IPP Prisoner Wayne Bell mental health is getting worse and his family is another casualty in this abhorrent law.

Dear  Katherine.

I must commend you on your continued campaign which is such a great source of information and help and support to us all and maintains the public pressure against this IPP law.


Regarding  Wayne Bell case.


I sent an Email  to Wayne Bell's MP To give full support in him taking up the case of Wayne Bell IPP prisoner as the only way of contact that I know to pass on my support to Wayne Bell and his family who is yet another casualty in this abhorrent law. 
"" I am encouraging everybody when it comes to an IPP prisoner to directly write to the Parole Board and to copy CEO Martin Jones to ask to be a witness at the IPP's prisoner's Parole Hearing so that they can advocate release with all the support that they can offer in the community and to bring undoubtedly all their very real concerns about the handling of their cases so far and to specifically present their case with no doubt all the invalid reports that would have been submitted to the Parole Board by Probation Services and Psychologists at their Parole Hearings.

The more pressure that is put on the Parole Board the better for them to really question the so called assessments completed by Probation Services and Psychologists.

Dear MrJeff Smith, MP

Having read about the case of Wayne Bell I just had to email you to say that I have total respect for you that you have taken up the case of Wayne Bell, the IPP prisoner, who is now years over tariff.

I am also supporting a close friend of mine who is caught up in this abhorrent law who is now detained for over 3.5 years following a recall and through only knowing my friend in the last 4 years it has exposed me to this IPP law and therefore I can totally relate to the sheer anger, frustration and anguish that Wayne and his family must be going through with the total failings of the Justice system in relation to this law.

The reason why I am emailing you is because I want to offer my full support to Wayne's family and if you can pass on the following advise to his family that as it is now approaching my friend's second Parole Hearing since his recall that I have taken the liberty of emailing the Parole Board directly and also the CEO Martin Jones of the Parole Board to request to be a Witness at my friend's Parole Hearing and to express my very valid concerns over the Parole Board decisions made which I firmly believe is due to the reports that are submitted to the Parole Board by Probation Services and Psychologists specifically so in my friend's case and I drew on Wayne's case and I would therefore advise Wayne's family to also be as proactive as possible by writing to the Parole Board directly for all the concerns that they must have had in Wayne's case and to ask to be a Witness at his Parole Hearing in full support of his release.  

I have taken the following extracts from my letter to the Parole Board as an example of my issues which I hope can provide some inspiration and hope to Wayne's family if you could pass this on to them and to let them know that there are thousands of people caught up in a similar situation who will be rooting for them and to say extremely well done for managing to bring Wayne's case to the public attention and that you have also taken up the cause. My extracts to the Parole Board in my friend's case are as follows: (NB I am just referring to my friend as XX)

"Please also note that there has been 3 very high profile cases brought to the public attention by the media such as James Ward, John Worboys and as of very recent Wayne Bell and although they are converse cases the underlying principles are the same as to why I firmly believe the previous wrong decisions have been made by the Parole Board in all 3 cases. Notably that it took media attention for James Ward to be released following his very caring family having to turn to the media with their very public presentation that his family can give him the full support in the community to be safely released and likewise in the case of Wayne Bell he has a very supportive family yet in the years that they have been over tariff did the psychologists and probation officers ever focus on the resources or support in the community in support of their safe release? 

Conversely in the case of John Worboys what sort of reports were submitted by the psychologists and the probation officers in order for the Parole Board to decide his release upon his first Parole Hearing.  There is no doubt in my mind that the common factor in all of these 3 very individual  cases with the Parole Board making very concerning decisions is due to the reports and presentations that are brought to the Parole Board by psychologists or probation officers with 2 of the above cases  being wrongfully detained detrimentally for many years over tariff yet in the case of John Worboys a recommended release at his first Parole Hearing whereby common sense will tell you that here is a very calculating offender. 

Whilst I accept that I have not been privy to the actual facts in any of these cases I know from having been exposed to this IPP law through knowing XX that the media’s reports are very much justified in bringing such cases to the public attention and that such atrocities exist in our so called civilised society of such prolonged imprisonment such as James Ward and Wayne Bell very feebly defended by the authorities because of a so called risk no doubt presented by psychologists or probation officers at their Parole Hearings when it is the very fact that they have had prolonged imprisonment that is causing them to go into an understandable mental decline and is only in fact a pseudo risk when their behaviour is assessed in a prison environment. 

 It should be the Parole Board’s duty to question such validity of the reports being presented to them by such probation officers and psychologists at Parole Hearings. How many more high profile media cases are needed in order for further change to occur?

And also in my letter to the Parole Board I stated:

........ that universally the Parole Board in relation to all Parole Hearings should address the following in line with the judiciary court like system of which they should operate:

• That whilst victims of a crime quite rightly have a say regards the effects of a crime and future considerations regarding the release of an offender at a Parole Hearing either in the form of a statement or  a presentation by themselves to the Parole Board then equally a witness in support of a prisoner’s release such as family and friends should be able to have a say regards the future support in ensuring that a prisoner can be safely released into the community  either in the form of a statement or a presentation by themselves to the Parole Board. I emphasise this because it is very apparent from my experience of XXs case or from publicly highlighted cases such as James Ward or Wayne Bell or from other IPP prisoner’s friends and family that I have come in contact with on research workshops that I have been on in addressing this IPP law and knowing other individual cases that Probation Services are totally failing to assess and submit reports regards interventions in the community or engaging with friends and family who could ensure and support a safe release into the community.

• That the Parole Board should totally be questioning the quality, validity and timing of reports submitted to them and when identifying any failings from such reports or inconsistencies then effective action should be taken by reporting such failings to their governing bodies.

• Following the changes introduced within the prison system that a prisoner does have a key worker prison officer allocated to them during their imprisonment that it is a mandatory / option for the prisoner  that the prison officer can sit and have a very significant input at the parole hearing. I firmly believe that the prison officers who are in everyday contact with a prisoner observing their daily behaviour, conduct and knowing the prisoner through consistent contact that the prison officers are the people that have the better knowledge of the prisoner as oppose to the probation officers who have a very significant say at a prisoner’s parole hearing yet have had  barely seen them and then totally misrepresenting the prisoner which if so can then be directly challenged by the prison officer. Also the prison officer has the full awareness of the daily challenges faced by prisoners and the very reality of prison life and prison culture to be taken into consideration of which probation officers don’t seem to have any concept of.
  

So please pass this on to his family and that I, alongside thousands of others people caught up in this law, sincerely wish Wayne every success in his next Parole Hearing and that we all must keep up the pressure against the government to address this law once and for all.

Kind regards

Siobhan Ryan, (Stockport) 

 Related article on Wayne Bell.

He was  given a life sentence a IPP, 'Life for 'taking' a bike at age of 17. 'He's never had a girlfriend, he's never had his life at all' and likely never have kids. All his friends are married now  bringing up kids. 

It saddens me to here  the despair and the lose of hope and how the family describe his  worsening mental  health  Wayne is over  tariff, being pumped with medication  and losing hope. Compounding is the lack of response from the  MoJ, locked up at 17 for robbing a bike -and  still in jail 12 years later? A quirk of the law means Wayne Bell has served longer than killers and rapists for a mugging he committed as a teenager - his family say 'he's never had a life'.

 

 

 

Wayne Bell was just (17 when he was locked up for robbery - he punched another lad and took his bike in Ladybarn Park in south Manchester.He was sentenced in March 2007 and today, more than 12 years on, he is yet to be set free.It was his misfortune that he was among the first convicts to be handed a new type of sentence - since discredited and abolished as 'unjust'.In 2005, the then Home Secretary David Blunkett introduced Imprisonment for Public Protection sentences (IPP).The public, press and even some judges - confronted with this new tool - struggled to understand them at first.

Those who got them were handed minimum terms, often only of a few years, after which they had to convince the Parole Board they were safe to be released.

 

The problem was that IPP prisoners weren't given access to courses to prove  so they could prove they was rehabilitated. After doing all the courses and good behaviour the family question the government failings.sentence for stealing a bike ? at Manchester Crown Court and was told he would have to serve four years before the Parole Board would consider his release. It is thought he asked for a string of other crimes to be taken into consideration though minor to the rest of the populatio.   Wayne, now aged 29, has remained in custody ever since. As he has lost hope, he has got involved with fights defending himself in prison. And with each fight, his chance of impressing the Parole Board diminishes.

'Life for 'taxing' a bike

Your average prisoner serves half their sentence. That means Wayne has served the equivalent of a 24 year sentence, longer than many killers, rapists, major drug dealers, paedophiles and organised criminals.To compare, John Worboys, the 'black cab' rapist who sexually assaulted 12 women in London, was jailed in 2009. He would have been released this year by the Parole Board, had victims not complained.Meanwhile, Brian Reader, the career criminal who masterminded the £14m Hatton Gardens jewellery heist, was released last summer - after just three years behind bars.

 

Seven years ago IPPs were abolished on the back of a European Court ruling that they breached human rights - on the grounds that prisons had failed to provide inmates access to the rehabilitation courses required to demonstrate to the Parole Board that they were safe to be released.But the abolition wasn't retrospective, so today, even though more and more are being released, there remain 2,489 prisoners still locked up on IPP sentences.Wayne Bell's case is all the more unusual because he was, in the eyes of the law, still a child when he got his IPP.

Once a strapping 6ft 2in lad of about 15 stone, he has lost a lot of weight and is all skin and bone now, according to his family.His family, who haven't seen him since before Christmas, invited an M.E.N. reporter into their home in Burnage.

'He's never had a girlfriend, he's never had a life at all'

Wayne's dad Carl, who works at B&Q in Stockport, a softly spoken

"""man who has been worn down over the years in the face of a wall of bureaucracy, still hopes his lad will be freed one dayHe recalled the moment he saw his son was handed the sentence at Manchester Crown Court.

"I honestly thought he would be coming out. I thought he would be in there a couple of years. I didn't know he would be in there this long. It's a disgrace".

"Wayne has watched murderers and rapists come and go in and out of prison. He just hit someone and took their bike. The sentence really doesn't fit the crime," said Carl.

He went on: "He's never had a girlfriend. He's never had a life at all really. There are probably kids who have done the same as him but they had a chance in life, got married and had their own kids.

"It looks like he'll never have that chance. All his friends are married now and bringing up kids, even the ones who were giving him all that peer pressure at the time they were growing up."

Wayne, a bright and polite child who played the trumpet, wanted to become a mechanic, but started getting into trouble aged 14 or 15 while he was at Burnage High School. He was expelled.

Every two years he went before the parole board but each time he was turned down amid continuing concerns about whether he was safe to be released. His probation officer also thought he wasn't safe to be released, according to his family

 The family wrote to their local MP, Jeff Smith, who took up their case last year and received assurances from the Ministry of Justice that, although the parole process had been halted in Wayne's case, it would resume again.

"I am aware this is a very difficult time for you all and I would be grateful if you could keep me updates about any developments," the MP told the family.

"He's got to the stage now where he doesn't care anymore. He doesn't want to be here," said  dad Carl, who went on: "I blame the system."

"I blame the government because they know what's going on.

He should be at home with us. It's the first thing you think about in the morning and the last thing you think about when you go to bed. It would be nice to see him live a little bit of life.

"He hit someone and took their bike, but the sentence really doesn't fit the crime."

 2013/14 prison safety started to deteriorate sharply. Violence rates have risen, and prisoners appear to have less access to learning and development activities.Brother Carl added: "It's the hopelessness behind it. Every avenue we have been down there's always a block in the road...  He didn't rape or murder anybody. That's what that sentence was for. There's very little of him left but we just want to have him home.

"He's said he doesn't want anything in life. He just wants a girlfriend and a job and a car. That's all."

 

 he Howard League, which campaigns for prison reform, concluded in 2013 that IPPs were 'poorly planned and implemented and resulted in unjust punishments, particularly those sentenced prior to 2008'. It urged the government to review IPP prisoners who remained behind bars.

It surveyed 103 senior prison governors and the vast majority reported IPPs had a negative impact on both prisoners and staff, in part because they didn't have the resources available to run rehabilitation courses required to demonstrate that inmates were safe to be released.

The parole board struggled to hear the increased number of hearings.The prison population rose significantly.The IPP was finally abolished in 2012 with the then Justice Secretary Ken Clarke stating the sentence had been 'inconsistent', used far more than intended and had proved 'unjust' for many recipien(Image: PA. In 2017, Parole Board chairman Nick Hardwick told the justice committee of the House of Commons that IPP offenders were being released.

Update, I have spoken with the family  Wayne's case was  brought up in paliment last week. 

Please  keep the  support for Wayne live so he can go home and get well.  family . You can write to his Mp, each and can request wayne,s e bbrought up in  parliament therefore his case  can be  continually discussed

Wayne,s Bells Mp 

 To: <jeff.smith.mp@parliament.uk>

 Parole Board 

Martin jones Martin.

Address 99-105, Horseferry Rd, London SW1P 2DX

 

......................................................................................................

 

Prisons Minister accused of living in ‘dream world’ after claiming that prison violence was decreasing. Claiming that violence is decreasing WHEN ITS NOT is putting prisoners and staff at risk .

 

PRISONS Minister Rory Stewart has angered staff by claiming that the level of violence in Britain’s jails is “looking reasonably positive( PROGRESSING.”

Mr Stewart has promised to resign in August if violence in 10 prisons across England and Wales has not fallen by then.

He stood by his pledge in Parliament today but claimed that, in the “majority of these prisons, it looks as though violence is coming down, so you may be in the unfortunate position of still having me at this despatch box in a few months’ time.”


Prison Officers Association general secretary Steve Gillan told the Morning Star that Mr Stewart was living in a “dream world” and “cherry-picking statistics that suit him.”
Mr Gillan said the 10 prisons had been “handpicked” and were “not necessarily the worst in the country.”

He said staff have suffered “horrendous assaults all round the country in recent weeks, including smashed eye sockets.”

Mr Gillan warned that the violence was due to “Tory austerity measures” and would continue “until we get pre-2012 staffing levels.”

Last week, a young guard at HMP Nottingham – one of the 10 prisons that Mr Stewart has vowed to improve – had his throat slashed by a prisoner and required 17 stitches.
The minister told the Commons: “I'm sure the whole house will join with me in expressing our deep horror at the recent attack against a prison officer in Nottingham prison.
“It is completely horrifying to see this happen. It must not happen

""Rory scott has egnored family members  letters and by down playing worsening mental healthand viloence is negligence and needs to be sacked."""

...............................................................................................................................................

 IPPs are denied parole because of mental health even substance misuse problems which they did not have before they started the IPP sentence but which developed as a result. There not released as the resources are not available to support them in the community. Often required to complete courses to prove they are low risk, but often these courses are not available, as determinate prisoners take priority

Parole hearings are constantly deferred and reports come in late (this is the fault of staff, not prisoners). 

Last year we were told  they put in  place a pilot project called the  traffic light system   to help   IPP prisoners go forward for release .the project was limited to a few prisons but said it was going to be widened bur heard no data on this since and prisoners are still not being released and  mental health getting worse reports documented.

There is no set dates to sort the IPP prisoners situation just a string empty words from government agency's we are  progressing  while all the time the prisons have been going downhill 

 mental health prisoners is declining making them vulnerable differing  behaviours those continued  sanction as a result more time added to there sentence. The longer there the more you get sanctioned and  parole goes out the window. one person responsible for the budget has got it wrong twice  .We need the government to speed up there snail  and to keep data  or pilot projects  up to date.
I question   mental health data is incomplete and why the contact has not been renewed between the 2 agency responsible for the health and welling of prisoners. As  the budget needs this data to reflect the needs of vulnerable prisoners. Mental health has been well documented.

Who job is it to keep these agency functional surely it the responsibility Justice Minister and
Rory scott.....to report problems and to check information is correct and attainable for the health and welfare of prisoners. Far too long we had government Ministers. Bur what prisoners and there family get is deflection  and blame and continued false reports from agency that we  progressing to media . 

To easy for them to keep up the pretense as they have nothing to lose for so long then quickly resign or get reshuffled and neglect goes out the window because there is no responsibility or accountability for there negligence. they allow the  injustice to carry on without no time frame and what becomes another roller coaster ride. The parole board has to also responsible for health and wellbeing of inmates  they have duty of care to keep them safe. publicly the parole board promised all IPP over tariff will be out by 2020 this hope they can get it right and keep to there  word  but I must add they have had plenty of time.  

"We want to see  officials to take account of their accountability for there action or lack of it and  negligence due to length of time past."

 

 Prison staff numbers since 2009/10. Despite promising signs in the early years of thisperiod that this was manageable, in 2013/14 prison safety started to deteriorate sharply. Violence rates have risen, and prisoners appear to have ess access to learning and development activities.

Since March 2017, the number of prison officers has risen by 3,205 – a 17% increase. At the end of the 2017/18 financial year, there were 21,041 full-time equivalent (FTE) prison officers in public prisons in England and Wales – rising further to 21,608 in June 2018. This follows a large decline – of 26%, or 6,580 officers – between 2009/10 and 2013/14. This means that the Government has not only met its target (set at the end of 2016) of recruiting an extra 2,500 prison officers by the end of 2018, it has exceeded it.

Assaults on prisoners by other prisoners are much more frequent than assaults on staff. There were 22,374 prisoner-on-prisoner assaults in 2017/18 – nearly double the number that took place in 2009/10. That works out as 262 assaults per 1,000 prisoners – up from 142 in 2009/10. Serious assaults against prisoners rose even more rapidly: from 1,087 to 3,081.

 These figures are themselves likely to be an underestimation of the actual number of assaults: a government audit of data collection practices in prisons this year found that assaults were underreported by 10% last year. So the actual number of assaults was probably even higher.

 The presence of new psychoactive substances has also clearly been a factor: due to both the violent effects induced by the drugs themselves on prison staff, and also to violence associated with dealing and supply. A recent evidence review commissioned by the Ministry of Justice found that “the crucial factor in maintaining order is the availability and the skills of unit staff”.

Spending has risen recently following an injection of extracash at the 2016 Autumn Statement to tackle the decline in prison safety. The rate of deaths in prison has subsequently fallen, but the data does not yet show any discernible improvements in overall violence level.

 

Between 2009/10 and 2015/16 day-to-day spending on prisons fell sharply – by 21% in real terms – reflecting similarly deep cuts to the wider Ministry of Justice budget. However,extra money was pumped into the prisons budget at the 2016 Autumn Statement – £291 million (m) over three years – to try to tackle the deterioration of safety levels in prisons, most notably by increasing prison officer numbers by 2,500 by the end of 2018.Spending then rose in that year and in 2017/18, around

£3 billion (bn) was spent on prisons, 16% less than in 2009/10.

Demand:
prisoner numbers have remained broadly flat

The prison population has remained broadly flat since 2010, in contrast with rapid growth
in the 1990s and 2000s. There were 82,773 prisoners in England and Wales on 30June 2018 compared with 83,391 on 30 June 2009. This shift is in part due to reforms to sentencing in 2008 and a fall in the number of cases being received in the courts.[The prison population has remained consistently around 95% male.

Overall, the prison population is ageing: the proportion of the prison population aged under 30 has fallen since2011 (from 46% to 35% in 2018), while the proportion aged 60 and over has grown
(from 4% to 6% in 2018). Within this there has been a rise in the number of prisoners in the oldest age bracket – a 16% rise in the number of people aged70 and over in prison over the past two years – which signals potential rising care needs in the prison population.

Data on the prevalence of mental illness in prisons is incomplete but want
to know why

estimates range from 23% (of a sample of prisoners who reported previous contact with mental health services) to 37% (of prisoners surveyed by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons – HMIP – in 2016/17 who reported having an emotional wellbeing or mental health problem This
indicates that the prevalence of mental health issues may be higher among prisoners than the general population (estimated in 2007 to be around 23%)– although we do not know how the prevalence of mental health problems in prisons has changed over time.

In 2016 the budgeting minister put in – £291 million (m)over three years– to try to tackle the deterioration of safety levels inprisons. most notably by increasing prison officer numbers by 2,500 by the end 2018.[1] Spending then rose in that year and in 2017/18, around £3 billion (bn) was spent on prisons, 16% less than in 2009/10.But despite  pooramount of money it never reflected the lack of data and curent situations .There are also signs that an influx of new types of drugs – called ‘new psychoactive substances’ – is putting new pressures on prisons. New psychoactive substances – such as ‘Spice’ –(although they are now themselves illegal). They can cause aggression, psychosis and intense depressive episodes. In 2016, the prison and probation ombudsman described them as a ‘game-changer’ for prison safety! 

But he made no further  budgeting  for the above though data  is  90% prisoners depression and anxiety those with  complex cases figures change .  IPP prisoners have suffered mental health moreh an any other prisoner and remind them of the 20 plus IPP prisoners’ deaths as a result of their negligence. 

Input: the number of prisons has fallen – but prison capacity remains the same

There are 122 prisons in England and Wales, down from 137 in2009/10. Since 2009/10, 20 prisons have closed or merged, and five new prisons have opened. However, despite a fall in the number of prisons, the overall capacity of the prison system was roughly the same at the end of 2017/18 as at

the end of 2009/10, due to the larger size of the new prisonsOnly one brand new prison has been initiated and built since 2009/10: Berwyn, in North Wales. Originally announced in 2013, it began to receive prisoners in February 2017.two of the prisons opened since 2009/10 are privately

operated: one (Thameside in London) operates under a Private Finance Initiative
(PFI) contract, meaning that it was both built and is now run by a privatecompany; the other (Oakwood in Staffordshire) was built by the public sector but is run by G4S. Another of these new prisons (Northumberland) was originally opened as a public prison in 2011 but was taken over by G4S in 2013. At thesame time, G4S also took over Birmingham prison – previously a publicly run prison

Just one prison has reverted from private to publicmanagement during this period: Wolds prison in Yorkshire, which had been run by G4S from when it opened in 1991, but was brought under public management in 2013 (following a critical inspection report and G4S’s high-profile failure at

the 2012 Olympics) when the previous PFI deal ran out.*

Since March 2017, the number of prison officers has risen by 3,205 – a 17% increase. At the end of the 2017/18 financial year, there were 21,041 full-time equivalent (FTE) prison officers in public prisons in England and Wales – rising further to 21,608 in June 2018. This follows a large decline – of 26%, or 6,580 officers – between 2009/10 and 2013/14. This means that the Government has not only met its target (set at the end of 2016)of recruiting an extra 2,500 prison officers by the end of 2018, it has exceeded it.

This is the net increase – the actual level of recruitment into the prison service in 2016/17 was much higher. This has been key to meeting the Government’s recruitment target, as the retention rate for prison officers is low. In 2016/17, 4,933 new prison officers joined the prison service, while 2,088 left.* If turnover continues at this rate – or worsens – HMPPS will be faced with the task of recruiting thousands of new prison
officers every year, just to keep numbers steady.

This high turnover means that, even though there are now almost as many prison officers as there were five years ago, the composition of prison staff is different. Experience levels have fallen. In June 2018 a third of prison officers had less than two years’ experience (compared with 7%in March 2010); 49% had experience of 10 years (down from 56% in 2009/10While many of those individuals may well be competent and skilled, the overall decline in experience may have had a negative impact on the overall effectiveness of the workforce.** The Prison Service Pay Review Body has raised concern about the high levels of inexperience in theprison service, citing in particular the extra burden on longstanding officers o mentor new recruits.[

Although the number of prison officers has started to grow, other parts of the prison workforce have continued to shrink.The number of prison managers has fallen consistently over the past eightyears, from 1,434 in March 2010 to 905 in June 2018 (a 37% decrease)

_{*    These numbers are head count numbers,
not full-time equivalent numbers.}

<sub>**    For example, HMIP concluded that

the “inexperience of many staff” underpinned the problems it encountered at

Nottingham prison in January 2018, where conditions were so poor that an‘Urgent Notice’ was invoked, making the Secretary of State directly accountable for improving performance.</sub>

_{See HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, Report on an Unannounced
Inspection of HMP and YOI Nottingham, HM Inspectorate of Prisons, May 2018,}

 _{www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprisons/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2018/05/HMP-YOI-Nottingham-Web-2018.pdf,}

Output: prison
safety has continued to decline

The essential activity of prisons is to hold prisoners in custody – to stop them escaping. On this count, performance has been good over the past eight years. Between 2009/10 and 2017/18 there were no more than two escapes a year (where a prisoner has to physically overcome some restraint or barrier to go out of the control of the staff) – except in 2016/17 when there were four. The number of absconders – prisoners who escaped from an open environment – fell steadily, from 269 in 2009/10 to 86 in 2016/17 (while the number of prisoners in open prisons rose). However, in 2017/18 the number rose again to 139.

But the work of prisons transcends just keeping people inside. We expect prisoners to be kept healthy and safe. It is also the Government’s stated intention that prisons should play a role in preparing prisoners for a life outside of prison – the ‘rehabilitation revolution’ hailed by former Justice Secretary Chris Grayling. However, the evidence suggests that prisons are struggling on all of those count.

Output: prison
violence continues to intensify...

Prisons have continued to become more dangerous for both staff and prisoners over the past year. In 2017/18 there were more than 9,000 assaults on prison staff (or 106 for every 1,000 prisoners). That means the frequency of assaults has almost tripled since 2009/10 – in both raw and per-prisoner terms. There was a 26% increase (from 7,159) in the past year one. The frequency of serious assaults against staff has risen even faster – from 289 (or three for every 1,000 prisoners) in 2009/10 to 892 (or 10 for very 1,000 prisoners) in 2017/18.

Assaults on prisoners by other prisoners are much more frequent than assaults on staff. There were 22,374
prisoner-on-prisoner assaults in 2017/18 – nearly double the number that took place in 2009/10. That works out as 262 assaults per 1,000 prisoners – up from 142 in 2009/10. Serious assaults against prisoners rose even more rapidly: from1,087 to 3,081.

These figures are themselves likely to be an underestimation of the actual number of assaults: a government audit of data collection practices in prisons this year found that assaults were underreported by 10% last year. So the actual number of assaults was probably even higher

A number of things could have caused this serious increase in prison violence. It could be directly related to the pace of prison staff reduction. In 2013/14 alone, prison officer numbers fell by 15% (or 3,250 officers) – equalling the reductions seen in total over the previous four years. It may be that those previous reductions were sustainable, but that he 2013/14 staff cuts went too far. There may have been a ‘lagged’ effect, with problems caused by earlier staff reductions taking a while to show up in the data. The presence of new psychoactive substances has also clearly been a factor: due to both the violent effects induced by the drugs themselves, and also to violence associated with dealing and supply A recent evidence review commissioned by the Ministry of ustice found that “the crucial factor in maintaining order is the availability and the skills of unit staff”.

Rates of violence among youth offenders are far higher than among the adult population. Across the whole ‘youth estate’ – including all 15- to 17-year-olds, not just those in young offender institutions – there were 2.77 assaults per prisoner in 2017/18, up from 1.84 in 2012/13 (the earliest year with comparable data). This, of course, has happened at the same time as the size of the youth estate has shrunk rapidly.

…and prisoners
are self-harming with increasing frequency

Prisoners are also harming themselves with increasing frequency. The number of self-harm incidents rose by 88% (from just under 25,000 to just under 47,000) between 2009/10 and 2017/18. These incidents were gendered: there were 2,244 self-harm incidents for every 1,000 female prisoners, compared with 467 for every 1,000 male prisoners. The gender differential was much smaller among assault incidents: there were 366 assaults for every 1,000 male prisoners in 2017/18 and 318 for every 1,000 female prisoners.
One indicator is improving, however. Self-inflicted deaths in prison fell in 2017/18 to their lowest levels since 2012/13, after a big increase in 2015/16 and 2016/17. However, that still amounted to 69 self-inflicted deaths in prison in 2017/18 (0.8 for every 1,000 prisoners).

prisoners’ access to rehabilitative activity appears to be worsening

• The evidence on what prisoners do with their time – and how much access they have to activities that might support their rehabilitation and wellbeing – is limited.
• The Ministry of Justice stopped publishing data on the number of hours that prisoners spent “engaged inpurposeful activity” (such as education or training) in 2011/12 – although, up to that point, average hours were rising
There are concerns

•  above – a shrinking workforce and a violent environment – are limiting prisoners’ opportunities to engage in meaningful activity, by increasing the time they spend locked in their cells

•  In its 2017/18 survey, HMIP found that only 16% of prisoners were unlocked for the recommended 10 hours a day We have no consistent data on how this has changed over time.What we do know is that fewer prisoners appear to be starting and completing accredited courses that may support them on their release from prison

Decline

• The number of prisoners completing ‘accredited programmes’,largely designed to support behaviour change and improve thinking skills, has fallen by 22% since 2014/15 (from 6,994 to 5,479). We have excluded ‘accredited substance misuse programmes’ from this analysis because responsibility for funding and commissioning allsubstance misuse treatment in prison was transferred to the NHS in 2013. There may be other cases within our figures where other activity has replaced formally ‘accredited’ programmes, accounting for some of the decline.
•    But there have been no such changes in the definition of academic qualifications. Here we can observe a clear decline. In 2016/17, 6,750 prisoners achieved a level 1 or 2 (pre-GCSE and GCSE-level) qualification in English, down from 11,760 in 2010/11 - (to a 43% decline).Similarly, the number achieving a level 1 or 2 qualification in maths fell from10,950 to 6,800 (a 38% Decline). 

Have prisons become more efficient and can that be maintained

In 2010, former Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke accepted large cuts to his departmental budget. This was on the understanding that the Government would bring forward legislation to reform sentencing and
reduce the size of the prison population.

However, plans to introduce sentencing discounts’ for early guilty pleas were scrapped in 2011, in the midst of
political controversy. At a press conference to announce this change, of course, then-Prime Minister David Cameron said the gap would be made up instead through ‘greater efficiency’.

As with most other services examined in Performance Tracker, economies were made in prisons through the pay cap: pay was frozen between 2011/12 and 2012/13, and increases were subsequently capped at 1% a year. But prison officers were among the first public servants to see their pay cap broken. In September 2017, they received a 1.7% pay rise for the2017/18 financial year – and have been awarded a 2.75% increase for 2018/19.

Pay has not apparently been a barrier to recruiting the extra prison officers needed for the Ministry of Justice to meet its 2016 target of increasing prison officer numbers by 2,500 by the end of 2018. However, it may have contributed to the growing retention problem. High turnover will not necessarily be disastrous for the service, if it can continue recruiting at the rate it has this year. But continually replacing staff is of course much less efficient than holding on to them.

Another high-profile attempt at making economies was through the outsourcing of the maintenance contract in public prisons to Carillion and Amey in 2014 – large private contractors that promised to deliver the service at a much reduced cost. However, since the collapse of Carillion at he start of 2018, it has become clear that the outsourcers had seriously underbid,underestimating the scale of the task involved. The National Audit Office has
estimated that Carillion was operating at a loss of around £12m on these contracts in 2017. The Carillion contracts have now reverted to a new ‘government-owned company’, which is receiving an extra £15m a year to provide
an adequate service

since 2015, the Government’s key set of efficiency reforms have focused on creating new prison places. The 2015
Spending Review promised 10,000 new prison places – and four new prisons – by 2020, with five new prisons due after that. Estimated savings were £80m a year. However, these savings will not yet have been released:
planning permission has been granted for three new prisons, but construction
has not yet begun.

There are likely to have been productivity gains in some parts of the prison service. As far as we can tell (the unseen numbers for private prisons may complicate this picture), fewer prison officers are overseeing more prisoners – at this basic level, prisons are achieving more‘output’ for each unit of ‘input’. There are indications, too, that those
prisoners are becoming more challenging to oversee – with the rise of new drugs
of particular concern.

One clear example we have is the ‘send money to someone in prison’ online service, which went live in 2017/18. By halving transaction costs, this is projected to save £17m over five years.[27] A handful of sites have acted as ‘digital prison’ pilots –giving prisoners in-cell access to online services allowing them to make their
meal choices, or make orders from the prison shop.But these are small-scale – and we do not know what size
of savings they may have made.

Our ability to make a clear judgement on efficiency gains in prisons is hampered by the lack of data on private prisons– specifically, the lack of staff data. It is also difficult to discern what has happened to non-staff prison spending, such as catering and maintenance. However, given the scale of the deterioration in quality in both public and private prisons over the past five years, we cannot conclude that the service hasbe come more efficient overall. This is particularly true of the past year –when spending and staff numbers rose, but violence and self-harm incidentscontinued to increase in frequency.

Although spending on prisons has risen, it remains 16% below the level in 2009/10 – meaning that it remains important for the prison service to maintain any genuine productivity improvements it has managed to produce. However, the more important question will be whether that extra investment is successfully used to produce an acceptable level of performance, particularly with regard to prison safety.

Have
efficiencies been enough to meet demand?

The Government has more power to control the demand on prisons than for many other services examined in this report – by Legislating to change the length and types of sentences that different types of offence and offender attract. But while there have been changes to legislation and guidelines around sentencing over the period since 2009/10, most of them involve increasing the use of custodial sentences or lengthening them: for example, the minimum term of a life sentence for murder with a knife was raised from 15 to 25 years in 2010, while the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 restricted the use of cautions.

In the case of prisons, the answer to the question of whether efficiencies have been enough to meet demand is a straightforward ‘no’.

Any efficiency improvements that may have been made in parts of the system have been swamped by other demands, leading to a decline , . failing  IPP  sentence ,poor budgeting and possible other areas.  Whether or not new drugs have been the key driver of rising violence, their presence has clearly amplified the challenges the prison system has faced in managing with a poor budget.

This is particularly true after 2012/13. Before that point, there is evidence that efficiency improvements may have made up for falling spending: spending fell by 17% while prisoner numbers fell by only 5% between 2009/10 and 2012/13, but levels of violence and self-harm remained as did the IPP failings.broadly flat. After that point, however, violence ,self-harm and death rates began to increase – a trend that continues.

 The average cost to keep an inmate behind bars is £33,291. According to the government’s most recent figures, there are just over 88,000 people in prison. That’s an annual cost of £29,296,080 – a huge sum for the government to raise per year. A millon last year in compensation to prisoners. The reduced budget has had a knock-on effect on prison staff. Since March 2011, UK prisons have lost around 94,470 members of staff, yet prisons become ever more crowded year on year. The prison population is predicted to rise to close to 90,000 by 202

Quote Andrew Sperling Tweeted

Preparing for a hearing. Came across this thoroughly depressing passage in a report:"(she ) has recently been advised by her parole offender manager that there is no support housing is  available due to funding issues . Still at least we found £4bn for" no deal planning.

 Consultation responses 2019

Prison Reform Trust responds to many consultations produced by the government and a list of our responses can be found below.

 http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/PressPolicy/Consultationresponses

Shane Lynch the link between prison and dyslexia and the serious cases in prison 2019 .
Boyzone's Shane Lynch has struggled to read and write his entire life and only recently discovered that he might have dyslexia. In this episode of My Secret Past the singer looks to finally assess once and for all what his learning disability is and also speak to young people who are also in similar situations at school and in prison . https://youtu.be/hP6RJTB8YFg press on skip the adds on right side to continue the film.

Bugetting of 2017 

http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/Portals/0/Documents/Consultation20responses/Representation%20to%20the%202017%20budget.pdf


Royal state they support mental health time to write to them .


http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/happiness/meghan-and-harry-share-unique-new-approach-to-supporting-charities-on-instagram/ar-AAALvza?li=BBoPWjQ&ocid=iehp

 https://ippfanilycampaign.blogspot.com/2019/04/wayne-was-given-ipplife-for-taking-bike.html

 https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/performance-tracker-2018/prisons

 https://www.prisonphone.co.uk/blog/prison-budget-cuts-the-actual-statistics/