Howard League Blog

Surprisingly, rather lost in today’s inspection report of Stafford prison is the finding that men convicted of sex offences are being released on the streets, homeless, with no support or supervision. The report reveals that 126 men – including more than 100 assessed as presenting a high risk of serious harm to others – were released …  Read more

In 2013 the Howard League for Penal Reform and the Prisoners Advice Service launched a legal challenge to the government’s decision to cut legal aid for prisoners. The case will be heard by the Court of Appeal in January 2017. During the last year, the Lord Chancellor has made a series of small concessions in response to …  Read more

Michael Gove’s plans include six ‘reform’ prisons and this concept has generated more heat than light. Some commentators have expressed concern that it is the first step toward either privatisation or academisation. I don’t think this is the case. Bear with me while I do a quick jog through the various structures developed for public services over …  Read more

Michael Gove gave an interesting speech to prison governors last week, ahead of the Queen’s Speech which is expected to focus on prison reform. He focused on the moral mission of prisons to change lives and spoke in positive terms about the vision he has for prison leaders to rehabilitate people in prison. Whilst I welcome …  Read more

This is the third inspection report in the space of a year following the disastrous inspection last spring and the follow-up that found some improvements.  Read more

The prisons inspectorate published a report on Elmley prison today. Not a high-profile jail, but nevertheless important because it illustrates the dreadful state of prisons across the country and how low our expectations have sunk. The press release accompanying today’s report praises the prison for improving. Indeed it has improved since 2014, when it was just …  Read more

The inspection report published today on Bronzefield prison shows that a prison with empty beds and full staffing can deliver a decent regime for women, and the same would be true for men. As we know, most men’s prisons are grossly overcrowded and understaffed so they are not providing a decent regime. Future plans for Bronzefield …  Read more

The last session of the we hosted last week in Oxford discussed how to end mass incarceration. The great prison experiment in the United States that started in the 1970s and saw the number of men, women and children in various forms of incarceration explode to more than 1.5 million by 2010 is, finally, coming …  Read more