Howard League Blog

The Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Cressida Dick, was invited to give a lecture at the Howard League’s most important event of the year, our AGM. She used the opportunity to call for more young children, in effect more black boys, to be sent to prison and for longer.  Read more

We held a lively meeting with trustees to review the charity’s strategy this week. We were looking at the work of the Howard League and how we should focus our (quite meagre) resources in future. One of our trustees raised an alarming prospect that could derail all our, and the government’s, best-laid plans.  Read more

I visited a local prison a couple of weeks ago, and as I always do, I chatted to people I met along the way. One conversation stuck with me and the man has since written to me to tell me his story.  Read more

Last week the Howard League hosted an event for lawyers from different disciplines to come together to think about how to work together creatively to reduce the criminalisation of children in care.  Children are being criminalised at excessively high rates in children's homes compared to other children in the community. There's a complex interplay of factors leading to this situation which is likely to include the child's background and vulnerabilities and, most critically, systemic failings.  Read more

Some three years ago the Howard League revealed that some youth offending teams were recommending punitive restrictions on children when they were released from prison, which set them up to fail and put them at risk of being sent back to prison.  Read more

The Howard League has hosted fringe meetings at the various political party conferences for many years. This gives a platform to ministers and shadow ministers to talk less formally about their penal policies and gives an opportunity to engage with party activists and community leaders.  Read more

I have been contacted by a mother of a prisoner in Erlestoke. She was told she was not permitted to send her son books. She wanted to give him novels and he had asked for a dictionary.  Read more

I am pleased that the new Secretary of State for Justice, David Lidington, has said, several times, that he wants to see fewer prisoners. I am a little concerned, however, that he is repeating the old mantra that the way to achieve this is by reducing reoffending.  Read more