Justice Minister we want answers to the current situation regarding IPP prisoners. The official prison population projections were published this week by the MoJ and Office for National Statistics and they foresee a further rise of 1600 prisoners by 2022.Justice

Week in Justice 27 August 2017

Whether that makes the growing rumours that the Justice Secretary will sanction an early release scheme later this year more or less likely to be true, I do not know.

In other news, concern about staffing levels in prison healthcare in England and Wales emerged with Scotland looking to strengthen links between its health and justice systems.

This bulletin presents prison population projections for England and Wales from August.2017 to March 2022. It is produced to aid policy development, capacity planning andresource allocation within thecriminaljusticesystem (CJS) and Her Majesty’sPrison andProbation Service (HMPPS

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/639801/prison-population-projections-2017-2022.pdf

http://www.healthscotland.scot/media/1528/reducing-offending-reducing-inequalities_aug2017_english.pdf

 

prison reform

 

August 2017 This is a guest post by Rachel O’Brien (@racobrien), Director of the RSA prison reform Programme, who sets out the RSA’s proposal to the MoJ to support prison reform on the ground.. While everyone working and living in prisons is, naturally, mainly concerned with the current unsafe and worsening conditions, Ms O’Brien argues strongly in an accompanying RSA blog that reform is not a distraction from improving prison safety, but integral to it.

RSA’s New Futures Network Proposal Submitted to Ministry of Justice

Prisons exist to keep society safer. But to fight crime as effectively as possible, prisons must do more than just incapacitate criminals for the length of their sentence; they must ensure that when they leave jail they do not offend again.

Working closely with practitioners and the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), the RSA has been working on developing the New Futures Network (NFN), a proposed new body that aims to work with prison leaders to support reform and ensure that when prisoners return to their communities, they have the right skills to get a job, access to employers and are able to build a better life. Ultimately achieving this goal will require prisons and the criminal justice system to overcome long-term challenges, including coping with a lack of prison capacity, the prevalence of drugs, and a rise in the number of assaults, suicides and incidents of self-harm.

Between January and May this year, the RSA has consulted with a wide range of stakeholders in developing our proposal, which was submitted to the MoJ in July. It concludes that the New Futures Network (NFN) should aim to support prison leaders in responding to these challenges with particular focus on education, employment and local leadership. The Network should aim to:

• Drive partnerships and innovation to boost people’s chances of leaving crime behind.
• Broker sustainable strategic effective cross-sector relationships to support rehabilitation and employment.
• Champion good practice that supports rehabilitation through informing, engaging and persuading.
• Provide a channel of communication between frontline services and central government.

The RSA has proposed key strands of work focused on:

• Developing employer networks locally linked to wider justice services;
• Supporting prisons to identify their local assets – social, economic and community – that can support rehabilitation;
• Enabling staff and prisoners to home grow innovation; and
• Providing a space for exchanging ideas and experience about how prison reform is being implemented locally and nationally.
•  

Ministers at the Ministry of Justice asked for the design of NFN to be independent of Whitehall, to encourage broad and deep engagement, genuine innovation, and positively challenge to the ‘status quo’. Whilst the RSA recommends that the NFN be sponsored by MoJ in the short term at least, the NFN must be allowed to flourish under an independent chair and expert advisory group. This will enable the NFN to gain the credibility required to bring about cultural change across the prison service, including shifting to a focus on increasing employment in and around prisons.

The RSA’s New Futures Network proposal has been welcomed by Ministers as part of the government’s wider safety and reform strategy and, will be considered alongside the MoJ’s employment strategy due to be published later this year.

If you would like more information about the consultation process and case studies please visit the site above or contact Jack Robson on jack.robson@rsa.org.uk

You can also keep up with the latest by following New Futures Network on Twitter:

Prison education evaluation

Evaluation of Fine Cell Work, a social enterprise which trains prisoners in paid, skilled, creative needlework with a focus on impact on resettlement.

This evaluation has a particular focus on prisoners aged under 35 years and will also include a preliminary assessment of FCW’s new through-the-gate project.

The project started in July 2016 and will run until 2018

Study of prescribing in prison

Russell is undertaking a research study into opioid substitute prescribing in prison. The study includes an online survey (with 100 respondents) and a focus group with service users which is being facilitated by the Revolving Doors Agency. Russell is also convening an expert group which will examine current practice both in prison and on release. The study is funded by an educational grant from Martindale Pharma who have no input into the methodology or outcomes. http://www.russellwebster.com/SUOST17.pdf 
http://www.russellwebster.com/pushing-on-with-prison-reform/
http://www.finecellwork.co.uk/