Howard League Blog

I am a mother. I have spent a lot of time in prisons and I know prison is no place for mothers. On Mothers’ Day, I am asking you to think about mothers in prison.  Read more

We are all aware that contracting Covid can have devastating effects and I know two people who have been suffering from ‘long Covid’ that has laid them out for almost a year. Health services are only just beginning to investigate the many different symptoms and what treatments might be useful.  Read more

The response to our call for action to put a stop to building more women’s prisons has been overwhelming – thank you everyone. More than 100 MPs have been emailed and many of them by several constituents.  Read more

The government has announced that it is to increase the number of prison cells for women by 500. This is despite the number of women in prison falling and there now being 591 fewer women in prison than at this time last year.  Read more

The last ten months have been extremely difficult for all of us, and my heart goes out to the families who have lost a loved one. It has, of course, been particularly awful for prisoners and challenging for prison staff.  Read more

One of the Howard League successes I am most proud of is the work with police to reduce child arrests. When a decade ago we discovered that police were carrying out a third of a million child arrests a year, it was so shocking that we decided to act.  Read more

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Women in the Penal System, supported by the Howard League, is calling on the government to abolish an outdated law that gives courts the extraordinary power to send people to prison for their ‘own protection’.  Read more

The court system is creaking with delays that have been exacerbated by Covid. I am hearing of cases delayed by months, or even years.  Read more