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Howard League Blog

Informal comment from our Chief Executive, Andrea Coomber KC (Hon.), and other contributors.

  • 14 Sep 2017
    Children and education in prison

    The Howard League made a complaint on behalf of a fifteen year old boy who was not getting sufficient education in prison. The child, who wishes to remain anonymous, had been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome and Attention Deficit Disorder before he went to jail as a young teenager.  Read more

  • 31 Aug 2017
    Building massive jails in remote locations is a recipe for disaster

    This government, as with so many of its predecessors, is trying to build its way out of a prison crisis. It has never worked in the past and it will not work this time.  Read more

  • 15 Aug 2017
    David Lidington and Aylesbury prison

    There has been much public concern about the state of prisons recently, and justifiably so, as people are dying, being beaten up and harming themselves.  Read more

  • 8 Aug 2017
    Girl X

    I don’t know anything more about the background story of Girl X than anyone else, but I think what we do know raises some serious questions for various authorities about the decisions they made and their responsibility for her plight.  Read more

  • 3 Aug 2017
    Monitoring isolation of children in prison

    On 4 July 2017 the High Court ruled that AB, a child represented by the Howard League legal team, had been treated unlawfully. The boy had been isolated and deprived of education by Feltham prison over several months.  Read more

  • 31 Jul 2017
    Peterborough prison and social impact bonds

    The final evaluation of the Peterborough prison Payment by Results (PbR) pilot was published last week. This was a scheme to provide support for people released from Peterborough prison after serving short sentences aimed at reducing reoffending.  Read more

  • 24 Jul 2017
    Might it be time to hold ministers to account?

    Most businesses and charities assess how effective they are being at delivering their objectives and they hold individuals to account. If staff do not deliver or do work that damages the business, they are dismissed. Indeed, in public service, people can be held accountable many years after they have left – look at Hillsborough. Ministers, however, often get away with it.  Read more

  • 28 Jun 2017
    The end of sex offender treatment programmes

    A few weeks ago I discovered that the prison service had quietly abandoned sex offender treatment programmes. These courses have been a mainstay of dealing with men convicted of a range of sex crimes and have been a prerequisite for securing transfer to open conditions and eventual release from prison.  Read more

  • 22 Jun 2017
    The Queen’s Speech and prison reform

    The first duty of government is to keep citizens safe. Over the past few years this has happened as crime has fallen. But there are still intractable problems and the Queen’s Speech singularly ignored one of the most corrosive and potentially explosive – prisons.  Read more

  • 5 Jun 2017
    Reform prisons – just a title

    There were reports in the media that Wandsworth prison has officially lost ‘reform' status. Actually it never really had it. Neither did any of the other prisons that were given the title. For, title was all it really was.  Read more

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