Notifications – a symptom of our prison crisis

Russell Webster on Jan 23, 2018 05:31 am

Urgent care

Last week marked another low point in our ongoing prisons crisis when the Chief Inspector of Prisons, Peter Clarke, invoked the urgent notification process for the first time — requiring the Minister of Justice to develop and formally produce an action plan to address serious concerns at HMP Nottingham within 28 days.

But what is the urgent notification process and how did it come about?

A persistent Chief Inspector

Eleven months ago (when Liz Truss was Justice Secretary) on 17 February 2017, the government published the Prisons and Courts Bill (2017) which covered four main areas including as a top priority: Prison safety and reform. The  Bill put forward a:

new framework and clear system of accountability for prisons. It will enshrine into law that a key purpose of prison is to reform and rehabilitate offenders, as well as punish them for the crimes they have committed.

A key element of the Bill was the award of more statutory powers to the Prison Inspectorate including (paragraph 5 (C) 3) that where the Chief Inspector had “significant concerns” about a prison, s/he would issue the Secretary of State with an urgent notification who:

… must publish a response to an urgent notification within 28 days beginning with the date on which the Chief Inspector published the notification.

The Bill was seen as evidence of the government’s commitment to prison reform. However, following the summer 2017 general election, the Bill was then dropped from the Queen’s Speech on 21 June 2017 with the government promising to bring forward new legislation solely on court modernisation. This was interpreted by many commentators in two ways: firstly, a reflection that parliamentary time was going to be almost entirely taken up by Brexit, and, secondly, as a clear indication that the government was reducing its commitment to prison reform.

The Chief Inspector was furious, and issued a public statement in which he described the move to drop the bill as a missed opportunity:

Statement from HM Chief Inspector of Prisons on the Queen's Speech. pic.twitter.com/TkZdGHNvfX

— HMI Prisons (@HMIPrisonsnews) June 21, 2017

Mr Clarke’s inspectors were continuing to find a prison service in disarray; inspection after inspection revealed a deteriorating prison estate, escalating levels of violence and worsening prison regimes. He pursued the issue of urgent notifications directly with the Justice Secretary, now David Lidington, until on 30 November 2017, the MoJ agreed to establish the process outside of primary legislation.

How do urgent notifications work?

The process is relatively straightforward. When the Chief Inspector finds “significant concerns with regard to the treatment and conditions of prisoners”, s/he writes to the Secretary of State to invoke formally the urgent notification process. In the case of Nottingham (see the urgent notification letter here), Peter Clarke set out an indication of the evidence that prompted him to issue the UN, his rationale for doing so and a note summarising all the main judgements arising from the inspection, focusing on the issues which require improvement.

Decisions to invoke the UN process can include any or all of seven different factors:

1. Poor healthy prison test assessments;
2. The pattern of the healthy prison test judgements;
3. Repeated poor assessments;
4. The type of prison and the risks presented;
5. The vulnerability of those detained;
6. The failure to achieve recommendations; and
7. The inspectorate’s confidence in the prison’s capacity for change and improvement.

In the case of Nottingham, the Chief Inspector cited the following issues in “a story of dramatic decline”:

• Safety was poor (the lowest grading) in inspections in February 2016 and had not improved;
• Widespread failings;
• Very high and rising levels of self-harm (including eight suicides in the last two years);
• Failing to respond to inspection findings – only 12 of 48 previous recommendations had been achieved; and
• Lack of confidence of prisoners in staff to get things done (despite a good staffing level).

As you can see from the official graphic below, the MoJ is required to develop an action plan which the Secretary of State must publish within  28 days:

Following this initial plan, HMIP will re-inspect and a longer term improvement plan is to be put in place. The Chief Inspector will publish an annual update on the status of all Urgent Notification prisons.

We now need to wait and see — both the impact of the urgent notification on HMP Nottingham and  how many further UNs are issued over the coming months.

All prison posts are kindly sponsored by Prison Consultants Limited who offer a complete service from arrest to release for anyone facing prison and their family. Prison Consultants have no editorial influence on the contents of this site.

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