Howard League Blog
Informal comment from our Chief Executive, Andrea Coomber KC (Hon.), and other contributors.
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A story that illustrates the craziness of the criminal justice system
This is too shocking not to share. A friend, a police officer, told me he was in a car with three colleagues for the whole day, cruising round aimlessly ‘looking for burglars’. As if this wasn’t a total waste of taxpayers’ money and a total waste of police time, it gets worse. Read more
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The nation deserves better
I just got a text from our Comms Manager, Rob Preece, because I was out of the office when the safety in prisons statistics were published. He said: “Self-injury among children in custody has almost doubled. It is my job to come up with the words, but there aren’t many that do this justice”. Read more
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‘Law-and-order’ proposals in the Queen’s Speech are performative politics at their most risible
The government has been trumpeting its focus on ‘law and order’, but it is not in fact concerned either with promoting the rule of law or in creating a more orderly society. Read more
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There is always money for locking up children, but none to clean up the mess afterwards
While the government is banging the ‘law-and-order’ drum, it is worth remembering that when people go into prison they also come out. The longer they are inside, the more institutionalised they become and the bigger the challenges they face on release. Read more
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It is just as irresponsible to promote short prison sentences as it is to oppose vaccination
The justice secretary is to announce plans to change the law so that men (almost all of them will be men) who are serving long sentences for serious sex and violent crimes will have to serve at least two thirds of their sentence, instead of half. Read more
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Toilets in prisons
Most prisoners sleep in a toilet. Around 20,000 men sleep in a shared toilet. Read more
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Children deserve better than a flawed inspection of a failing service
An inspection of the Surrey youth offending team (YOT) rated it as ‘inadequate’ and among the ten worst-performing in the country. Read more
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Recruiting prison officers is about to get even tougher
I spent yesterday in a prison holding adult men. It is a complex place, with a wing holding men convicted of sex offences who have to be moved and provided with activities separate to the other wings, and another wing with vulnerable men who also have to be separated. The prison is twice as big as it should be, dilapidated and seriously in need of repair and investment. Despite this, I met enthusiastic, committed and thoughtful staff and managers, working hard to do the very best they could. Read more
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Reviewing the Unduly Lenient Scheme
The Victims Commissioner has written an open letter to the Attorney General asking him to undertake a comprehensive review of the Unduly Lenient Scheme, which provides for the public to ask the Attorney General to refer a sentence to the Court of Appeal for being too low. Read more
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Why short prison sentences must go
David Gauke has indicated he will resign as Justice Secretary when we have a new Prime Minister. He was hoping to have abolished short prison sentences but we now learn that the consultation on how to enact this has been delayed. Last week he published research showing that short prison sentences are counter-productive, so now the challenge will be fairly placed on whoever takes over as to whether evidence or cheap politics is the primary purpose of his or her decisions. Read more
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