Howard League Blog
Informal comment from our Chief Executive, Andrea Coomber KC (Hon.), and other contributors.
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Principles for probation
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
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The state cannot outsource its human rights obligations
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
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My link to John Howard via Bedford prison
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
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Why I’d like to meet the man who burgled my home
This is going to be personal. I was burgled a couple of weeks ago. Read more
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We should not be criminalising everything
I agree with both chief constable Sara Thornton and Sue Fish, former chief constable. Read more
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One last restructuring that probation staff would welcome
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
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The rising number of people dying in prison by unexplained causes
We get notifications when people die in prisons. Over the years we have monitored the number of people dying by suicide, through natural causes and due to homicide. In the last three years the number of deaths that appear to be unexplained has soared, and I think there is something quite different happening inside prisons that no one has really grasped. Read more
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Why police and crime commissioners should not be the local vehicle for probation reform
We are in discussion with the Ministry of Justice and various interested organisations about the future of probation. We have developed a blueprint for how we could solve the problems created by Chris Grayling's disastrous reforms but there are some structural issues that are proving contentious. Read more
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If we want safer prisons, we must have fewer prisoners
I read two documents back-to-back this morning, which prompted this blog. The first was Rory Stewart’s article on Medium about reducing violence in prisons. The second was the newly released prison population projections from the Ministry of Justice. Read more
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Employment on release
The Ministry of Justice has launched a consultation on how best to support ex-offenders on their path to employment. It is aimed at employers, asking them about their inclusive recruitment and employment practices. It covers anyone convicted of an offence, but I am most concerned about how the prisons are missing a trick when aiming to support prisoners into employment on release. Read more
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