the Sentencing Act 2026, which introduces a presumption to suspend short custodial sentences, expands community-based alternatives, and increases electronic monitoring. The Ministry of Justice will need to revise its central estimate of a prison population of 95,900 in 2032 in the light of the new Bill’s impacts.

They may also want to look a bit more closely at the likely effects of extending Magistrates Courts sentencing powers so that cases that would otherwise be sent to the Crown Court can be retained in the magistrates’ courts for hearing and sentencing. The Bill allows for Magistrates sentencing powers to go up to 18 months or 24 months maximum imprisonment for single and multiple triable either-way offences.

In assessing the impact this might have on prison numbers, the IA assumes that sentencing behaviour will be the same in both Magistrates and Crown Courts. But Lord Chancellor David Lammy has told the Justice Committee that the increase to Magistrates Sentencing powers from 6 to 12 months in 2022-3 “had a short-term inflationary impact on the prison population”. It’s surprising that the IA doesn’t flag this at least as a potential risk this time round. If it comes to pass, the 900 estimate may be too low.

On the other hand, there may be an opportunity to limit the upward impact on prison numbers brought about by accelerated sentencing in the freed up Crown Court. The IA says that where bailed defendants enter the prison estate more quickly, there may be a public protection benefit for society through reduced potential of further reoffending and or victimisation. It asserts that “moving convicted people into prison removes potentially dangerous individuals from society which brings the benefits of safer communities”.

Equally for many of those defendants who have completed their periods on bail successfully, it should be possible to fashion a community-based alternative which can keep them out of prison after as well as before they are sentenced.

Youth Justice - A Missed Opportunity?

 

There are some things to welcome in the government’s youth justice policy statement presented to Parliament today.  Improved funding arrangements should enable local services to divert more children from crime, particularly knife crime and develop more effective alternatives to custody especially for those on remand. Plans to better incentivise local authorities to keep children awaiting trial for serious crimes in the community look promising.

But does the package really add up to the self-proclaimed “foundations fit for the future” of a modern system?

Yes, the government’s making some structural change- but it’s of questionable merit. They’re  going further than the independent review of the Youth Justice Board (YJB) (also out today), by relieving the YJB of its roles in developing youth justice standards, overseeing  how well they’re being met and advising ministers accordingly- as well as disbursing funds. These functions will revert to the Ministry of Justice, in line with cross government plans to cut spending and give ministers more decision-making powers.

The Board has at least survived, something of a surprise following its last minute reprieve from the 2010 bonfire of the quangos and loss of its responsibilities for youth custody in 2017. It would certainly have been odd to scrap entirely a New Labour creation which has been at the heart of what today’s statement calls “one of the great societal success stories in modern Britain.” The YJB will be a shadow of its former self however much it can make of its new mission of driving continuous improvement.  

David Lammy’s statement also has some honest words on the dismaying conditions for children in custody, particularly Young Offender Institutions “too old and too big, they are austere and unsafe, and they were often not designed to hold children at all”. It’s just what Charlie Taylor said in his 2016 review since when the distraction of the Secure School has led to 10 wasted years. Work is now promised on a plan that is realistic, affordable, and focused on achievable outcomes, getting children safely out of their rooms and into education. Key to that will be investment in the right kinds of values and skills among staff.

That indicates where today’s proposals don’t go far enough. This was an opportunity to move youth justice policy out of the Ministry of Justice into the Department for Education. Developing the best response to children in trouble of course involves many departments and agencies. That’s why the variety of experience and expertise among YJB members is so important. Taking responsibility from them and giving it to MoJ officials seems a mistake; better the YJB report to a department more centrally involved with promoting the interests of children.

Youth Justice Minister Jake Richards recognises that successful policy and practice relies predominantly on activities outside his department’s remit. He recently expressed frustration at how long the Health department took to get the best child psychologist in the country to write a one-pager for staff at the Secure Training Centre on how to manage girls locked up there.  

Lammy will “soon set out our plans for the system as a whole and, taken together, we believe these proposals will amount to the most fundamental reform of the youth justice system in a generation.”

To do that should paradoxically mean a significant reduction in his own responsibilities and a shift to a more fitting place in the machinery of government.  After all, he who opens a school door, closes a prison.  

Prison Problems Old and New

 

HMP Dartmoor was first built because overcrowding, poor sanitation and lack of fresh air on the floating hulks off Plymouth were causing so many prisoners of war to die on them. 220 years on, Parliament’s spending watchdog has roundly condemned a decision to keep the prison open despite the prison service knowing for years that it’s “choked with radon gas with all the health risks that entailed”.  According to the Health Security Agency (HSA) , if people breathe in high levels of radon over long periods of time this exposure can lead to damage to the sensitive cells of our lungs which increases the risk of lung cancer.

The prison has lain empty for 16 months pending a decision on exactly what’s needed to protect those who will live and work there from those risks- and whether it’s worth fixing at all.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) have concentrated their fire on the MoJ’s poor negotiation of the lease extension with the Duchy of Cornwall who own the prison.  

But there are surely lessons to learn too in the way the health risks to prisoners and staff have been identified, monitored and mitigated since raised levels of radon were first detected- certainly in 2020, maybe before. There’s not a clear timeline with many of the documents shared with MPs by the MoJ unpublished because of alleged commercial sensitivities.

Dartmoor’s local monitoring board (IMB) has reported that after the 2020 monitoring found staff might have experienced elevated exposures to radon, “due to regrettable delays in escalating the issue in the MoJ” internal mitigations were not put in place for two years. The monitoring of residential wings didn’t start until 2023. In that year  Inspectors found prisoners at Dartmoor were often not allowed outside more than twice a week, which on the face of it could mean an increased level of exposure to any excess radon in cells.

As the IMB put it, “after seven months of decanting, pausing, decanting and recanting”, significantly higher radon levels found in wing atriums led to the prison being closed.

Back in 2015 the HSA recommended that “If you have high levels of radon at home, you should take action”.  Its not clear that the prison service did so or did as much as they should at Dartmoor.

Meanwhile, another parliamentary committee has revealed “a deeply worrying picture” of HMP Millsike , which opened last March. Local monitors have reported on severe safety concerns, some prisoners spending up to 23 hours per day in their cell, and high levels of self-harm. The Justice committee say rigorous scrutiny is necessary to ensure prisoners are treated safely, fairly and humanely during the critical early years of operation.

As the Dartmoor debacle shows, that’s just as true of prisons in the later stages of their life.