Howard League Blog

The convictions of five former staff for assaulting boys in Medomsley detention centre comes after the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse found more than 1,000 allegations of sexual abuse of children in jails. The history of incarcerating children and young people is littered with sexual abuse and violence.  Read more

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) has published its findings on how children in jails have been victims of sexual abuse. It found more than 1,000 allegations of abuse and says that there are too many children in custody, particularly too many remanded to custody, and this is putting them at risk.  Read more

I attended a meeting today on how to sort out probation. We agreed that it was under the ‘Chatham House Rule’, which means I can talk about what we talked about but I will not identify who was there or who said what. All I will say is that the meeting included some representatives from the professions and users in the system and the group will carry on working.  Read more

The High Court made an important judgment this week about the failure of the Ministry of Justice to monitor private prisons. It got no media coverage as it got lost in the maelstrom of politics.  Read more

I did some television interviews on Bedford prison last week, discussing the inspection report that had revealed a prison in turmoil. The inspectorate found conditions in the prison to be so dangerous that it took the rare step last year of invoking the Urgent Notification protocol to demand immediate action. The inspection report was finally published on 22 January and it makes for desperately awful reading.  Read more

This is going to be personal. I was burgled a couple of weeks ago.  Read more

I agree with both chief constable Sara Thornton and Sue Fish, former chief constable.  Read more

The Chief Inspector of Probation has just published the first in a series of inspections she is carrying out on the National Probation Service.  Read more