Custodial Review Edition 71

Custodial the

Review

The Custodial Review informing the Prison, Border Agency and Police Services Edition 71

Saving the best to last.The new custody suite at Milton Keynes see page 10 In this issue:

How to stop criminals committing crime again and again – teach them something else? See page 20.

Cyrus Todiwala OBE DL joins The Clink Restaurant at HMP Brixton as chef ambassador. See page 22.

Chance 2 Change Talking to Emma Morris, the MD of Beyond Youth. See page 24.

www.custodialreview.co.uk For thousands of products, services and links

Fireworks Fire Protection installs world’s first LPS 1223 approved fire suppression system in The Clink at HMP Brixton.

Fireworks are pleased to announce that they are installing the Hydramist® 15ampu kitchen fire suppression system. It’s the world’s first LPS1223 approved watermist fire suppression system and it protects the deep fat fryers on the site. The Clink Restaurant is situated in the old Governors house that has been used recently as administration offices within the grounds of the prison and has been replaced with a three-storey restaurant and meetings venue, which is due to open in the next few months.

trusts and philanthropic individuals to build future Clink restaurants and each training restaurant relies on the income from diners and donations to operate.

Edmond Tullett, Governor, HMP Brixton says: “Brixton is more than delighted to host the third Clink training restaurant in the Regency Roundhouse which dates back to 1819. The restaurant will provide an unforgettable experience for customers and an unrivalled opportunity for prisoners to acquire marketable skills that will lead to local jobs and provide a pathway to a better life.”

The kitchen will be operated by prisoners who will take on full-time positions within the restaurant under the guidance of a tutor chef and restaurant manager.

Fireworks design and install specialist high pressure watermist fire suppression systems to meet a large number of different applications for the Custodial sector and have over 150 installs throughout England and Wales. As a distributor for the Hydramist product range they are now able to offer systems to cover the risk of fire in prison kitchens with the latest installation just complete at HMP Peterborough.

The Hydramist® 15 AMPU offers fast and effective extinguishing of catering equipment fires, is safe for people and the environment and dramatically reduces the spread of smoke from a fire.”

Kitchen Fires:The Problem

The restaurant will follow The Clink’s Five Step Programme that has been successfully implemented at the award winning and successful Clink restaurant at HMP High Down in Surrey, educating prisoners and equipping them with the skills and tools to secure employment upon their release.

Chris Moore, chief executive of The Clink Charity believes Brixton will cement the future for further Clink restaurants. “Brixton was the perfect site for our next restaurant. HMP Brixton is undergoing a regeneration project and was looking for an organisation to work with to develop the building into an opportunity for rehabilitation. The central location lends itself to securing support from local businesses and members of the public, providing they are committed to The Clink’s vision and once the necessary security checks have been processed, providing real-life experience for those prisoners who make it through the selection process to join the programme.”

In 2012 the charity agreed a partnership with Her Majesty’s Prison Service (HMPS) who supports the charitable initiative in a bid to open a further seven Clink Restaurants over the next four years. The charity is solely reliant on the generous support of the industry, charitable

Until now restaurant and commercial catering fryers have used dry powder or wet chemical fire suppression systems. Whilst effective at initially suppressing and extinguishing the fire these traditional systems offer little or no cooling resulting in a prolonged return to production for the kitchen. Additionally they leave a large amount of potentially hazardous residues from the chemical based fire equipment and surrounding areas which must be cleaned up before cooking can re-commence.

This leaves a restaurant without a kitchen during this period.

Kitchen Fires:The Solution The Hydramist® 15AMPU uses atomised tap water at high pressure to quickly and effectively extinguish the fire and prevent re-ignition by cooling the oil and hot surfaces. The Hydramist® system’s very fine droplets of water turn to steam upon contact with the flames.

The steam created then smothers and extinguishes the fire in under 10 seconds. After extinguishing the fire the mist continues to cool the oil and hot surfaces to below ignition temperature in less than 30 seconds preventing re-ignition of the fire. After activation next to no clean-up is necessary as only clean water is used allowing the kitchen to be back in operation extremely quickly (in most cases within minutes). A further advantage of this system is that smoke is prevented from spreading throughout the kitchen and into other areas as the smoke particles from the fire are captured by the watermist droplets and the smoke is washed out with the fire. The Hydramist® 15AMPU uses a high pressure pump connected to the kitchen water supply resulting in a system that can run for as long, or short, as required. The Hydramist® 15AMPU Kitchen Fire Suppression System offers a cost effective, fast reacting solution to this fire risk. Using a wall mounted Hydramist® pump also eliminates storage issues associated with traditional fire suppression equipment.

For more information on the Hydramist® 15AMPU please call Lee Haines on 01953 458420 or email lhaines@fireworks-ltd.com

Contents Issue 71 Annual Subscription £30 Free to qualifying individuals

the Custodial Review Editorial Sales: Derek Cooper Tracy Johnson Tel: 01234 348878 sales@custodialreview.co.uk Administration: Lyn Mitchell Design/Production: Amanda Wesley Publisher: Steve Mitchell

2 News

The Publisher holds all copyright and any items within may not be reproduced in any way, for any purpose, without the written permission of the Publisher.

This publication contains Crown Copyright material reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen’s Printer for Scotland.

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Saving the best to last.

The new custody suite at Milton Keynes

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News from the Howard League

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How to stop criminals committing crime again and again – teach them something else?

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Cyrus Todiwala OBE DL joins The Clink Restaurant at HMP Brixton as chef ambassador Chance 2 Change Talking to Emma Morris, the MD of Beyond Youth More news

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Product News

The publisher will consider financial reimbursement for relevant articles. If you have an article, or wish to compose one, on a relevant topic then please contact the publisher on stevem@pirnet.co.uk. Its subject to acceptance so please contact prior to starting and will appear on the Custodial website.

Custodial Review is now accepting articles from serving officers and staff within the whole custodial industry.

All articles will appear on the Custodial website and will appear in the magazine subject to the Publishers discretion. Approx length 1500 to 2000 words. We are also pleased to accept news and information.

Please contact the Publisher, Steve Mitchell, stevem@custodialreview.co.uk or on 01234 348878 for more details.

Copyright: the Custodial Review Published by Review Magazines Ltd, 53 Asgard Drive, Bedford MK41 0UR. Tel: 01234 348878 Fax: 01223 790191 E-mail: info@custodialreview.co.uk Website: www.custodialreview.co.uk HM Prisons Executive and the Home Office do not sponsor or in any way support this Publication in any substance, commodity, process, equipment, editorial or service advertised or mentioned in this book, nor are they responsible for any inaccuracy or statement in this publication. Whilst every care has been taken to ensure accuracy, the information contained within, this publication is based on submissions to the Publishers who cannot be held responsible for errors or omissions. The Publishers cannot be held responsible for any article, advertisement, picture or photograph supplied

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Damian Green: new rehabilitation powers for magistrates.

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Provisions in the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014 mean that for the first time offenders who go to jail for less than twelve months will be supervised in the community for one year after they leave prison. After a period on licence they will have a further period of rehabilitative support in the community. Offenders who breach the conditions of that supervision, for example by failing to attend a drug or alcohol rehabilitation programmes or not turning up to training, can be brought before a magistrate and face returning to prison for up to two weeks.

They can also face fines, curfews with electronic tags or being required to do work in the community.

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Encouraging magistrates to spend more of their time working on community projects such as engaging with schools and to youth groups on the role of the magistracy. Not only would this help strengthen the link between local communities and the magistracy, it would also ensure that the public understands the way the justice system works. This would build on good work already under-way.

Magistrates playing a greater role in rehabilitation, for example by supporting the resettlement of young offenders, and rehabilitation of adult offenders.

Changing the recruitment process including proposals for more flexible working patterns and a ten-year tenure supported by a clear career structure. This would give more people the opportunity to volunteer and might encourage more applicants with work, study or childcare commitments.

Giving local courts the information and tools they need to identify and share good practice and develop new and innovative court practices to improve performance.

These reforms play into the re-launch of the Criminal Justice Strategy and Action Plan in the summer.

100,000 subscribers take advantage of DBS update service Adriènne Kelbie, the DBS Chief Executive said 'Our role is to help employers make safe employment decisions, and to help protect the most vulnerable people in our communities.

We know how tight money is, and how quickly employers need to work to meet community needs. We are delighted that our new update service, which cuts red tape, and cost, for many people who need a DBS certificate to their job, has reached this milestone”

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Offenders, who were released from short sentences in 2011, received little if any support under the current structure of probation services and a staggering 2,235 went on to commit a burglary, 9,172 went on to commit a theft (excluding burglaries), 1,991 committed an offence of violence against the person and 115 committed a sexual offence in the year following release.

Reforms under the Offender Rehabilitation Act will now mean this group of offenders would be subject to at least 12 months’ supervision and rehabilitation in the community. Those most in need of help to turn their lives around will finally receive the support they need.

As part of the changes to rehabilitative services, a new and refocused public sector National Probation Service (NPS) will be tasked with protecting the public from the most dangerous offenders and 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) across England and Wales will work to rehabilitate medium and low risk offenders.

Chris Grayling said:

In a speech at the Policy Exchange, the Justice Minister set out some key proposals which include:

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Shocking figures showing the number of offenders who commit violence against a person, a sexual offence, burglary and theft offences in the 12 months after release from custody, have been released by the Justice Secretary.

Offenders serving short custodial sentences will now be subject to supervision in the community and if they do not comply with the supervision requirements magistrates will have new powers to deal with them, including sending offenders back to custody for up to a fortnight.

This will mean magistrates will play a crucial role in the rehabilitation of offenders Justice Minister Damian Green said today. This is just one of the ways the role of magistrates is being maximised to reflect modern society and to tackle stubbornly high levels of reoffending.

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2,000 violent offences committed within 12 months of release

Magistrates will be given new powers as part of the Government’s reforms of rehabilitation.

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These figures highlight the staggering effect re-offending has on our communities, and the volume of victims suffering at the hands of career criminals. The need to reform rehabilitation is abundantly clear.

For too long we have released these prisoners back onto the streets with £46 in their pockets, and little else, in the hope they would sort themselves out — it’s little wonder things haven’t improved.

Through our reforms to rehabilitation, we can start to turn the tide on this problem, and create a safer society with fewer victims of crime.

Figures also released today reveal the stark reality of offences committed, in the year ending September 2013. Over 14,600 offenders had 50 or more previous convictions, three per cent of those sentenced in the period.

People who sign up gain the advantage of being able to check online if their certificates are still valid, and don’t have to wait for a new paper certificate to start a new role.

Employers also benefit because they can check the online certificate, when and where it suits them for no extra cost, helping them make quick and safe recruitment decisions.

People who opt into the service and have no change to their criminal record may never have to apply for another full check. They pay just £13 per year instead of up to £44 per check.

The Disclosure and Barring Service’s Minister, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Criminal

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Information said: The DBS update service is a convenient and cost-effective online service that allows employers to enhance their safeguarding processes and help protect children and vulnerable adults.

By giving people greater control of their DBS certificates, the service means that there is less bureaucracy for businesses and organisations considering the suitability of potential employees – saving both time and money.

As a result millions of employees and volunteers will no longer have to apply for a new criminal record check each time they apply for a job.

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Change in function for two prisons to help create a fit for purpose prison estate Littlehey and Lancaster Farms prisons are to change function to hold solely adult male prisoners as part of the Government’s ongoing plans to create an efficient prison estate, which can best meets the needs of the population.

The young offenders currently housed in both prisons will be moved from the Huntingdon and Lancaster sites in the coming months. The decision follows ongoing capacity assessments across the estate to ensure it reflects the

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needs of those sent by the courts at a lower cost to the public purse.

Speaking about the decision, Prisons Minister Jeremy Wright, said: “We have a clear duty to accommodate and rehabilitate prisoners in the most efficient way to maximise value for hardworking taxpayers.

It is about getting the right people in the right places - it makes no financial sense to have surplus youth places at Littlehey and Lancaster Farms when there is a higher demand for adult spaces across the estate.

These decisions are in no way a reflection of

Reforms to help reduce reoffending come into force Reforms which will cut the amount of time some offenders need to disclose details of any low level convictions come into effect.

Justice Minister Simon Hughes said: “The move is part of the Government’s ongoing commitment to tackling reoffending so that offenders can turn their back on a life of crime and can get back into honest work.

However, all offenders will still always have to declare previous convictions when applying for jobs in sensitive workplaces like schools and hospitals or working with people in vulnerable circumstances. The most serious offenders will continue to have to declare their convictions for the rest of their lives when applying for any job.”

Ministry of Justice research shows that former offenders who gain employment are less likely to reoffend.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said: “These changes are long overdue. They will mean that people who have turned their backs on crime will be able to move on with their lives.

Evidence shows that former offenders who are able to get back into the world of work and contribute to society are less likely to reoffend.

Making a mistake and committing a minor crime when you are fifteen shouldn’t mean you are barred from employment for the rest of your life.”

Justice Minister Simon Hughes said: “The Coalition government is committed to making sure that offenders take responsibility for their actions. But we also need to make sure that ex-offenders are able to contribute to society by getting an honest job and putting their offending behind them.

“These reforms will help guarantee the continued safety of the public. They will also give offenders who have served their sentence a fair chance of getting their lives back on track.”

These reforms, which will come into effect on Monday 10 March 2014, will also change the way some rehabilitation periods are set so that they are fairer and reflect better the seriousness of the sentences imposed.

Under the new system, rehabilitation periods for community orders and custodial sentences will comprise the period of the sentence plus an additional specified period, rather than all rehabilitation periods starting from the date of conviction as it is under the current regime.

So, for an example, an adult offender sentenced to two and a half years custody, who would previously have had to declare their criminal conviction for ten years from the date of conviction, will now have to disclose their conviction for the period of the sentence plus a further four years (giving a total rehabilitation period of 6.5 years).

The reforms will transform the way offenders are rehabilitated in the community. Chaotic offenders with complex problems need support to turn their lives around, combined with proper punishment.

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performance and both prisons will be given every support to ensure they continue to operate safely and securely as they transition to their new role.

Detailed planning will take place at both prisons before the changes are made and an assessment of staffing levels will be undertaken.

Overall, prison accommodation built since April 2010 has added over 3,700 spaces to the whole estate as part of the Justice Secretary’s commitment to deliver more adult male prison places by the end of this parliament. New houseblocks are being built at four prisons, totalling an extra 1,260 places and a new 2,100 place prison in Wrexham is also under construction.

Chris Grayling: reform of the courts and tribunals HM Courts & Tribunals Service will deliver a programme of reform to meet the needs and expectations of the 21st century at a lower cost to the public, with a one-off investment to deliver savings in excess of £100 million per year by 2019/20.

Despite some recent improvements, much of the estate and technology relied upon by HM Courts & Tribunals Service is ageing. The system is currently configured in a way that perpetuates delays and costs as staff time is wasted on manual data entry and paperbased processes and is based on outdated assumptions about how people expect to access services, for example the public no longer expects to have to handwrite forms, visit a courthouse or tribunal in person to lodge a document or pay a fee by cheque.

Very little is available through digital channels and the taxpayer continues to bear the escalating financial costs associated with manual systems. Without modern technology Judiciary, legal professionals and court and tribunal staff are not able to work as efficiently as they could.

The Treasury has agreed a one-off package of investment averaging up to £75m per annum over the five years from 2015/16 which will be used to deliver more efficient and effective courts and tribunals administration for all users and deliver significant savings.

Technology will be updated and replaced in courts and tribunals across the country, working practices will be speeded up and modernised, and the court and tribunal estate will be significantly refurbished, making better use of buildings, reducing the ongoing cost of maintenance and providing improved services for court and tribunal users, particularly vulnerable victims and witnesses.

Justice will continue to be delivered locally, and access to justice maintained. the Custodial Review

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Criminals to pay towards cost of running courts

Digital courtroom unveiled as justice enters the Wi-Fi era

Criminals will be made to pay towards the cost of their court case under legislation introduced to Parliament by Justice Secretary Chris Grayling.

The new measure is part of the wide-ranging Criminal Justice and Courts Bill, unveiled

by Chris Grayling, aimed at revamping sentencing and ensuring the courts deliver efficiency for the taxpayer.

Criminal cases will be handled digitally from the moment a crime is committed through to the conclusion in court, said Criminal Justice Minister Damian Green.

The reforms ensure criminals are punished properly, with the scrapping of automatic early release for terrorists and child rapists.

Sentencing loopholes will also be closed, with the creation of a new offence for being on the run. Changes to cautions will also help deliver a fairer justice system that will make communities safer.

The ambitious but vital Bill includes plans to:

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Make criminals contribute towards the costs of running the courts system by imposing a new charge at the point of conviction.

The Government announced last month that courts across England and Wales would be upgraded using new funding of £75m a year.

This is in addition to £44m already provided for the provision of new IT programmes.

The funding will include ensuring all criminal courts can operate completely digitally by July 2016.

A digital system which will mean the police contact the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) directly for a charging decision. CPS staff will have access to the case information in order to make a charging decision and then process the case. Case information will no longer need to be repeatedly sent to different agencies or professional users either electronically or in paper form.

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Defendants in custody to appear in court via prison to court video links for pre-trial hearings, where appropriate, which will remove transport costs and speed-up the justice process.

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Criminal prosecutors and defence lawyers in magistrates’ courts to work digitally, presenting cases from mobile digital devices in court instead of bundles of paper files.

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Case information to be viewed digitally by magistrates on digital devices.

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Wi-Fi connections to be used to allow professional court users to access their own systems and the internet.

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Digital in-court presentation equipment to display evidence like CCTV, photos or 999 calls.

Ban the possession of explicit pornography that shows images depicting rape. It is currently illegal to publish this material, and the new legislation will close a loophole to also prevent possession.

Criminal Justice Minister Damian Green said:

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Put education at the heart of youth custody by introducing secure colleges, a new form of secure educational establishment for young offenders.

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Support economic growth by speeding up the Judicial Review process with measures to drive out meritless claims and get rid of time-wasting delays.

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The Digital Business Model includes plans for:

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The changes, outlined today in the new Criminal Justice System Digital Business Model, will help victims and witnesses by ensuring cases progress as quickly as possible.

Create four new criminal offences of juror misconduct to ensure fair trials and prevent miscarriages of justice.

Service. It will build on the success of the Criminal Justice Strategy and Action Plan published last summer.

Police to be able to capture witness and victims statements electronically on their mobile device or bodyworn video at the scene of the crime where available while the events are fresh in victim’s or witness’ minds.

End the automatic half-way point release for criminals convicted of rape or attempted rape of a child, or serious terrorism offences, and no longer automatically releasing offenders who receive the tough Extended Determinate Sentence (EDS) two-thirds of the way through their custodial term.

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Speaking at Bromley Magistrates’ Court in South London, Damian Green said that in future every magistrates’ court in England and Wales would operate completely digitally, with increased use of remote video links and written evidence and legal submissions being stored securely centrally and accessed by magistrates and legal teams on digital devices, using Wi-Fi connections.

Police officers will be able to collect evidence at the scenes of crimes using mobile devices and begin building case files on the beat.

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Stop criminals receiving cautions for serious offences, and for less serious offences stop them receiving a second caution for the same, or similar, offence committed in a two-year period.

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Police officers to be equipped with the tools they need to be able to start capturing evidence digitally at the scene of a crime, taking statements and uploading digital case information using mobile devices without needing to return to the police station.

Introduce a new offence with a punishment of up to two years in prison for criminals who go on the run while serving the non-custodial element of their sentence.

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The court in Bromley is the first in London, and one of the first in the UK to be equipped with new digital presentation facilities.

I want to see a Criminal Justice System where information is captured once by a police officer responding to a crime and then flows through the system to the court stage without duplication or reworking. Many forces are already using digital technology like body-worn video, which can be used to collect compelling evidence at the scene of crimes.

We can see here in Bromley what can be achieved and we are committed to making this happen across the country.

Our Digital Business Model provides us for the first time with a full picture of what a transformed digital Criminal Justice System could look like when all of our reform programmes deliver their goals.

The new Criminal Justice System Digital Business Model will link together the different agencies which make up the criminal justice system – including the Police, HM Courts & Tribunal Service and Crown Prosecution

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The strategy also includes a set of principles for how Criminal Justice System agencies will jointly undertake digital reform and transformation in the future. It sets out how the changes will also improve the day-to-day work of police, prosecutors, defence advocates and court staff.

These principles include a commitment to ensure the system operates digitally by default, to make it possible for users to access data from any location or device of their choice, and to ensure agencies operate from shared computer instead of having to send data to each other.

Funding boost for programmes that reduce reoffending

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ex-offenders who want to give back to society circles of volunteers supporting particularly high-risk offenders

Minister for Civil Society Nick Hurd said:

Charities and social enterprises who use innovative ways to reduce reoffending in England have been handed a boost worth more than £2 million.

In recognition that social action has an important role to play in reducing reoffending, 12 organisations will benefit from £2.4 million through the Rehabilitation Social Action Fund (RSAF), a Centre for Social Action programme.

The grants will provide the chosen organisations with resources to demonstrate what works and deliver social action programmes at a greater scale, for example in new prisons and communities.

Grant recipients will use a range of social action methods to support ex-offenders to stop committing crime and to transform their lives, overcoming issues like drug and alcohol abuse and homelessness.

Activities include: • volunteer mentoring with offenders in receipt of shorter sentences • peer-mentoring using the experience of

The work that all of these organisations are involved in highlights that social issues can often be dealt with very effectively through making the most of community and individual resources. These grants will allow this work to be invested in and expanded.

These grants, developed in partnership with the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) and the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), come alongside a wide-ranging package of support for voluntary organisations interested in delivering offender rehabilitation services under the government’s probation reforms.

About the support offered That support includes:

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masterclasses on winning contracts an online database to help providers form consortia and partnerships the Justice Data Lab to help charities demonstrate their impact in reducing reoffending access to the £10 million Investment and Contract Readiness Fund, managed by

Further funding boosts voluntary sector support

the Social Investment Business, to help organisations win contracts and attract investment The Ministry of Justice also announced today that a grant of almost £200,000 will be given to the charity Clinks so they can provide legal support to voluntary organisations who are planning to play a role in the rehabilitation reforms. It is the final part of a voluntary sector support package worth half a million pounds.

In addition to this, the MOJ will also be awarding a further £720,000 grant to help small organisations or those working with offenders who may need additional targeted support after the new approach has been implemented.

Justice Minister Jeremy Wright said: The voluntary sector has a crucial part to play as we reform the way offenders are rehabilitated – their innovation will be vital in finally turning the tide on our stubbornly high reoffending rates.

We have already seen a huge amount of interest from them in bidding for contracts and this legal support and social action funding will provide a further boost.

understand the impact of their work and design more effective interventions supporting offenders to turn their backs on a life of crime.

Jeremy Wright said:

Justice Minister Jeremy Wright announced that the pioneering Justice Data Lab pilot would be extended for a further year.

We have always been clear that we want the voluntary sector to play a major role in our reforms to rehabilitation.

They have a wealth of experience and knowledge in tackling the high reoffending rates which see more than 500,000 crimes committed each year by those who have broken the law before.

Charities and voluntary organisations working with offenders received a double boost on 10th March as Justice Minister Jeremy Wright announced that the pioneering Justice Data Lab pilot would be extended for a further year, along with a grant of £720,000 to provide support to the sector.

Our reforms will see the best of the private, voluntary and community sectors working hand in hand to crack the stubborn cycle of reoffending.

The grant was awarded to a partnership led by the umbrella organisation Clinks which aims to provide support to smaller voluntary organisations including those who specialise in rehabilitating specific groups of offenders – for example female offenders, those from black and minority ethnic communities or those with learning disabilities.

To date, 25 out of 55 reports published by the Justice Data Lab have measured the impact of services run by voluntary groups or charities.

Eleven of the 19 statistically significant reductions in re-offending measured through the service have come from VCS organisations.

The grant will start in April and is for one year, which covers the period during which the new approach to rehabilitation will be rolled out. This will see a new and refocused public sector National Probation Service tasked with protecting the public from the most dangerous offenders and 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) across England and Wales working to turn round the lives of medium and low risk offenders.

We are delighted to be able to continue providing much-needed support and voice to our network of over 2,000 organisations working with offenders. This is a particularly challenging time for our sector, which makes Clinks’ role more important than ever. Our support ensures organisations can meet the challenges and continue to offer valuable services to transform the lives of offenders and ex-offenders.

Private and voluntary sector organisations will work together to run the CRCs and the competition for preferred bidders is underway. To date, 830 organisations have expressed an interest in playing a role as part of the wider supply chain – including more than 575 Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) organisations. Registration is still open and the numbers continue to grow.

Our new approach will see, for the first time, every offender released from prison receive at least 12 months’ statutory supervision and rehabilitation in the community. Those most in need of help to turn their lives around will finally receive the support they need.

VCS organisations will also benefit from the extension of the Justice Data Lab pilot, which will now run until April 2015.

This innovative service gives VCS groups access to high-quality reoffending data tailored to their needs, allowing them to better

Director of Clinks Clive Martin said:

A nationwide network of resettlement prisons is also being created so nearly all offenders are released into the area in which they will live and be supervised.

Providers will only be paid in full if they are successful at reducing reoffending, making hardworking tax-payers’ money go further.

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Better care for mental health crisis A new agreement between police and the NHS seeks to improve mental health crisis care.

Emergency support for people in mental health crisis is set to see dramatic improvements across the country as part of a far-reaching new agreement between police, mental health trusts and paramedics.

The agreement – called the Crisis Care Concordat – has been signed by more than 20 national organisations in a bid to drive up standards of care for people experiencing crisis such as suicidal thoughts or significant anxiety.

The Concordat, announced today by Care and Support Minister Norman Lamb, will help cut the numbers of people detained inappropriately in police cells and drive out the variation in standards across the country.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said: A mental health crisis can already be distressing for individuals and all those involved, but when people aren’t getting the right support or care it can have very serious consequences. It’s unacceptable that there are incidents where young people and even children can end up in a police cell because the right mental health service isn’t available to them.

That’s why we’re taking action across the country and across organisations to make sure those with mental health problems are receiving the emergency care they need.

We want to build a fairer society – one where mental health is as important as physical health – and the Crisis Care Concordat is an important step towards addressing this disparity.

The concordat, which has already been signed by 22 organisations including NHS England, the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Royal College of Psychiatrists, sets out the standards of care people should expect if they suffer a mental health crisis and details how the emergency services should respond.

It challenges local services to make sure beds are always available for people who need them urgently and also that police custody should never be used just because mental health services are not available. It also stipulates that police vehicles should not be used to transfer patients between hospitals and encourages services to get better at sharing essential need-to-know information about patients which could help keep them and the public safe.

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Police and prison officer killers to face life in prison

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Anyone who kills a police or prison officer in the course of their duty will face spending the rest of their lives behind bars, Justice Secretary Chris Grayling has announced.

A life sentence is mandatory on conviction for murder. The sentencing court must assess the seriousness of all cases in order to determine the appropriate minimum term to be imposed. The minimum term is the period which the offender must serve in prison for the purposes of punishment and deterrence before being considered for possible release by the Parole Board.

The changes to the law being made by the Ministry of Justice will mean that judges will start by considering a whole life term when deciding the sentence for killing either a police or prison officer in the course of their duty.

This is an increase from the current starting point of a 30-year minimum term. Judges would retain the discretion to determine the appropriate sentence in each case - a whole life term will not be mandatory.

Justice Secretary Chris Grayling said: Police officers play a vital role in keeping communities safe. As has been tragically demonstrated in recent years, this role is a dangerous one which can lead to officers paying the ultimate price while serving their community.

On a daily basis, prison officers are also asked to protect the public by dealing with violent offenders and standing in the way of criminals in order to keep the peace.

It is essential that police and prison officers feel the full weight of the state is behind them as they fulfil their crucial duties. Changing the starting point for this offence sends a clear message that the Government supports the work that these vital public servants play.

The measure is being introduced by amendment to the Criminal Justice & Courts Bill, which includes a wide range of tough sentencing measures, including plans to:

•

Make criminals contribute towards the costs of running the courts system by imposing a new charge at the point of conviction.

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Introduce a new offence with a punishment of up to two years in prison for criminals who go on the run while serving the non-custodial element of their sentence.

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End the automatic half-way point release for criminals convicted of rape or attempted rape of a child, or serious terrorism offences, and no longer automatically releasing offenders who receive the tough Extended Determinate Sentence (EDS) two-thirds of the way through their custodial term.

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Stop criminals receiving cautions for serious offences, and for less serious offences stop them receiving a second caution for the same, or similar, offence committed in a two-year period.

There is statutory guidance to the courts setting out the principles to which it must have regard when determining the appropriate minimum term. The guidance sets out four starting points for adult offenders and gives examples of the type of case which would fall into these categories. Currently, the murder of a police or prison officer in the course of duty has a starting point of a minimum term of 30 years.

The court chooses the appropriate starting point and then considers any additional aggravating or mitigating factors in the particular case before arriving at the final sentence, which may be higher or lower than the starting point.

Prison Service Pay Review Body reports on prison pay The thirteenth report of the independent Prison Service Pay Review Body (PSPRB) is being published.

The report makes recommendations on the pay of Governing Governors and other operational managers, prison officers and related support grades in England and Wales for 2014/15.

The recommendations for 2014/15 will be implemented in full by the Government.

Jeremy Wright MP, Parliamentary UnderSecretary of State, Minister for Prisons and Rehabilitation, said of the recommendations: The Government places great value on the work prison staff undertake on behalf of society. I am pleased to announce that the Government has accepted the independent Prison Service Pay Review Body’s recommendations in full.

This decision recognises important reform work that is being progressed across public sector prisons to deliver significant savings for the tax payer.

Dualway – the unique antibarricade door solution Since its launch the unique DUALWAY AntiBarricade door system from Cooke Brothers has already generated a huge amount of interest leading to a surge in business for the company from a number of industry leading names operating in the specialist Custodial, Secure Units, Mental Health and Hospital Healthcare sectors.

Designed to suit either new build or retrofit applications where individual doorsets are required within an existing facility, the Dual Way Door System provides unrestricted and immediate access into a room in a situation where a patient has barricaded himself or herself in.

The Dual Way system utilises a frame within a frame principal, allowing for a standard 44mm or 54mm doorset to be mounted within a secondary high security steel outer frame. In everyday use the standard inward opening Dualway door open position doorset operates as a normal door, providing full 90-degree access using a purpose designed full height Anti-ligature continuous hinge. The outer frame is produced from preformed steel providing rigid support, whilst the high level of security engagement is by means of purpose design heavy duty mechanical hook bolt locking as standard or with the option of an electronically powered locking system where required.

In an emergency or barricaded door situation the door and inner frame can be quickly released enabling the complete doorset to swing outwards allowing immediate entry into the room. Access is achieved by releasing the dual hook locks mortised into the outer frame and operated by unique security profile keys or where specified via an electromagnetic access Dualway door closed position control system.

To discover more about the unique DUALWAY Anti-Barricade Door System please contact the sales team at Cooke Brothers Ltd on 01922 740011. Email: sales@cookebrothers.co.uk or to view the latest DUALWAY video by visiting the web site www.cookebrothers.co.uk

Saving the best to the last Glen Ashby is the Senior Project Manager for Thames Valley Police Property Services Department. Over the last 10 years he has shared the responsibility for delivering a complete set of new custody facilities that meet the Safer Detention guidelines and custody needs of the Force for the next 30 plus years. He and his fellow Project Manager, Judy Blake, have just finished their final custody project completed in Milton Keynes. It’s the last in the series of eight new/refurbished custody suites. Glen tells me it’s the best of the lot, not only in terms of design and build but also in terms of cost and delivery in a very challenging environment. So I went along to ask him what this all meant.

Custodial Review We are sitting in the new custody suite at Milton Keynes Police Station. It seems as if I’ve been visiting you at custody suites for a very long time. Just what have you and Judy Blake achieved over the last ten years?

Glen Ashby In that time we have constructed or completely refurbished the LPA’s custody suites and have replaced/ refurbished all of the Force’s out of date cells within eight custody facilities with energy efficient cells and facilities that are state of the art and built to the highest quality.

CR This new one in Milton Keynes, what did you start with and what have you produced?

GA Originally it had 23 cells and a cramped suite of ancillary facilities, we now have 24 cells and a full suite of up to date ancillary facilities such as interview, documentation and medical rooms. This is on almost the same footprint as the previous suite and we have achieved this by a more intelligent use of space and technology.

CR Technology plays a huge part in these facilities, it’s developed in the 8 years since you started the first new suite in Banbury, how has it changed?

GA Just about everything has developed beyond recognition. This is mainly as a result of our input and co-operation with the suppliers of the materials and equipment. A good example is the cell door locking systems.

We now use the Chubb Atlas compact door lock that has the ability via the Building Management system to automatically alter the temperature in the cell depending on whether it’s occupied. The system also keeps an electronic audit trail of who opened it and when. It also can be double locked to take the cell out of commission. The lighting system has changed dramatically. We have worked closely with Designplan to develop the current Home Office approved light fitting into a LED unit by changing the internal lighting gear tray. The fitting is the same so it maintains the secure aspect however it now has an IP65 rating so the cell can be deep the Custodial Review

cleaned with a pressure washer. The LEDs and new electrics give dramatic energy savings, reduced maintenance costs and improved long term light performance. Designplan have also developed an LED replacement solution for the fluorescent lights that are in use elsewhere in the custody suite, achieving further energy cost reductions. CCTV has improved in that it has reduced in cost, so more can be delivered for the same budget. We have worked closely with NJL Custodial as they have developed their cell furniture to make it more secure and even longer lasting. Adcutech have developed a new cell door hatch and Cell Security has developed the cell doors to meet our technological advances. This gives us the ability to produce this suite to the standard we have within the tight budget allocated.

CR What about provision for staff? There was a time that staff comfort and working environment was a low priority, this has altered and it’s recognised that better facilities affect how people work. How has that changed the design?

The view from behind the custody desk made by NJL Custodial.

GA All the suites were designed to be more versatile and this is the latest and best in the programme. From the central charge desk we can organise the movement throughout the custody suite with a great deal of control as key ancillary facilities are within the line of vision.

So the custody staff can oversee detainees, solicitors and visitors movements. We have also provided a rest room for the Detention officers.

The décor is designed to keep noise and stress levels as low as is practical.

CR None of this is done without involving the builder! When we were talking about one of the previously completed suites you informed me that you were regularly using the same construction firm, Beard, in a partnering framework contract as it provided for better co-operation because both parties learnt how to work together more efficiently. Has this policy continued?

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The locks are the Atlas range made by Chubb.

GA Previous to this custody project we worked within a framework contract with a construction firm called Beard using an NEC 3 design/build partnering format which came to its contractual end in 2010. This project was different as we adopted a more traditional approach to tendering this contract which has been priced against drawings and a full bill of quantities. This was done in a drive to improve value for money. We tendered to six companies and the outturn was a 10% variance in the bid price. The median price was £2.3 million.

CR Looking back on this build, it seems to have been as complex in the demolition phase as it has been in the construction one. How did you go about it?

GA The suite was built on the footprint of the demolished cell block. Subterranean telephone lines to the station and essential communications cabling spanned the construction site and extreme care was required during the excavation phase. In addition there was a requirement to maintain the access the Court Service have to their

The Custody desk, made by NJL Custodial.

cells via an underground tunnel that links the custody suite to the Courthouse.

We had to decide if we were going to structurally support an overhanging building and completely rebuild the suite or refurbish the old one. A lot of study and research took place and it was decided by using an analytical system called ‘Whole Life Cost Analysis’ to completely rebuild as the existing custody unit was built in 1985 and not constructed to a high enough

standard to meet modern specification. We have learnt that to reduce short and long term maintenance costs a custody unit must be built to the highest standards to ensure the building will be relatively maintenance free for the next 30 years.

Demolition was the biggest challenge we faced as it needed to be carried out strategically to ensure the work in structurally attached buildings still continued. We could not close

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the emergency call centre or the rest of the Police Station. As people were affected, the construction phase created a very complex and constantly changing health and safety situation that had to be addressed on an ongoing basis. We were well supported by Karen Williams, Health Safety and Environment Coordinator as well as Vijay Patel and his Facilities team on site. continues overleaf u

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Saving the best to the last continued CR What did the local Police use for custody facilities whilst all this was going on?

GA This is always a difficult issue. We carried out a study and found that to transport all the detainees from Milton Keynes to the nearest custody suite at Aylesbury would have proved prohibitively expensive in both cost and Police time. So we concluded that the most effective solution in terms of police time and cost was to hire a temporary 18 cell custody unit from Wernick Buildings, constructed on part of the ménage area used by the mounted police section based here.

CR If I gave you a time machine what would you have done differently?

GA Nothing! This is the last of the suites in the current custody programme that we are going to build in Thames Valley.This one we designed One of the Ancillary rooms u

q Shower facilities

Judy Blake is one half of the Project management team that has overseen the construction of the eight new Custody suites built in the last ten years by Thames Valley Police. I met her again when the new suite had a week to go until it was due to be fully in use.

Custodial Review Its Friday and you have a week to go before the custody suite is going to be in use and at the moment it’s a very neat and tidy, but very empty shell. How are you going to fill it with the kit required to make it work? in house from the initial feasibility concept to the layout, the drawings, the contractual process and the actual build.We have incorporated lessons learned in the previous seven builds and I’d not do anything differently.We’ve designed it and then liaised closely with the contractor whilst it was built, so it’s fair to say I’m so close to the project that I cannot step away and see it completely objectively!

Following completion of the previous projects, we carried out a post project review of every facet in order to carry forward the experience and knowledge we had gained into the next project. Were we to revisit the first one we had completed at Banbury, you would see that this Milton Keynes suite is light years ahead in terms of the technology, build materials and flexibility. This suite can have areas taken out of commission whilst they are maintained.

The LED lighting will last far longer than its predecessor and save thousands of pounds in running costs. In short, it’s as good as it can be.

CR Now the whole programme is completed what are you going to do with yourself?

GA That’s like the custody buildings were... under review!

CR Thank you for talking to the Review.

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Judy Blake We have to decant all the specialist equipment from the Temporary Custody Facility and move it into the new building. All the computers and telephones have to be installed and the specialist kit that includes VIPER capture room, Livescan,Video Witness and Intoxometer relocated and then brought on line. The PACE recording equipment requires installation and the CCTV initialised. So all of these specialist suppliers and installers are arriving on the same day Tuesday, with the brief to get on with their task! A sunny day would be most welcome for this move. Again, on Friday, a day that’s not too windy as the temporary Custody Facility is being taken out by crane and in not feasible on a windy day.

CR Do you bring in a team of professionals to organise and carry all the kit or will you and an in house team be rolling up your sleeves and apply your own elbow grease?

JB I’m in no physical state to fetch and carry these days, so I supervise the team of people we bring in, both internal and external to carry out the removals, relocation and installation.

CR This is the eighth and last custody suite and it’s been 10 years since you started delivering them for Thames Valley Police; what

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would you do differently if you were given the chance?

JB I’d like to be able to go back to the first suite and employ all of the knowledge and experience we have learnt in the last ten years into the design of the very first one. I would love to start again because experience has shown that there are more efficient layout designs. The positioning the key ancilliary rooms around the charge area here at Milton Keynes makes the work flow so much more operationally efficient and user friendly. At Banbury and other suites, we were constrained by the shape of the available space and the design was very much architect-led.

Here, Glen and I sat down with a blank sheet of paper and laid out the rooms using all the experience we have gained. We had delivered seven custody schemes and spent a great deal of time in the custody environment, so we understood how a custody suite should work and have designed this one accordingly.

CR What about the equipment that has been installed, how much has that changed?

JB It’s developed enormously since we started and the companies that supply and install it have changed too. The suppliers and contractors with which we have developed a close working relationship over the last ten years were successful in achieving subcontinues overleaf u

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Saving the best to the last continued

The Custody desk, made by NJL Custodial.

contractor status to deliver this project. Much of the installation has been developed to a higher standard than it was at Banbury, in that it works more efficiently and is lower cost in real terms than it was then. We have found that more equipment is now capable of being integrated than before. The locks with the building management system and the lights for instance.

CR What stands out when you think about the whole ten year project?

JB I am proud of what we have delivered and developed over the course of the Custody Programme. A big part of that would be the fulfilment we shared in delivering a safe, comfortable and robust working environment both for police staff and detainees. Glen and I work really well together, we have complementary skills that gel very well.

We were able to make even the tough jobs rewarding and enjoyable; this seemed to reflect upon the other people we worked with. It also helped to keep up the momentum in long, complicated projects. Ten years is a long time and I’ve never worked on a programme that lasted that long. It would have been easy to become complacent however we have managed to keep improving, mainly by constantly challenging one another.

The Door hatches were a new design and made by Adcutech.

CR So you have finished this programme, what’s going to occupy you now?

JB I have considerable personal commitments that will take up more of my time now. I’m quite fulfilled but will be looking for a new challenge. Once you have delivered a big long complicated programme of specialist projects as this one was, most anything else would seem trivial by comparison!

CR Thank you for taking to the Review.

Custodial Furniture at Milton Keynes.

NJL Custodial installed the charge desk into the new Milton Keynes custody suite in addition to the interview room furniture, the cell benches and the consultation room furniture. They have supplied Thames Valley Police for 6 years and have worked with Judy and Glen in equipping the last six of the eight custody suites that have been built. Their long

CR What feedback have you had from the people who have been working in the custody suites you have finished?

JB We revisit each suite at least once every 3 months as we carry out the health and safety and the ligature inspections so we meet the operational staff very regularly. We have changed a few items and upgraded others as a result of these meetings however the overall feedback is that the custody suites are working well and deliver what they promised.

They require minimal maintenance and they are fit for the purpose for which they were built. We recently visited Newbury, which was completed 4 years ago; it still looks very

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much as the day we handed it over. When you consider it is in use 24/7/365, that is quite an achievement.

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history of supplying Thames Valley is a typical being one of constant development of product and technique so that lessons learnt are applied to the next job, improving the finished product to everyone’s benefit. continues overleaf u

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Saving the best to the last continued The custody desk at Milton Keynes is a work of art and science in itself. It’s the sixth such unit that NJL have built for Thames Valley and it started development as a life size model that underwent customer approval before finally being fabricated in Newcastle. It was then shipped south and assembled. It’s not the largest of its type that has been constructed in this series, that accolade belongs to Abingdon where the desk is 10 meters long! These desks are also made from a material called Corian, a product that’s derived from polyester. It’s also used in high temperature environments such as kitchen worktops. The size of the entry doors and the layout of the custody area need to be known in advance as the pieces that make up the custody desk are huge and very heavy. The timescales of the build do not allow for a second attempt at installation, it must go in first time every time.

The Home Office the custody specifications have changed so the way that NJL’s furniture has been developed is considerable. The TVP contracts have placed great pressure on the cost of equipment whist maintaining the high specification that is required to enable equipment to last in such a high wear and tear environment. For this reason the cell furniture NJL have supplied is made of a Corian. The cell benches are made of two pieces, which keeps the cost of manufacture and therefore supply lower. They installed the first ones 10 years ago and haven’t had any defects to put right. The interview desks and furniture are extremely solid, and are manufactured form sustainable hardwood.

As they are likely to be in place for 40 years or so their durability is ensured by countless applications of furniture oil during production that eventually gives the tables and chairs an attractive and very hardwearing surface. It’s necessary to make good the surfaces with a fresh application once a year.

If the wood on the tables or the Corian surfaces of the charge desk do become damaged it’s possible to fill and sand out the mark and polish the surface, the repair will look almost invisible.

NJL do not make high tech kit, they make very robust kit in a high tech way so that it’s constantly improving in its durability and cost.

It’s this constant improvement process that has helped create the success at Milton Keynes.

Lighting at Milton Keynes Designplan have further developed their custody lighting in co-operation with Glen and Judy’s long building programme with TVP. It’s been a ten year process and the lighting in the MK suite is as technologically as modern as it can be. It’s the first suite that’s been built using the LED lights that the company has developed from the requirements and requests the MK contract has made necessary.

Designplan have made their name in the custody industry by making lighting units fit for custody suites. Their products have been Home Office approved and almost the standard fit in cells for years. Until recently they have used fluorescent tubes almost exclusively. The LED requirement started to be worked on three years ago when Glen Ashby asked Lee McCarthy to look into the possibility of their use in the custody units TVP were planning to build. Up to then LED units had been supplied to social housing contractors, so they had little experience of its use or benefits in a fully secure environment.

To develop whole new light fittings and have them Home Office approved would have been a long process, to speed this up they retrofitted LED lights into existing approved fitting and installed them in the Aylesbury custody suite. The light fittings have always been manufactured so that improvements in lighting technology can be incorporated without major redesigns. The industry calls this process ‘swapping the gear tray’. At Milton Keynes the gear trays have LEDs and electronic drivers instead of fluorescent tubes.

The latest LED units fitted to the MK suite have an expected lifetime of 50,000 hours.

This is compared with the expected life of a fluorescent tube of 10,000 hours. They also deliver a saving of 45% in energy costs. Its savings like this that are driving along the requirement for change.

By working long term with Glen at TVP a requirement for energy saving and maintenance cost reduction has resulted in a product developing into a unit that delivers just that. The same cost and maintenance issues are the driving force that is also pushing along the rapid adoption of LED in transport contracts. So innovation for the custody industry is proving a good investment as its being used to develop better products for other industries.

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Security at Milton Keynes Chubb Locks Custodial Services have developed their Atlas locking system to work in Police stations over the last five years in concert with Thames Valley Police developing their Custody suites. It’s another good example of a supplier working alongside a customer to develop innovative solutions to issues that develop when the boundaries are being pushed. The Atlas system was first installed in TVP’s High Wycombe suite and then the Newbury suite. It was seen as a prison based system prior to this, TVP wanted a system that was more suited to a smaller set up than a prison and it was by reducing the size of the support infrastructure that Chubb Custodial were able to deliver the desirable functionality within a smaller package. This made it feasible to install it in the 24 cell custody suite and deliver the benefits such as the Building management system link up that enables lights and heating to be controlled automatically.

The data from the first installation in High Wycombe was very informative and Chubb Custodial were able to use it to further develop and refine the software and hardware packages that sit at the heart of the system.

It’s not been a miniaturisation process either, they found that it was better not to cram all the technology into one control box and that having separate components enabled lower costs and higher reliability. This enables flexibility to put the computer part in the control area and the backroom controller in the machine room. The policy also enables off the shelf computer equipment to be utilised so further reducing costs.

TVP’s early adoption of this technology has driven the development to the point where its application in Custody suites is now proven, so Avon and Somerset Police are now also looking at it, a further three large custody suites are in final commissioning for a large PFI Police project in England, which will bring the number of installations to six.

By adopting an innovative approach other products have also been developed for the Police Custody market, The Met Police wanted an electric keyless system for cell locks based on the long established Chubb Custodial 4L55 mechanical lock but with the ability to interface with the access control systems used across their sites. Chubb Custodial now have 3 distinct products to offer that cover this market, a manual key system, an electric locking system and a fully electronic one. There

From Left to right: Glen Ashby, Judy Blake, Shane Penwright (Chubb Locks Custodial), Lee McCarthy (Designplan Lighting), Sgt. Dean Faulkner (MK Custody), Stuart Climance (Adcutech), Simon Taylor (NJL Custodial)

New cell hatches at Milton Keynes.

Recent research by Adcutech showed that custody staff wanted cell door hatches to be lightweight, very robust, durable and also very quiet, so they have developed a new cell door hatch that has been installed in eight locations including Wandsworth PS where they have performed faultlessly.

are also derivatives of these where a manual system can have a data logger attached to the lock. Maintaining a flexible approach and always looking to be able to develop an idea into a usable system are the key to this approach.

One other factor that is important is the knowledge that the Chubb Custodial project managers have. Under the previously used partnering agreement a single main contractor had been used for 7 of the new custody suites, the MK one went out to tender to improve the value for money. Few building companies have the experience to design and build a custody suite as there are not many of them.

The experience and knowledge that Chubb staff bring to the job enable their systems to tie in with the most sophisticated building systems. So ensuring an efficient successful build and commissioning process.

Thames Valley Police were the first force to adopt the Adcutech hatch and were very impressed with the quality and its ergonomic design. Both parties have been working to promote the hatch amongst other forces. It’s a good example of what Glen describes as working with suppliers.

Adcutech fitted their first cell hatch, a retrofit unit that is a partial vision unit, to existing cell doors in Aylesbury Police Station during its renovation. The latest model, which is a full vision 3 position hatch has been fitted in the subsequent cell doors of Milton Keynes redeveloped custody suite and it delivers what the research showed was needed.

The hatch has recently been put through an independent test where the mechanism has been cycled 400,000 times! The wear on the unit has been negligible and no sharp edges or ligature points have developed. However the important point the test illustrated is that the

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new unit will last a significant length of time in a custodial environment.

The units are manufactured and assembled in the UK and are made of lightweight aluminium with a hard anodise finish to resist wear and tear. Â Most parts are interchangeable and easy to replace and maintenance is only required by way of a touch of grease every few months.

The unit is now Home Office approved and available in a couple of sizes so that it can be retrofitted during refurbishment.

Adcutech is also working on a door viewer for custody doors using the same principals of simple yet precise engineering to keep the reliability up and the costs down.

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News from the Howard League Books for prisoners: Ministry of Justice cannot shelve our campaign, say top authors The Howard League for Penal Reform and English PEN on 7 May released a letter from an official at a Ministry of Justice agency, that responds to the books for prisoners campaign and a request to meet with the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, Chris Grayling.

The request was sent by the Howard League, English PEN, the Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, Ian McEwan, Julian Barnes and Mark Haddon, following letters in the press signed by over one hundred of the country’s leading authors.

The campaign is calling on the government to end restrictions which prevent families and friends sending books, underwear and other essentials to prisoners.

Tens of thousands of people have shown their support for the campaign by signing a petition and sending photographs of bookshelves to the Ministry of Justice’s Twitter account using the hashtags “#shelfie” and “#booksforprisoners”.

The campaign has received media coverage across the world and the government’s stance has also been condemned by international writers and former prisoners of conscience.

In the letter, the official responds on behalf of Ministry of Justice ministers and effectively refuses a meeting to discuss the campaign and the impact of changes to the Incentive and Earned Privileges (IEP) scheme.

Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, said: “It is atrocious that government ministers will not even meet with the Howard League to discuss our concerns. I am particularly disappointed that this response refers to an open letter to myself which was released to the media one weekend without the Lord Chancellor even having the grace to notify me beforehand.

“I do not want to engage in a media stunt with the Lord Chancellor in visiting a prison as I, like most writers, have already visited prisons and indeed wrote the foreword to an edition of the PEN Prisoners Writing Anthology.

“What I and other authors want to see is government ministers taking our concerns seriously and engaging positively and publicly with the Howard League and English PEN to address the issues we have raised.”

Frances Crook, Chief Executive of the Howard

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League for Penal Reform, said: “What does it take for government ministers to discuss legitimate concerns from campaigners and some of the country’s leading authors? Despite the overwhelming public response to the books for prisoners campaign, it appears that the Ministry of Justice wishes to shut its eyes and ears to what has become an international scandal.

“I am afraid it is not so easy to shelve our campaign. If ministers at the Ministry of Justice will not hear our case, and rely on repeating dubious justifications that have been comprehensively trashed in the media, then we will look to take our concerns to Downing Street.”

Jo Glanville, Director of English PEN said: “We’re extremely disappointed by the government’s response and its failure to agree to a meeting.

This is a snub to some of the country’s most outstanding authors who have demonstrated their commitment to the campaign.

“The rationale for the ban has already been shown to be flawed – both on grounds of security and in relation to the claim that there is sufficient access to books within prisons. It’s dismaying that ministers are impervious to an issue that has created an international as well as a national outcry.

“I doubt that the campaign’s supporters will be convinced by the response or prepared to give up the fight.”

Nicola Solomon, Chief Executive of the Society of Authors, said: “We fully accept that there must be controls on parcels coming into prisons. However, it has clearly been possible in the past to allow parcels of books into some prisons and to restrict that simply to create uniformity across the system at the level of the lowest service currently provided seems unduly punitive and counter-productive.

“We understand that, in many prisons, access to library facilities does not comply with the statutory minimum. Furthermore, we learn that book stock in many prisons is poor, often damaged or out of date, and that inter-library loan requests are often slow or not actioned at all.”

Brinsford: A prison of filth and failure Responding to the HM Inspectorate of Prisons’ report on Brinsford prison published on 23 April 2014, Frances Crook, Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “The inspection of Brinsford prison reveals an unsafe, ineffective and violent institution that should be immediately closed. Rather than locking up teenagers in squalid conditions, letting some out of their cells for just 10 minutes a day, the government needs to start to reconsider its policy of wasting public funds Page 18

and young people’s lives behind bars.

“Given that this is the latest in the long line of terrible inspection reports on the state of our prisons, it is a damning indictment that the Chief Inspector has crowned Brinsford as the single worst prison he has come across in his tenure “This report should also be a wake-up call for magistrates who need to stop sending teenagers to dangerous and failing institutions like Brinsford and should instead make use of robust and effective community sentences run by probation services and available in their local areas.”

Women in prison: Commission finds evidence of coercive and consensual sex Women prisoners have been coerced into sex with staff in return for favours such as cigarettes or alcohol, the Commission on Sex in Prison has heard.

Assaults known as ‘decrotching’, where women prisoners forcibly retrieve drugs from another inmate’s vagina, are also thought to have occurred in jails.

The findings are published in the Commission’s second briefing paper, Women in prison: Coercive and consensual sex, which is released today.

The Commission, which comprises eminent academics, former prison governors and health experts, was established by the Howard League for Penal Reform.

It is the first-ever independent review of sex behind bars in England and Wales.

The Commission found that some women form relationships in prison as a source of comfort and support. However, some relationships can become coercive or abusive.

Although prison staff reported that women were more overt than men about their friendships with other prisoners, the Commission heard evidence that they might keep sexual relationships secret for fear of being separated.

Women have different sexual health needs to men and they are at greater risk of entering prison with a sexually transmitted infection such as HIV, the briefing paper states.

The report concludes that staff need training and guidance on how to support women, recognise bullying and identify relationships between prisoners.

Chris Sheffield, Chair of the Commission on Sex in Prison, said: “This is the second in a series of briefing papers produced by the Commission.

“Women in prison are particularly vulnerable

and more likely than men to have a history of being a victim of violence or sexual abuse.

against restrictions to legal aid imposed by the government in December 2013.

“It is important that policies recognise these differences and are developed in order to protect the vulnerable.

The Howard League and PAS argued that the cuts create an inherently unfair system.

“It is equally important that staff in women’s prisons receive specific training on working with women.”

The two-year Commission is looking at three broad themes – consensual sex in prisons; coercive sex in prisons; and healthy sexual development among young people in prison.

It focused on adults during 2013 and will this year study issues affecting children.

The Commission’s next seminar is focusing on boys’ sexual health.

Almost all people in prison will eventually return to the community, meaning that sexual health policies are important not just for inmates, but for the public as a whole.

Suicides in prison Responding to the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman reports, published 30th April, on self-inflicted deaths in custody, Frances Crook, Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “Each death in custody is a tragedy and almost all of them are preventable.

“The responsibility for an increase in the number of people who take their own lives in prison lies squarely with those who advocate putting behind bars more and more people who do not need to be there.

“This is the consequence of a policy that squanders a scarce resource, meaning that these institutions cannot keep people safe. A complacent attitude towards overcrowding and overuse of custody, combined with cuts to budgets and staffing, is making prisons into dangerous places.”

Howard League for Penal Reform and Prisoners’ Advice Service to appeal High Court decision on legal aid cuts for prisoners The Howard League and the Prisoners’ Advice Service (PAS) announced on 17 March that they will appeal after the High Court dismissed a legal challenge to legal aid cuts for prisoners.

The charities went to court earlier this month to seek two separate but linked judicial reviews

In a 30-page judgment by Mr Justice Cranston, with Lady Justice Rafferty, the High Court has recognised that legal aid cuts for prisoners may well be unfair and may not even save costs. But it concluded that these are political issues not legal ones.

The court appeared to accept the arguments from the Lord Chancellor that prisoners could use the prisoner complaints system and, ultimately, judicial review to resolve their issues, while at the same time accepting that all these mechanisms “have their drawbacks and gaps” and that “none may match the assistance which has been provided by lawyers, including those from the claimants, under the existing system of criminal legal aid for prison law”.

In dismissing the charities’ application for permission, the court stated:

Prisoners’ Advice Service, said: “PAS provides legal advice to all adult prisoners in England and Wales. We run an advice line and receive thousands of letters and telephone calls from prisoners each year. PAS also represents prisoners by taking on legal cases where appropriate.

“We are deeply disappointed with this judgment, which fails to respond to the increased unfairness prisoners now face as a result of the latest round of legal aid cuts.

The Court is right to say that this is a political issue; however that does not mean that it is one in which the law cannot intervene if prisoners’ fundamental rights of access to legal remedies are being breached.”

“We intend to appeal the judgment and will continue to press for these cuts to be reversed and for prisoners to be provided with adequate advice and representation to defend their legal rights.”

“We can well understand the concerns ventilated through these claims. A range of impressive commentators have argued that the changes to criminal legal aid for prison law in the Criminal Aid (General) (Amendment) Regulations 2013, SI 2013, No 2790 will have serious adverse effects for prisoners.”

While the court concluded that the changes to legal aid for prisoners did not arguably constitute unlawful action by the Lord Chancellor, it did not dismiss the possibility of successful future challenges. Rather, it found that “for the time being the forum for advancing these concerns remains the political”.

Frances Crook, Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “Our legal team represents children and young people in prison. These cuts will not result in savings for the taxpayer. On the contrary, they will result in increased costs as children remain in prison for longer than is necessary for want of a safe home to go to.

“We will take this to the Court of Appeal as the High Court made fundamental errors in its understanding of some of the key points.

“It did not properly deal with the concerns of the Joint Committee on Human Rights that the complaints system cannot be effective in certain cases.

“The court completely failed to address how unfairness would not arise in particular situations where prisoners are unrepresented.

These include parole board hearings where secret evidence is used against the prisoner or other cases which turn on expert evidence that cannot be commissioned without legal representation and funding.”

Deborah Russo, Joint Managing Solicitor at the

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How to stop criminals committing crime again An article written by PLA Chair Alexandra Marks, Chair of PLA & Chair of PET Alexandra Marks is a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales, with 19 years’ experience in mainstream commercial property, acting for clients such as banks, funds, development companies and local authorities on a broad range of transactions. She is a Recorder on the South Eastern Circuit and holds a range of other judicial and regulatory appointments.

She is Chair of Amnesty Board of Directors and an Executive Board and Council member of JUSTICE. She is also an accredited mediator.

Anyone who works in criminal justice, whether in the police, prisons, or probation sees the same people repeatedly going to prison then leaving to commit crime time and again. Such reoffending costs our society up to £13billion per year. The Government intends to tackle persistently high reoffending rates through the Ministry of Justice’s Transforming Rehabilitation strategy. The Prisoner Learning Alliance (PLA), a group of 18 expert organisations, believes education should be central to any rehabilitation strategy. Education should start in prison and continue in the community. PLA’s ‘Smart Rehabilitation’ report, setting out its blueprint for prison education, was presented to an audience of two hundred criminal justice professionals at PLA’s first conference at the Open University Campus on 25th April.

tutors are based in the gym and in workshops, while in Low Newton, a thorough education induction helps women to overcome their fears of learning and other issues before entering a classroom.

However, we need stronger leadership to ensure that learning is put at the heart of every prison’s approach to rehabilitation. This must be overseen by governors and senior management teams. As the keynote speaker Ofsted Inspector Stephen Miller said, more than half of prisons (58%) inspected in 2012/13 were graded “inadequate” or “requiring improvement” in terms of leadership and management. Under the current Offender

The event highlighted the impact of education on reducing reoffending. According to recent statistical analysis by the MoJ Justice Data lab, reoffending by recipients of grants from the charity Prisoners Education Trust (PET) was reduced by more than a quarter. This research is backed up by the inspirational personal stories of learners who spoke at the event. Three films screened at the conference reinforced the same message. One film featured two people funded by PET who now work for a charity helping thousands of youngsters steer clear of crime. Other films showcased the positive impact of learningcentred approaches adopted at HMP Swaleside and HMP Low Newton. At Swaleside, learning is not just confined to an education block: the Custodial Review

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Learning and Skills Service contract (OLASS 4), governors have a responsibility to hold education providers to account. We recognise it may be challenging to coordinate the various services involved in rehabilitation. However, driving change from the top is vital in the complex landscape of rehabilitation, those holding others to account, such as governors, need the ability, training and support to ensure outcomes improve.

A learning-centred approach, led by the governor, can benefit the entire prison. As HMP Swaleside Governor Sarah Coccia says in the film, her leading role in making learning central to the prison is not only “the right

and again – teach them something else? purpose of prison education would be more successful in both reducing reoffending and improving people’s job prospects.

One of the conference panelists, Frank Harris, had been in and out of prison until his mid 40s. Then he met a prison teacher who saw “a light in him” and helped him get his GCSEs. That encouraged him to continue his education through organisations such as PET and St. Giles Trust. Their support had given him “hope”, “believed in him” and “made him feel worthwhile”. Seven years since leaving prison, he says to this day their support helps him desist from crime. Not only have his qualifications helped him gain employment and volunteering positions, but have changed his identity too, as he says: “When I’m called an ex-offender, I can say, well actually I’m a final year degree student”.

thing” but is also “doing what works”.

We agree wholeheartedly. Whatever stops someone committing crime again, whether obtaining qualifications for a new career, continuing study in the community, or gaining

the skills for volunteering, must be championed from a government departmental level to a local level in every prison. While we would all like to see more ex-prisoners in work, we believe a focus on desistance as the primary

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In this time of unprecedented change and complexity within the criminal justice system, PLA would like to see a more joined-up approach to tackling the many barriers to prison learning. We want to ensure more people like Frank can focus on developing a positive future for themselves, rather than returning to crime again and again.

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Cyrus Todiwala OBE DL joins The Clink Restaurant at HMP Brixton as chef ambassador Following the successful launch of The Clink Restaurant at HMP Brixton on Wednesday 26th February, Cyrus Todiwala OBE DL has been appointed as chef ambassador for the restaurant, following in the footsteps of other industry greats including Italian legend, Antonio Carluccio, chef ambassador for The Clink Restaurant at HMP High Down and Welsh chef Stephen Terry, chef ambassador for The Clink Cymru at HMP Cardiff.

Since the mid 1990s, with his wife Pervin, Todiwala has managed to expand his culinary footprint from Café Spice Namasté to two

additional London restaurants as well as The Park Café in Victoria Park, East London. Widely regarded as having raised the bar in Indian cuisine in the UK, Todiwala has channelled his fervid imagination to create inspiring dishes, showcase the depth and excitement of Asian food and what can happen when using wellsourced, sustainable ingredients.

As chef ambassador,Todiwala will dedicate his time and expertise to the prisoners at The Clink Restaurant at HMP Brixton, training the chefs, as well as helping to increase awareness of the charity and its work in reducing reoffending.

Cyrus Todiwala comments: “It’s an honour to be a chef ambassador for The Clink Restaurant at HMP Brixton and one of the team of ambassadors. The reasons are many, but it is especially meaningful when one can contribute towards improving the lives of others. To give individuals that might have taken a wrong turn the opportunity to do right and to help pave their way a great future is very rewarding.

My role will be to add a little bit more to the current programme, which is fabulous. I shall endeavour to do as much as I can with the time I have.”

Chris Moore, Chief Executive of The Clink says: “To have such a highly regarded chef with so much knowledge and understanding of the industry is of huge benefit to the prisoners in training and their development.

It is a great honour to welcome Cyrus on board as chef ambassador for The Clink Restaurant at HMP Brixton.”

Each of The Clink Charity’s restaurants uses the Five Step Programme, developed by the charity, where prisoners with between six and 18 months left of their sentence are selected, following in-depth testing to assess their suitability to the scheme. On completion of their training, mentors work with the prisoners to find employment opportunities within the UK and upon prisoners’ release, mentors meet them at the gate and support them through the employment process. Once a job has been secured, the mentor will visit the graduate at their place of work on a weekly basis for a minimum of six months to

ensure their continued commitment to their own rehabilitation.

The Clink Restaurant at HMP Brixton, situated within the old Governor’s House, officially opened to the public on Thursday 27th February, as the third training restaurant in the UK to operate within a working prison.

Working in partnership with Her Majesty’s Prison Service (HMPS) there will be a total of 10 Clink training facilities and projects in operation across the prison estate by 2017.

A unique prisoner training scheme, The Clink Restaurant at HMP Brixton trains up to 28 prisoners at a time in food preparation and front of house service under the guidance of experienced trainers to achieve nationally recognised City & Guilds qualifications.

The Clink Restaurant at HMP Brixton seats up to 100 diners in the main dining room with further facilities for businesses to hold uninterrupted meetings and lunches for up to 24 people in the restaurant’s five private event suites.

75% of prisoners who leave prison without employment secured reoffend within five years.

The Clink Charity believes that through the training offered in its restaurants, reoffending is dramatically reduced and can be seen in The Clink Restaurant’s 2011 reoffending rate of 12.5% following one full year of release. This is a huge decrease from the national reoffending rate of 47%. Independently examined 2012 statistics for both restaurants will be available in early 2014.

The valuable support of high profile individuals, the hospitality industry and philanthropic companies and individuals is crucial to the continued success of The Clink Charity with much needed support such as equipment donations, prisoner training, financial contributions and heavily reduced produce and ingredients playing a vital role in the charity’s ongoing growth.

To find out more about The Clink Charity, its three training restaurants and for information about getting involved, please visit www. theclinkcharity.org.

Beyond Youth Custody publishes a practitioner’s guide on participatory approaches for young people in resettlement The Beyond Youth Custody Programme launched its latest piece of work on 25-04-2014 on participatory approaches for young people in resettlement. Participatory approaches involve young people in determining the services that are delivered to them. Participatory approaches enable young people to express their views, share decision-making and influence the delivery of services to ensure that provision reflects their interests and needs. Participatory practice is particularly important in all work with custody leavers because meaningful engagement in the resettlement process enables individual outcomes to improve. However, the development of participation for young offenders poses specific challenges and is partly dependent upon each organisation’s ability and willingness to share decisionmaking with young people.

Custody on developing participatory approaches in resettlement services and considers the implications for work with young people leaving custody.

This briefing reports on research undertaken by Beyond Youth

Download the report www.nacro.org.uk

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Beyond Youth Custody Programme Manager Pippa Goodfellow said: “This is the second in a series of publications that we will produce, taking the lessons from our research and applying this to practical guidance for professionals working with young people through their journey from custody to community. We hope that you will find the tips and considerations for practice useful for any work with young people in a resettlement context. The next practitioner’s guides will focus on trauma and young offenders, and trauma informed resettlement, which will be published shortly.

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Chance 2 Change Emma Morris is the MD of an organisation called Beyond Youth, she achieved this position after (In her words) ‘A chaotic and dysfunctional upbringing where my life chances were severely limited. Little help was available or offered and I left home at 15 and travelled a path that took me to the wrong side of the law and I made a lot of bad choices.’

Nothing ‘The System’ had offered had been sufficiently fundamental enough to create the changes she needed however when she turned 21 by chance she was referred to a private therapist who helped her to see how she could turn her life around. He gave her a route to identify the fundamental changes she could then make. What she learnt subsequently enabled her to write an intervention programme based on her own experiences called ‘Chance 2 Change’. This has now been introduced into 8 prisons in the UK and has a 72% rate on preventing reoffending.

Custodial Review When did you start Beyond Youth and what is its raison d’etre?

Emma Morris I wrote the programme ‘Chance 2 Change’ in 2004 and the company that delivers it is called ‘Beyond Youth’. It was incorporated in 2006. Its purpose is to embed a higher standard of therapeutic care into the reoffending system so as to make it available to all and not just to the privileged who can afford to pay for it privately. If you have enough money you can check into the Priory at £5k a week and have the very best of psychological help. If you do not have that sort of money then you get passed around the NHS where the standard of care varies widely.

CR How extensive is the Beyond Youth organisation and what are the results of its programmes?

EM We are a not for profit organisation and are now working in eight prisons and directly employ a staff of ten. Others are committed to running the programme. We also work in the community and we are producing impressive results tackling reoffending. To date 1400 people have been through the programme.

CR So why and how did you get to work in the Prisons?

EM After I had come to terms with my own issues I started working at HMP Holloway and then HMP Chelmsford. It was during this time I realised what I wanted to do, how to do it, and why.

There are a lot of people in prison who need the very best therapeutic care and cannot access it because they are locked up; and they don’t have the large sums of money required to pay for it.

I had the knowledge drawn from my own experience plus the drive and ability to deliver the high quality therapeutic care that these the Custodial Review

inmates needed. So I left my job, sold my house and self-funded the two year research that culminated in my writing the ‘Chance 2 change’ programme. I then delivered it in the community for 2 years in order to refine it and build a comprehensive evidence base. I then won a two year contract from the Dept. for Children, Schools and families to deliver this type of work to youths involved in gang and gang culture. My research had showed that the best place to do this was within a prison and I approached HMP YOI Portland where the head of reducing reoffending had the foresight and commitment to support me. It also helped considerably that it was not going to cost the Prison Service anything! I spent the next 18 months delivering the programme in the prison and further building its evidence base.

CR Why does your programme work and who drove its implementation forward?

EM There are several factors that make it work. I have a keen interest in what makes someone commit crime plus my own experiences and knowledge of what is needed to change someone’s mind-set. I’ve put these two things together.

Our central belief is that we treat offending in the same way that addiction is treated.

We enable offenders to obtain the level of consciousness about what they are doing with their life so that they no longer have the ability to continue offending. So it’s about ensuring that people are helped to strip back the reasons for their behaviour then they can understand why they commit crime. As it is with treating heroin addiction where you do not teach the addict about the drug, you teach them what makes them tick in such a way that they feel the need to use heroin.

Only then can they tackle the real reasons behind their behaviour. I wrote and developed the programme and it’s only been in the last two years that I have created the team that now delivers it. Dr Neil Brener, a consultant Page 24

psychiatrist at the Priory group, has supported and helped me with the programme. We finetuned it using our joint experience of what the private and public sector can deliver.

CR When you go into a prison in order to get the agreement for you to deliver the programme what do you ask them for and what do you tell them has to happen or change? And how do you then go about it?

EM They need to know that we are coming into the establishment to do a job and we are not there to compromise security, cost people their jobs, risk KPI’s or undermine any rules or people.

The prison needs to give us the opportunity to show that we know what we are talking about.

We need to be given the time and space to embed our techniques into the offenders.

I also tell them it’s not a complex programme that requires massive space or reorganisation.

It can be delivered in a small classroom with enough room for 11 chairs and a flip chart.

We don’t go in telling people we can do a better job than them,. We always go in with what we have found is the most effective attitude as everything about the Chance 2 Change programme is about peoples attitude; so that’s how we propose and deliver it.

Because of this approach, and the results we deliver, we are now being invited into prisons and we are also being sought out by prime providers to fulfil rehabilitation contracts.

CR How many people do you work with in the sessions and how do you select them?

EM We work with a maximum of ten people and they are self-selecting, this is not linked to offence, reports or behaviour and it’s not part of sentence planning either. We have no control over who joins the scheme; the only condition is that they want to and that they are prepared to commit to eight sessions that are carried out at the rate of two or three per week.

CR Devil’s advocate question. The people who are joining the programme are volunteers, so there must be element of selectivity in there, they want to change, if they didn’t then they would not be in the class. This must have a selecting effect?

EM Not with the way we do it and the people we are really looking for. When I delivered the programme at East Sutton Park I asked for 20 prisoners who could meet the attendance criteria. The staff asked who wanted to know more and 20 people showed up. I did my presentation and I took whoever then signed up for it. We have found that the harder to continues overleaf u

Coughtrie International Delivers World-Class Lighting System to Grampian Prison A major supplier to the UK custodial sector, Glasgow-based Coughtrie International has recently completed another successful prison lighting project.

Coughtrie International was initially identified as manufacturers of choice by the consulting engineers for the fit-out of Grampian Prison at Peterhead in 2011, and the process, which followed, exemplifies Coughtrie’s customer centric approach.

Skanska PLC was awarded the contract for the entire build. Through WSP (consulting engineers for Skanska) detailed lighting design calculations where submitted for association areas, cells, toilets and core areas throughout the prison.

Neal Layton, managing director of Coughtrie International, said: “Coughtrie introduced the idea of replacing the initially specified traditional lamps with LED variants and this was accepted as cost effective by all concerned leading to “Total life” cost savings regarding maintenance and energy costs. Several site visits where carried out in order to get accurate measurements for the bespoke cornice Stelcor units and to discuss build and delivery arrangements”.

Within the factory at Hillington it was agreed that a “pull system” would be utilised throughout the supply to maintain availability of delivery materials.

With over 5,000 fittings being delivered to site over a six month period it was vital that this system was visible to everyone involved.

By adopting this flexible method of design and delivery Coughtrie were able to deliver world-class products without compromising delivery times or cost.

For further information about Coughtrie International please visit www.coughtrie.com or call +44(0)141 882 3262.

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Chance 2 Change continued reach people were more likely to be in the working groups as the way the programme was profiled appealed more to them than other interventions had. Anyone can refer to the programme though.

CR There must be issues that have not been satisfactory, what’s the really tough or difficult parts of the process?

EM Getting prisons fully on board in the first place is not easy as we need to present the whole process ourselves right from the recruitment stage. So we can sometimes struggle to get enough people to attend especially if the prisons do the work of promoting the programme.

Often they do not promote it in a way that is most effective or accurate and so the process isn’t begun properly. If the staff portray it as some prisoner hugging, fluffy bunny, course then we are not going to get the hard to reach people we know the system works best for.

However once the system is embedded in a prison it takes on a life of its own and the peer mentors do the promotion for us as a result we are then never short of people to do the course.

CR So what is the course actually doing?

EM It’s about going in to prisoner’s core beliefs and changing them. It’s a hard and emotionally tough process that challenges then to understand what makes them offend in the first place and why they don’t have the right to impact on other people’s lives in such a detrimental way. It’s not devoid of sympathy and understanding and this is because they have to understand their past if they are ever going to move on from it.

One of the attitudes we push is that prisoners need to do the changing. An example of this is the way we tell them that it’s no good just expecting staff to treat them differently because they are changing.They have to give staff a very good reason why they should be treated differently.

difficulties we face, as it is for any organisation of our size. After the initial set up and trials that I funded myself we had to attract external money. We receive about £800,000 from the Big Lottery Fund and so we have sufficient funding for the next two years work. The BLF are aware of the importance of this work and the results we produce so as a result we enjoy a very solid relationship with them and I expect it to remain so in the future. We have a comprehensive strategic plan and our results show how effective the programme is so we will attract additional funding streams.

CR You have had 1400 people through your system, how are they made up and what is the breakdown of reoffending?

EM Half of those are people on community based programmes; these are groups of people who have been identified as being at risk of offending but not full engaged in the criminal justice system. For instance these may be people who are at pupil referral units. Our data shows that 75% to 80% of those people who have gone through our programme do not go on to being fully engaged in the criminal justice system as offenders. Being on it makes them more likely to get back into mainstream education and also change their peer group as well.

Of those who are in the prison system 72% of them that have taken part in the Chance 2 Change programme do not go on to reoffend or be reconvicted for 12 months. This splits along gender lines proportionate to the male female split of the prison population.

CR So whats your ethos doing to the offenders?

EM More people are being marginalised from society and something has to change. Society cannot support the number of offenders that are being produced; it doesn’t have the time or resources to put into it using the present methods used to address it. It’s not that effective methods are not available; it’s that the most effective methods are beyond the ability of most offenders to access .

CR How are you funded now and how secure is your funding stream?

We are not providing something that’s radical, new or magical; it’s just the application of a more intelligent approach to a well embedded problem. What I find horrific is that someone who gets sent to prison can spend years there and still not know the real reasons why.Yet they are supposed to have been rehabilitated!

So the cycle of reoffending continues. I’m not saying that we have the full answer to the whole problem however I am saying we have something of proven worth to offer and it needs to be used. It’s not a massively costly or complex process; however it’s one that can be easily taught and can also be used by the participant and their family.

EM Funding is one of the biggest issues and

CR What is your strategic plan?

So we expect them to accept that they have done something wrong, that they are in a controlled environment as a result and that they must get hold of themselves and change what they are doing wrong.

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EM We are now concentrating on the female prison population and are just taking the programme into other prisons. This has become possible due to a new funding stream that’s just become available. We are going to secure the future of the programme by becoming involved with the bigger providers of the Transforming Rehabilitation programme.

This will probably be on a sub-contractor basis.. Everything is moving towards payment by results and so we need to be a big part of the TR programme. It’s there that the big contracts are and so where the big funding is. To succeed we need to ensure we are delivering the results so that we get the funding to deliver our proven programme to the most people we can. We do not have the backup, the PR team, or the public awareness of organisations like NACRO yet we have to compete for the same funding allocations.

So we have to rely on our results to do the speaking and selling for us. This programme deserves to be taken seriously and we hope that TR is a real chance to make this happen for individuals and society as a whole.

CR Thank you for talking to the Review.

A participant in the programme joined in the conversation. Sara is a graduate of the Chance to Change programme. She was offered the course whilst serving time at East Sutton Park.

CR What was the appeal of the ‘Chance 2 Change’ programme and how did you get on it?

Sara In ESP there is the ‘Vision Office’ it’s a peer advisory facility that was then run by a lady who was very good at passing on information about opportunities. She informed me that a recruitment talk for a new programme was going to be given. Usually this sort of ‘opportunity’ is considered to be a waste of time as there is hardly ever any light at the end of the tunnel. Usually there is plenty of information about it however on this occasion we were not given very much background and this piqued our curiosity. So I and others attended the recruitment session.

CR How many of you were in the room at the time and what was said?

Sara There were 15 of us and we sat down to a cheery ‘Hi’ from Emma. I felt a connexton with her immediately because she didn’t seem to be anything other than ordinary. She didn’t give us a lot of information or try to impress us, either with herself or statistics. I’d been on several interventions including assertiveness, decision making, budgeting as well as the Carat and RAPT schemes. So I had a good idea what was usually on offer and most of the courses hadn’t told me anything I didn’t already know. continues overleaf u

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Chance 2 Change continued

However this was different because there were no punches pulled and every one of the 15 people who went to the introduction came out of it feeling very positive, something that’s highly unusual.

CR So you signed up for the full course not fully knowing what it was all about. So what was different about this intervention to all the others you had been on?

Sara By the end of the 8 weeks I knew myself, I knew what my root problem was.

I’d been stripped back to the foundations of what had made me offend in the first place. It gave me a sense of confidence that whatever I did next would have a benefit; it made sense of all the other interventions and enabled me to see what I had to do to change myself. I knew I had to plan short, medium and long term. I understood my behaviour and that of my parents and my chaotic upbringing. It put just about everything in perspective.

CR How long after the end of the course were you out and what’s been the effect since?

Sara It was 3 weeks later I was released and I understood the causes and what triggered my offending. I can prevent myself from them happening again. I can also pass this information onto my children so that they too don’t fall foul of the same problems and they will realise that actions always have consequences.

CR Has the Beyond Youth organisation helped you in more practical ways?

Sara Yes, it’s helped with lots of difficulties and has also come out through the gate with me by supporting me after release whenever I have felt I needed it. For instance I’ve had help with housing. So many interventions say they can do that however this is the only one that I’ve seen that actually seems to do that.

Thank you for talking to the Review.

HMP Belmarsh - Too much security, too little purposeful activity The focus on security that HMP Belmarsh needed for its small group of high-risk prisoners was having a disproportionate impact on its more mainstream population, said Nick Hardwick, Chief Inspector of Prisons. As he published the report of an unannounced inspection of the south east London jail.

HMP Belmarsh holds up to 800 prisoners, most of whom are relatively low risk individuals on remand or recently sentenced.

Belmarsh also holds approximately 50 the Custodial Review

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category A prisoners, a number of whom are considered particularly high risk, and a very small number of whom are considered the highest security prisoners in the country. Most of the high risk prisoners are held within a specialist high security facility. The task and challenge at Belmarsh was to ensure it met the needs of public safety by keeping in custody a small number of high risk individuals, while at the same time addressing the needs of the vast majority of mainstream prisoners who would inevitably be returning to the local community.

This inspection suggests the prison has more to do to get this balance right.

The inspectorate surveys the views and perceptions of the prison’s population. The findings of the survey at Belmarsh were concerning and significantly more negative than surveys from comparable prisons. Well over half of prisoners said they had felt unsafe during some stage of their time at Belmarsh and nearly a third felt unsafe at the time of the survey.

Most measures of victimisation and intimidation in the survey were worse than at comparable prisons. Inspectors’ actual observations were sometimes better than these perceptions suggested, but the prison needed to understand these messages more fully.

HMP/YOI Parc - a well run and innovative prison HMP Parc served prisoners and the public well, said Nick Hardwick, Chief Inspector of Prisons, publishing the report of an unannounced inspection of the local prison in South Wales.

HMP Parc is one of the largest prisons in England and Wales and at the time of inspection it held 1,326 prisoners, as well as 57 children and young people in a distinct unit. It was operating at 13% above its certified normal capacity. The government has recently announced plans to add another 387 places. Inspectors found it to be one of the better local prisons which delivered good or reasonably good outcomes in every area.

HMP Leicester Significant challenges HMP Leicester faced some significant challenges and had a lot to do to become an effective resettlement prison. From the published report of an unannounced inspection of the local jail.

HMP Leicester is a small,Victorian prison which at the time of its inspection held 387 men, 80% more than its certified normal accommodation. The high level of overcrowding, the age of the building and the high level of need of its population created real challenges. Few prisoners stayed at the prison for more than six months. The prison also had to adjust to some significant reductions in staffing levels. Despite this, an experienced Page 28

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and positive staff group was able to ensure the prison was reasonably safe, there was a good level of activity on offer and there was credible work underway to address most areas where improvement was needed.

HMP Sudbury - an open prison failing in its resettlement role The challenges of managing the population at HMP Sudbury had been underestimated and the prison was failing in some respects, said Nick Hardwick, Chief Inspector of Prisons.

Publishing the report of an unannounced inspection of the open prison in Derbyshire.

HMP Sudbury held 561 adult male category D prisoners at the time of the inspection. A third were coming to the end of life sentences or indeterminate sentences for public protection.

Most of the others were serving sentences of four years or more. The central task of the prison was to prepare these men for release by addressing their practical resettlement needs and reducing the risk that they would reoffend.

The prison was failing badly in this central task and this impacted on all areas of its work.

HMP Dartmoor – some improvements, some concerns, much uncertainty HMP Dartmoor could continue to improve but only if staff and managers have much greater certainty about its future, said Nick Hardwick, Chief Inspector of Prisons, publishing the report of an unannounced inspection of the training jail in Devon.

HMP Dartmoor was established in 1809. Its isolated location and the age and dilapidated state of some of its buildings make it a very challenging establishment to run. A few months before its inspection, ministers announced that negotiations would take place with the Duchy of Cornwall, which owns the prison, about its closure. However, there is a notice period of 10 years and it is possible that the prison will continue to operate for years to come.

Despite the challenges of its environment and location, the prison could offer improved and reasonable prisoner outcomes for those it held. There had been improvements in some areas since its last inspection and there were some credible plans in place to make more.

There were significant weaknesses but most of these were in the prison’s direct control.

However, some certainty about the timeframe is needed for staff to know where they stand, facilitate sensible decisions about the capital investment required and provide a basis for effective planning to meet the needs of the prison population.

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HMP Erlestoke - A well-led and effective prison HMP Erlestoke was safe, decent and purposeful and well focused on rehabilitation, said Nick Hardwick, Chief Inspector of Prisons. As he published the report of an unannounced inspection of the training jail in Wiltshire.

HMP Erlestoke was last inspected in 2011 and was said to be improving by inspectors. This inspection found those improvements had been sustained and built on and the prison ensured reasonably good outcomes for prisoners across a range of healthy prison tests. Erlestoke fulfilled a national responsibility, delivering a number of important, high intensity offending behaviour programmes. This complemented its purpose as an establishment providing rehabilitative services to longer-term prisoners.

Nearly half of its 488 prisoners were serving indeterminate sentences and three-quarters were aged over 30. This brought advantages in terms of the stability and maturity of the population but also the recognition that many of those held had been capable of serious offences and there were significant risks still to be managed.

HMP Dhekelia - Cyprus prison not suitable for long-term detention Outcomes for prisoners at HMP Dhekelia had deteriorated and consideration needed to be given to its future, said Nick Hardwick, Chief Inspector of Prisons as he published the report of an announced inspection of the jail in Cyprus.

HMP Dhekelia is a small prison within the Sovereign Base Areas (SBA) of Cyprus. It is managed by the SBA police force and holds both shortand long-term sentenced offenders as well as those on remand, and both men and women. Jurisdiction issues overshadowed all the work of the SBA police force. All the prisoners held at the prison were foreign nationals, in that none of them lived within the SBA, yet all had committed crimes within these areas. A prisoner ‘escaped’ while being escorted to hospital in the Republic of Cyprus where the police have no jurisdiction. The prison regime and facilities had not kept pace with a larger, more challenging population with a greater range of needs.

HMP Eastwood Park – an impressive women’s prison

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British-made quality and reliability from the Supersafe range of mattresses and pillows by Carpenter As the number one name in custodial bedding, Carpenter’s Supersafe range of mattresses and pillows offers constant new levels of innovation, with products designed specifically for the demanding environments of prison cells, custody suites and immigration centres.

The Supersafe all-in-one mattress with built in pillow is the latest development from Carpenter and is offered with a vandal resistant cover, which now incorporates welded seams reducing the opportunity of sabotage while still providing flammability performance as specified by the Ministry of Justice (MOJ).

All Supersafe products utilise Fireseal foam cores, a world class fire retardant, flexible foam, ensuring finished mattresses meet the full requirement of BS7177,Very High Hazard and FTS15, making them ideal for high-risk environments.

Carpenter’s Supersafe range is supplied into all of the UK’s publically operated prisons and a significant share of privately operated prisons, along with the police custody cell market.Various cover options are available, one such being Polytran which can be easily wiped clean, therefore extending the life cycle of the finished mattress or pillow.

Supersafe mattresses and pillows are produced and recycled in the UK. Carpenter’s zero waste system has saved the MOJ in excess of £1million per year based on landfill and incineration costs.

For further information on Carpenter Ltd Supersafe range contact: sales.uk@carpenter.com wide geographical area, taking women from Cornwall in the South West to Wolverhampton in the West Midlands, across Wales and along the south coast. Many women were a long way from home, a particular problem for the large number who also had dependent children.

A significant number of women had disabilities, half the population were in touch with mental health services at the prison, almost threequarters were having treatment for drug and alcohol misuse and there were about 10 self-harm incidents every week. Many of the women had histories of abuse, rape, domestic violence and involvement in prostitution. Few women stayed at the prison for longer than a few weeks with most staying less than three months.

The way HMP Eastwood Park responded to the challenges of its population was impressive, said Nick Hardwick, Chief Inspector of Prisons, publishing the report of an unannounced inspection of the Gloucestershire women’s prison.

HMP Eastwood Park holds a needy and transient population from a

PRODUCT NEWS Pickersgill-Kaye locking in overseas sales

Leeds lock manufacture Pickersgill-Kaye Ltd has posted sales of over £2.25million for the year ending November 2013, of which 34% (£783,000) was export business – the biggest proportion of total sales the company has ever achieved.

Part of the Joseph Kaye Holdings Group, Pickersgill-Kaye, which designs and produces locks and safety products for the rail, security and custodial industries, last year won contracts with a number of well-known blue chip names.

The specialist engineering firm has developed a growing reputation for well-designed and quality engineered rail, security and custodial products. It is this manufacturing commitment, backed up by excellent levels of service, which has helped it fill its overseas order book against often tough competition.

For more information tel: 0113 277 5531 fax: 0113 276 0221 or visit www.pkaye.co.uk. the Custodial Review

Grampian Prison - Pentair Thermal Management is providing Raychem hot water temperature maintenance system for new prison Pentair is providing its Raychem HWAT hot water temperature maintenance system for the bathroom units at the new HMP Grampian prison, which will replace the grim Victorian jails at Peterhead and Craiginches in Aberdeen. Designed and constructed by Skanska, who used its in-house skill to develop the structural and civil design as well as undertaking the installation of mechanical and electrical services, the new prison will house both male and female prisoners and accommodate both adults and young offenders.

The bathroom units comprise of specially designed pre-cast concrete pods with channeled services. They are manufactured off site then dropped into place vertically; installation is quick, easy, safe and economical.

For more information contact Thermal Building Solutions on: Tel: 0800 969013 Fax: 0800 968624 Email: SalesUK@tycothermal.com www.pentairthermal.com

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