Custodial Review issue no 80

Custodial the

Review

The Custodial Review informing the Prison, Border Agency and Police Services Edition 80 The 2016 POLFED National Custody Seminar see p18

The Custodial Facilities Forum see p10 Technology and Care at Yarl’s Wood see p12

Reinventing the Special Supervision Unit as part of prison reform see p22 Annie looks back at HMP Holloway see p24

Prison drug markets – reducing demand is the key see p24 National justice museum to launch in February 2017 see p26

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

FP Hurley chose Fireworks Fire Protection Ltd for protecting the cells within the newly built police custody suite at Bridgend and Merthyr Tydfil in Wales Fireworks designed and supplied a High Pressure Watermist system to protect this risk. A total of six modular hose reels where installed throughout the building to protect it from the risk of fire.

The system is very effective as it has been proven during extensive testing with the Ministry of Justice to successfully suppress the fire at the first attempt and dramatically reduces the temperatures in the cell.

USP’s for Watermist • Fast and effective control and suppression of fire.

• Easily retro fitted using small bore stainless steel pipe.

• Rapid project completion time & accessibly positioned within the complex.

Description of solution The Modular Hose Reel (MHRU2) fire fighting units consist of specially designed surface or recess mounted hose reel cabinets located in place of the existing standard hose reel cabinets. Each MHRU2 cabinet will utilise a single integral high pressure pump, complete with a 35m high pressure hose reel, lance, and prison

specification nozzle (Approved for use by MOJ, SPS and Home office).

Start and stop controls are contained within the hose reel cabinet. Each MHRU2 unit has two sets of volt free contacts that show power healthy and pump running. These can be used to send a signal to a BMS if required. er of the immigration centre to be kept open whilst works were completed. Overall this minimised any possibility of disruption to the day to day business of the detention centre.

Experience Fireworks have installed equipment throughout UK prisons since 2006.

The UK home office figures for current prison population is over 86,000 inmates and prisons in the UK are now mostly protected by our equipment.

Watermist systems were selected by the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office after extensive fire testing at the UK Building Research Establishment proved that Watermist systems were much more effective than traditional hose reel systems and would save lives in prisons.

The BRE test criteria were: • Maintain a tenable atmosphere for a period of 20 minutes when fire tested

in accordance with the specifications • Discharge a relatively small amount of water • Deliver a spray of water mist with sufficient momentum to discharge droplets to the back wall of a cell.

The Inundation was to last for 5 minutes after pre-burn and operation of internal cell fire detection systems, then a simulated ‘rescue’ of an inmate involving opening the door for a set period of one minute would occur, followed by Re-closing the door and waiting 10 minutes during which time the fire was not to resume.

For further information on our products and services please call 0800 975 7462 or visit the website today.

Fireworks Fire Protection Ltd Amber House Station Road Attleborough Norwich, Norfolk NR17 2AT 0800 975 7462 www.fireworks-ltd.com fireworks@fireworks-ltd.com

Contents Issue 80

the Custodial Review Editorial Sales: Tracy Johnson, Martin Petty, Paul Barrett Tel: 01234 348878 sales@custodialreview.co.uk Administration: Lyn Mitchell Design/Production: Amanda Wesley

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News

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The Custodial Facilities Forum

Production Editor: Richard Shrubb

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Technology and Care at Yarl’s Wood

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The 2016 POLFED National Custody Seminar

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Reinventing the Special Supervision Unit as part of prison reform written by Chris Liddle

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Annie looks back at HMP Holloway

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Prison drug markets – reducing demand is the key

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National justice museum to launch in February 2017

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Charity’s prisoner and family support service receives Big Lottery funding

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News from the Howard League

Cover photographs provided by Charlotte Clover-Lambert and Custodial Review 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. It’s subject to acceptance so please contact prior to starting and it will appear on the Custodial website.

Annual Subscription £30. Free to qualifying individuals 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.

Publisher: Steve Mitchell 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.

Copyright: the Custodial Review Published by Review Magazines Ltd, 53 Asgard Drive, Bedford MK41 0UR. Tel: 01234 348878 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

by Advertisers and Associations which may contravene the Official Secrets Act or that have not first been cleared by the Home Office of Prisons Executive, should that have been necessary.

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Justice Secretary calls time on failing prisons in white paper to help cut crime and protect society The Justice Secretary, Elizabeth Truss, embarks on a major shake-up of prisons to help cut £15bn cost of reoffending.

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More than £100m annually to strengthen the frontline with 2,500 more prison officers Rigorous new standards to get prisoners off drugs and into work Prisoners to be tested for drug use on entry and exit from prison and on English and maths so progress made on the inside can be measured Results to be published in new league tables to drive reform and improvements across the estate New duty for Secretary of State intervention when prisons are failing A £1.3bn modernisation programme to create 10,000 modern prison places with Wellingborough the first site to be named for potential redevelopment

Prisons must become safer if they are to cut unacceptable reoffending rates and help reduce crime, Justice Secretary Elizabeth Truss said as she unveiled major reforms to the system on 3rd of November.

An extra 2,500 prison officers will strengthen the frontline as part of a major overhaul of prison safety to combat drug abuse, gang violence and rising attacks on staff and prisoners.

The Justice Secretary said the measures outlined in the Prison Safety and Reform White Paper were vital to cut reoffending rates, which see more than 100,000 crimes committed annually by ex-prisoners – costing society £15bn a year.

Representing a major shake-up of the prisons system, wide-ranging measures include giving governors more powers over education, work and health. They will also be held to account on an agreed set of a standards with prisons’

YJB considers the impact of distance from home on children in custody The Youth Justice Board (YJB) commissioned HMI Prisons to assess the impact of distance from home on children in custody.

Responding to the findings, Colin Allars, Chief Executive of the Youth Justice Board, said: The number of children in custody is at its lowest ever level – just 861 were in custody in July 2016. Such a huge reduction in numbers will inevitably mean that some children in custody will be further from the Custodial Review

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annual performance to be published in new league tables for the first time.

If a prison is shown to be failing by the Chief Inspector of Prisons then the Secretary of State will have a new legal duty to intervene.

Under the new measures, offenders will be tested on entry and exit from prison to show how well jails are performing in getting offenders off drugs and giving them the basic education skills they need to find work on release.

Justice Secretary Elizabeth Truss said: “It is absolutely right that prisons punish people who commit serious crimes by depriving them of their most fundamental right: liberty.

However, our reoffending rates have remained too high for too long. So prisons need to be more than places of containment – they must be places of discipline, hard work and selfimprovement.

They must be places where offenders get off drugs and get the education and skills they need to find work and turn their back on crime for good.”

The White Paper comes after £14m was announced last month to hire 400 extra officers in ten of the most challenging prisons aimed at curbing a surge in violence and self-harm fuelled by dangerous psychoactive substances.

These measures include no-fly zones over prisons to combat the new scourge of drones dropping drugs and contraband into jail, while the Government continues to work with mobile phone operators to block illegal mobile phone use through cutting-edge technology.

Three hundred sniffer dogs have been trained to detect dangerous psychoactive drugs – described as a “game changer” in prison safety and all prisons can now test for these deadly substances. The Justice Secretary said: “These extra officers and new safety measures will help us crack down on the toxic cocktail of drugs, drones and mobile phones that are flooding our prisons, imperilling the safety of staff and offenders and thwarting reform.”

The reform package reiterates the Government’s commitment to a £1.3bn building programme home, as we always place into the available establishment which best meets their needs.

We are pleased that overall, inspectors did not find a child’s distance from home to negatively affect their experience of custody.

The report makes a number of recommendations which we will carefully consider.We will see how best to implement these as we also consider recommendations arising from Charlie Taylor’s final report on youth justice, when it is published.”

Lowest ever number of young people in custody The YJB responds to the publication by the Ministry of Justice of monthly statistics on Page 4

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to replace the most dilapidated prisons and create 10,000 modern prison places across the estate. It also confirms HMP Wellingborough as the first site to be earmarked for potential redevelopment, with further announcements to be made in due course.

The White Paper is the first in a series of reforms for managing offenders, with plans to reform the way we manage female and young offenders to be unveiled in the New Year.

The White Paper includes reforms in a number of key areas: Safe and secure prisons: • Creating a new network of ‘no-fly’ zones to block drones flying dangerous illicit items into the prison estate, the fitting out of prisons with cutting edge technology to block illegal mobile phones; and testing offenders for drugs on entry and exit from prison; Raising standards: • Rating prisons on their ability to run safe and decent regimes which reform offenders, cut crime, and keep streets safe – showing which prisons are making real progress in getting prisoners off drugs and into education and employment • Enshrining in law what the public and Parliament can expect prisons to deliver– making sure prisons operate under a rigorous system of accountability, scrutiny and support, and holding the Secretary of State to account for their performance; Empowering governors: • Giving every single governor greater authority to run their prison the way they think best – moving power from the centre and into the hands of hard-working, trusted staff to deliver lasting improvements and equip offenders with the tools to lead a better life on release.

Stronger accountability and scrutiny:

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Overhauling accountability and giving greater bite to the inspection regime so action is taken swiftly – and seriously – where prisons are failing in their duties – including a new emergency trigger for the Justice Secretary to take direct action, with sanctions including the issuing of formal improvement plans to ultimately replacing the leadership of the prison.

the numbers of children and young people within the secure estate.

Colin Allars YJB Chief Executive said: “The number of young people in custody has fallen to its lowest ever level – just 861 were in custody in July 2016, 73% lower than October 2002 when there were 3,200. Those working across the whole youth justice sector have delivered a huge reduction in the numbers of children in the system – falling from 147,800 at its peak in 2006/7 to just 37,900 in 2014/15.

This has significantly reduced the impact of young people’s offending on society, their potential victims, and on the young people themselves, as well as helping to deliver savings to the economy.”

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Research shows lack of security on police websites A large proportion of police websites lack any form of automatic secure connection, meaning potentially sensitive data is communicated in plain unencrypted text, according to research.

Findings from non-profit body the Centre for Public Safety, revealed that 73% of websites accessed either lacked a secure connection for visitors or their implementation was deemed insecure. Only 27% demonstrated the highest “world-class” standard of secure connection, said the report.

Richard Cassidy, UK cyber security evangelist at Alert Logic said: “We’re operating in a far more digitally driven world more than ever before with healthcare, finances and education forcing our children and families to transact online, in a bid to improve operations whilst driving down cost and complexity. This is indeed the panacea; the reality however is far from perception.

Far too many web services still fail to implement even the most basic levels of

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security capabilities, but it’s not entirely the fault of the business or public sector organisations. Legislation, e-data guidelines and their enforcement, are still far behind where they need to be. As a result, the fight against the new wave of highly organised cybercriminal and hacker groups is fast becoming an impossibility, as a result of the governments almost glacial propensity to enforce change in areas where it’s most fundamentally required.

We’ve seen excellent headway in the finance, banking and e-commerce sectors over the years, with healthcare paying the price for less stringent efforts in terms of leaked records overall relevant to other industry sectors, but this is now improving vastly and to far greater effect than ever before. That said however, our national police, fire & rescue services are now fast becoming a target, as low-hangingfruit for relatively younger, less sophisticated attackers, armed with complex, but easy-to-use automated attack tools, that make light work of poorly patched web services and poorly secured web facing assets. These organisations are left at the mercy of internal expertise to make best use of ever decreasing budgets to achieve the best security practices possible.

When it comes to police matters, this is no trivial matter; e-portals that allow members

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of the public to report crimes through online forms, must be mandated to conform to the highest levels of security best practices in terms of data-in-transit (and at rest) encryption; the repercussions of an informant being identified or their data being intercepted/stolen as part of an attack, has implications not only in public confidence, but in the actual criminal cases they’re related to also.

Standards such as HTTPS & HSTS (which enforces an encrypted connection from client browser to web-server) have been widely available for some time, both of which can be easily embedded into web application frameworks, or enforced at security gateways protecting the web-facing services. Questions have to be raised therefore, as to why it is acceptable for such a fundamentally critical service can be allowed to launch without these minimum security standards implemented. For me at least, this has to point back to legislation and e-data mandate inefficiencies and proves the point that organisations of all shapes and sizes need to carefully look at their IT security spending and look to work smarter, not harder, embracing the new wave of capabilities available to help achieve far better security outcomes, right across the board.”

Speech to the Prison Governors Association Prisons Minister Sam Gyimah tells the PGA why prison governors are the right people to drive our reforms.

“It is a great privilege to be here with you today, face to face with some of this country’s most valued public officials. When I think about the challenges you face every day and the responsibilities you shoulder, I’m always astounded at the job you do.

Well, I want to offer some reassurance to you – the members of the PGA, our partners in reform.You have our full support as we enter the vital next stage of our prison and safety reform plans.

• • •

we are giving you extra staff where they are needed to improve safety. we are giving you the tools to tackle the violence, the drugs, the drones, the phones. we will give you more power to run your prisons as you see fit.

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In return, we look to you for outstanding leadership and ambition - to create prisons that are a safe and decent place to live and work, to reform the lives of those under your charge.

be chief executive - and official taster, guard and guide, mentor and minder – all this to some of society’s most antisocial and unmanageable members. We do not take that for granted.

Whether you are a governor, a deputy governor or governor grade, you should know that the Secretary of State and I are fully committed to this cause. This government is going to take on the problems of Britain’s prisons and make them work as places of reform. Make no mistake: it is entirely right that when people commit a serious criminal offence, the state responds by taking their liberty.

For reform to happen, we will need every ounce of your unrivalled experience, knowledge, skills, compassion, imagination, ideas, determination, the full works - and ability to use pressure as a catalyst for change.

People are in prison for a reason. It is right that they are punished. The have committed a crime and they must pay a debt to society for their crimes. We must keep the public safe and protect the victims of crime. Many people encounter terrible setbacks in life yet manage not to end up in prison; I am no apologist for those criminals who do.

At the same time we don’t want to see them going in and out of prison year after year. In and out. Trapped in a cycle of reoffending with the underlying causes of their criminality left to fester. That helps no one. It leads to more victims and more crime. And I am only too conscious of the complexity of your roles. In the course of the working day, we ask you to Page 6

Of course I read, every day, the harrowing incident reports coming in from prisons. But when it comes to really understanding the abuse, intimidation and challenges faced by you and your staff in the country’s toughest workplaces, nothing beats seeing operations at close quarters. Sometimes a little too close.

During a fascinating tour of HMP Belmarsh the other week, an ultra-committed four-legged member of the drugs search team nearly took a chunk from the seat of my trousers. To the relief of my host, the acting governor, Clare Pearson, the dog- handler had a firm grip on the situation.

Over the past months, we have taken soundings from across the Prison Service and listened to your concerns. Believe me when I met with the PGA in Westminster, they did not pull their punches. Soon you will discover continues overleaf u

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Speech to the Prison Governors Association continued more details of our plans for prison safety and reform in a White Paper – the blueprint for change up to 2020 and beyond. As well as empowering Prisons Minister governors, we Sam Gyimah will deliver new facilities, more staff and modern technology to improve regimes.

And I expect to see a significant improvement by the end of this year. And as far as Carillion are concerned all options are on the table as I consider their performance. I am also absolutely committed to prisons that are places of purposeful activity and work.

Offenders are literally a captive audience. A regime working well for staff and offenders can instil in them a work ethic they may never have known: one that acknowledges discipline, the achievements of team-work, the need to deliver to a deadline.

But in the immediate future, life for everyone in prison –staff and offenders alike – must be made safer.You do not need a lecture from me about the need to protect prisoners from further harm in custody, however heinous the crimes that put them there.

One of my clear priorities is to see more prisoners engaged in work. I am focused on giving you the tools and facilities to achieve this. I know too that many of you are frustrated that you cannot get more men and women out on ROTL, taking those first steps to rejoin society but with a safety net beneath them as they walk the tightrope from prison.

The very few high-profile ROTL failures have threatened to overshadow the many success stories. The Justice Secretary and I are looking keenly at our current ROTL procedures to see how effectively it is working in practice. These are some of the immediate steps we are taking based on what you have told us. As part of our reform agenda we are going further and putting the tools for change in your hands.

Beyond that, violence is standing in the way of our much-needed reforms to make prisons places of purpose.You have told us that your staff feel stretched too thin, given the unprecedented threats posed particularly by synthetic drugs.We have heard those warnings and responded.With immediate and practical help.

Last week the secretary of state pledged an extra £14million for ten of our most troubled prisons – including Guys Marsh, Leeds, Nottingham and Liverpool – that will pay for more than 400 new frontline staff to combat drugs and violence. She announced that new working practices to be rolled out across the country will enable staff to spend more time supervising and supporting prisoners.

They can devote more time, effort and energy to developing the kind of constructive relationships that encourage offenders to feel hope is not lost.

These plans come on top of new laws brought into tackle the problems of drug, drones and mobile telephones. Some of our other safety measures are also already in place: more bodyworn cameras, for example, and the roll-out of drug testing across the prison estate.

But you have told us we need to do more, more to be ahead of the curve. I will soon be meeting mobile phone operators to discuss an industry scheme to block handset use.

All these measures come on top of the £10 million of emergency funding announced in July, which was allocated to individual prisons with the most concerning levels of violence and self-harm to invest as they saw fit. And many of you have highlighted the problems you have with getting Carillion to carry out what should be matters of basic maintenance.

In fact some of you have told me that this gets in the way of delivering safe and decent prisons. Their performance is unacceptable, and this morning in a meeting with Carillion executives I advised them that in our view – your view - they are failing to meet the terms of their contract.

I have challenged them to provide me with their action plan to improve their services. the Custodial Review

With regards to reform, the governors are already making the most of their extra powers. Since July they have been freed from the grip of most of the 46,000 pages of rules, regulations and guidance issued by Noms.

They have, for example:

• control of their own budget.

• the scope to make money and reinvest it in prison facilities • the power to fire education providers and replace them with a more aspirational outfit that better understands what we are trying to achieve on the back of the Coates report into prison education.

• the opportunity to motivate offenders by tweaking the incentive and privileges scheme - by increasing family visits, for example.

In short – a toolbox of incentives, freedoms and practical help that will help in their common mission to rehabilitate offenders.

When offenders reach the end of their sentence, the governors will be called to account for their journey through prison and the milestones they have passed. Are the men changed characters? Are they better at reading, writing and maths? Keen to find work, enthusiastic about becoming a decent citizen who contributes positively to their family and community? Are they, in short, more likely to steer clear of crime? It is too soon to judge Page 8

the governors on outcomes, but they deserve praise for the early pace they have set.

At Wandsworth, Ian Bickers has ambitious plans to set up 14 centres of excellence, offering training in catering, computing, construction, business and communications in time, even in barbering and tattoing. There is, apparently, a shortage of tattoo artists in London – and the Bickers philosophy is to match prisoner training with professions where jobs are known to be available. He is training the men in scaffolding, painting and decorating, and dry wall lining, because jobs are available on the nearby Battersea Power Station site. With control over his own finances, Ian can pay the £35 cost of a ‘CSCS’ construction scheme card that his prisoners must have to get a job on a building site.

Previously, he could not have done that.

At High Down, meanwhile, the governor Nick Pascoe had an early taste of how he could swiftly tackle problems that might previously have taken weeks to resolve.

In this case, High Down wanted to access the additional payment scheme for ‘OSGs’. Rather than seeking authority Nick himself granted the necessary authority to access the payment scheme, writing to Noms to let them know. It was the moment, he says, when his staff began to see that High Down could be a better place. Here was empowerment in action. The additional payment scheme was up and running the very next day. Job done.

I have seen for myself the scene at nearby HMP Coldingley, where they are building a café and showroom to sell work done by the prisoners in the metal and print workshops. Every offender has a job in one of those workshops.

He too faces staff shortages, which he is tackling in two ways: turning a disused building into short-term accommodation for eight prison officers – tempting new applicants with the prospect of convenient housing in what might be an unfamiliar area. The prison receives rent money, and also has extra officers close at hand in the case of an emergency.

At Holme House and Kirklevington Grange, Ian Blakeman is also focusing on employment schemes. He is getting more offenders out on ROTL from Kirklevington, and is close to landing an agreement with a local company that will bring up to 200 new jobs into the prison at no cost to the public. These are just a few snapshots from a few governors.

They happen to be reform governors, but their bold attitude is something we want to encourage in all of you, as more powers are devolved from the centre. This will only work if we empower you to lead. Reform is the only way to break the miserable cycle of reoffending, spare society from pain.

We believe most people can reform. We believe prisons can help reform them. And in our prison governors we believe we have the right people to drive reform.”

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The Custodial Facilities Forum The first Custodial Facilities Forum was held at Whittlebury Hall on 22nd and 23rd September where the seminar programme had the theme “Designing for rehabilitation”.

Moderated by event partner Steve Mitchell of Custodial Review, speakers included Chris Liddle, Chairman of HLM Architects, Norman Williamson of Holmes Miller Architects who talked about Scottish custodial projects including women’s prisons, Paul Foster of TUV SUD and Keith Jones of Ramboll.

Photography. emilay@em-j.co.uk

Keynote speaker, Chris Liddle

The CPD-certified event combined seminars sharing thought leadership and best practice, and over 400 business meetings took place with some of the most innovative suppliers working in secure estates. Whilst an intense programme delegates had ample time to network with fellow professionals through an enjoyable social programme and relax at a superb gala dinner with entertainment provided by TV comedian Holly Walsh. Initial feedback has been excellent setting a firm foundation for future custodial facilities forums.

Keynote speaker, Chris Liddle, leads the HLM Architects’ foresight and innovation group, with particular reference to the justice sector. The formation of the Prisoner Reference Group has been a pivotal element in establishing the Personal Custody Plan, which pursues the right education facilities and programmes within custodial environments.

Chris has also been actively involved in presenting design seminars and lectures in the custodial environment and has been a prime influence in the firm’s PFI projects as an advisor to the Treasury Taskforce and a contributor to the recent publication ‘Good Design in PFI Projects’.

RHS Lewis Oxley of Fireworks Fire Protection demonstrates their misting nozzles.

The ‘one to one’ meetings in progress.

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The ‘one to one’ meetings were conducted for 20 minutes and proved very productive.

Since 1998 he has been invited to present papers at a numerous PFI conferences across the UK, Europe, America and Australia. Chris helps the Justice Team to link the latest research and development programmes, government objectives and Policy Exchange findings, to the practical design and delivery of a custodial environment geared to rehabilitation and prevention of reoffending behaviour. He is passionate about design, particularly design that can have an effect on people’s lives.

Annie Pollock spoke on the topic of dementia care in the custodial environment. This is becoming an issue within the custody

environment as people in prison are living longer and the amount of inmates on whole life tariffs has grown. She worked as an architect for several years before undertaking further studies in landscape architecture. She set up her Edinburgh-based landscape practice, Arterre, in 1987. Annie has specialised in designing outdoor spaces for older people and those with dementia. She has won several awards for her work, including a Royal Horticultural Show silver medal for the ‘Forget me not Garden’ for Alzheimer Scotland and Action on Dementia, (Strathclyde Country Park 1999). Annie spoke on the effect that landscaping and gardens can have to improve

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Left, Chris Liddle of HLM Architects Right, Steve Mitchell, Publisher of Custodial Review.

the life quality of people with dementia.

Ricky Pollock formed the architectural and planning consultancy Burnett Pollock Associates in 1974. The Edinburgh-based practice has established both design and research expertise in sustainable development, specialised care accommodation, assistive technology for disabilities and dementia friendly design. He spoke eloquently on the influence of specialised accommodation in a residential role, how colours and layout can mate an environment more navigable, and safer for those with dementia and similar mental issues.

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Technology and Care at Yarl’s Wood Technology is changing our lives at a breath-taking pace; we use phones, ATM’s and the web almost without thinking. It’s rendered many manual jobs redundant however at Yarls Wood - it has freed staff to enhance their primary tasks of keeping the people held there safe and secure.

Two recent developments are of note; one is the use of electronic ‘Kiosks’ that enable the residents to control some of the administrative side of their lives. The other development is the ‘Care suite’, this being a suite of rooms where residents can go when they are distressed and need of a time out and some one-to-one care. It’s a fair statement to make that the staff time freed up by the introduction of the kiosks is better spent looking after residents who might be having a tough time.

Steve Hewer is the latest Contract Operations Manager at Yarl’s Wood IRC. He has worked for Serco for 22 years and joined Yarls Wood in July of 2016.

Custodial Review (CR) How long has the contract at Yarl’s Wood left to run? How many people here now and what is the gender split?

Steve Hewer (SH) The contract was re-let in March 2015 and it lasts for another eight years. We can hold up to 410, predominantly female residents, though we have the Hummingbird unit for families. In addition we have the Bunting Unit for people who have come to the UK on lorries however these people are usually only here for 3-4 days.

CR You have resident operated machines here, similar in look to ATM’s, that enable residents to carry out their routine administration tasks. From Serco’s, and the resident’s points of view, what benefits do these kiosks deliver?

SH From the company’s point of view they free staff time as they enable residents to carry out some of the mundane things that the Custodial Review

One of the ‘Kiosks’

The Kiosks are touch sensitive.

they would otherwise have to ask staff to do.

It is also about using innovation so that we can do routine tasks differently and so provide a better service. We can also process data smarter and far more quickly. It also means that staff have more time to concentrate on their caring roles. They give the residents more socially useful skills as the ability to use this type of machine is becoming an essential in today’s society.

CR Do these enable access to more than just food menus and how reliable are they?

SH They enable residents to access food menus, visits, shopping, checking their personal finance account, and can even allow people to use internal email. We developed these systems at all Serco sites, and test every new innovation. They are constantly being updated

by Unilink who helped develop the system with Serco. I’ll leave it to Nigel Cook to tell you of the more technical issues.

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The ‘Kiosks’ are secure units, Residents can only view information pertinent to them.

Nigel Cook, IT lead, joined the conversation to discuss the technical aspects of the kiosks NC They have been built with reliability in mind because they are used for facilities like adding money to their account in order to make phone calls, order their food and so on. If residents can’t make phone calls or they get the wrong food it would cause tensions. If the system goes down it could directly affect the service we give to detainees. The system is very reliable, and we have had no issues with it here at Yarl’s Wood, this is in no small part because of our close working relationship with the developers. The continues overleaf u

Technology and Care at Yarl’s Wood continued few issues we had were ironed out very early on, and it is therefore a very resilient system.

Yarl’s Wood is the only immigration unit using them, it is an innovation by Serco and has continuously been improved. As a company we take pride in the fact that they are very secure, and here they are accredited to Home Office IL2 – Impact Level 2 which is a high level of security. As far as I know we are the only unit in the country that has IL2 certification.

CR How do you achieve a level of security so a resident who is a computer expert cannot hack the system from the inside?

NC At Yarl’s Wood (which is IL2 security) security is paramount. So the kiosks don’t run on a Windows operating system and they do not have a connection to the internet. They communicate through multiple firewalls to a server based in the building. The firewalls dictate what specific traffic can go in what direction. For example: the kiosks screens have noticeboards. The system has a rule that if the resident speaks a certain language they will only see the version of the notices that is in their language and that are relevant to them.

They may be the house rules for instance, and if they are Chinese you will see them in

The entrance to the Care suite.

the scanner and it logs them in. The kiosks are connected to our custodial management system (CMS). So when the resident arrives here we take their biometric data and a photograph. The fingerprint is how the system identifies the residents. So, when they visit the shop they confirm their purchase with a fingerprint scan. When they book and go for visits they also use a fingerprint. And when they order food we know that it is them who actually placed the order.

CR What’s the future development for the kiosks?

The menu is multiple choice, and touch sensitive.

their Chinese language, if from India it will be in that appropriate language. The firewalls are very secure so if someone copied a picture from Google that was hyperlinked the firewall would ignore the hyperlink.

CR How do you teach people to use them?

NC The system is very easy and intuitive to use from the start. When a resident first arrives they go through an induction process that gathers data about them and they are also taught to use the kiosks. The system is a Customer Relationship management system and contains everything we need to know about a resident. It will tell them everything they need to know too, including when roll counts are, when they can book visits etc., and will display all the other useful information that we can give residents in their own language.

We also have a scheme of employing residents to act as mentors. So when a new resident arrives a person who speaks their language, and preferably is the same nationality, will help them to become familiar with the kiosk. the Custodial Review

Developed in conjunction with Unilink the units are robust and easy to use and manage.

The kiosks are very easy to use and being in different languages helps the resident, enabling them to see the information that they need in the way they understand. They will also give them a tour of the centre and explain the centre from a residents’ point of view.

CR Does every resident have their own account?

NC Every resident has a unique number on their ID card. They enter the number into the kiosk and it then prompts them for their fingerprint. They put their finger on Page 14

NC If the Home Office ask whether something is feasible we work very closely with the developers to achieve it. The kiosks are still quite new and currently they can order food, place credit for the phone and arrange internal finances. Originally the kiosks were all in English and part of the re-bid was to install a multilingual version. We rolled out a few to prove it was feasible, and once we, and the developer, were happy with them we rolled them out with 10 languages, and also made available the extra languages . So the system has a total of 20 languages. There are 21 available but we turned off the 21st because it is Welsh!

CR Could this system be rolled out across the Prison Service?

NC The kiosks are a great facility but it is only a small part of what the CMS does.You couldn’t just roll out the kiosk as they have no standalone backend to them. So HMPS would need to invest in the wider solution to get the kiosks. The CMS has two modes – prison and

detention. For prison it has some modifications specifically for the Prison Service, and for detention mode it has some tweaks and changes for detention centres. Serco have bought into this custodial management system from Unlink for Yarl’s Wood and we use it as our sole solution. When a resident comes in here everything about them goes on there - their finances, their room where they’re housed, any warnings, any issues with the residents, any property, all this information goes onto the CMS. CR Do all the detention centres share the same CMS? NC Yarl’s Wood is the only contract we operate with the Immigration Service at the minute. When we ran Colnbrook we used the same CMS there. Any future contracts we operate, the CMS will be our preferred solution.

CR. I come back to the security issue, how do you keep this data safe?

NC We are the most technologically advanced detention centre in the country, not only with the kiosks but with our infrastructure. It’s quite a good thing for Serco to have this under their hat. IL2 accreditation is the big issue when it comes to security; It is

The exterior of the Care Suite.

only awarded when a Home Office accreditor checks the system. We have a professional hacker come in to do what is known as a ‘pen test’. They will come in, go through the entire network, and spot any problems which we will then resolve. This will prove to the Home Office that this centre has a very secure IT infrastructure. The Home Office accreditor will go through our systems and once they’re happy, they will give the accreditation. Every year it is renewed and refreshed.Yarl’s Wood is the only detention centre in the country with this level of security accreditation. All our IT is very secure, even down to the way we communicate with the Home Office; we use a

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secure email solution for anything to do with the residents.

CR Besides the CRM and kiosks what other things does the accreditation give you?

NC It is peace of mind for the Home Office and for Serco. It proves to the customer (the Home Office) that we can do this. We have a similar level of security to many police stations.

CARE UNIT Yarls Wood also has a care unit, it’s there for when people need some time out. Steve Hewer explains the thinking behind it. continues overleaf u

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Technology and Care at Yarl’s Wood continued CR You have a new care unit here, what is it for?

SH A lot of people here are quite vulnerable.

They may have mental health and other issues and sometimes they cannot be appropriately housed on the existing wings. With the Care unit we can provide a softer, more private area where we can care for those residents a lot better. It also provides one staff member for every resident.

CR What was the reason behind the care suites being put in in the first place?

Stacy Keegan, Assistant Director of Residential Regimes joined the conversation.

SK It was installed because of the complex needs of our residents were not being fully met. We had the main accommodation unit and the segregation unit but there was nothing in between. Previously, when we had children here, we had a care suite. But a softer environment where you can take people, who may be need isolation from the main population, was not available. We felt that putting them in the Kingfisher segregation unit (which are more robust rooms), was not the most appropriate place to care for someone.

So we developed the care suite where we can work with residents who have some special requirements. These could be to help them

The bathroom in the care suite.

The communal area in the Care Suite.

prepare and assist them to leave the UK, which is why we are here as a removal centre. They are also for pregnant women that may have needed time away from the main population, and it can also accommodate families.

CR How many people can it hold and how do you decide if someone needs the facility?

SK It holds three adults. There’s a double room for a husband and wife, or three single women. Its use is also decided on a risk assessment.

CR How long has this been in place and how do you use the unit??

SK It’s been in use since April 2015. Its use is dependent on a particular resident’s needs. It could be that they need time away or perhaps a bullying situation has developed. Perhaps someone has had a falling out and as they do not pose a risk to anyone else they can make

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good use of the privacy. We can also use the environment for mediation and to support people with mental health concerns who may not be safe or deemed appropriate to live on the main location with other residents. Putting them in a cell or confinement area would not be appropriate or provide the right level of care for them.

CR How big is the suite and how well are they equipped?

SK It is the size of a flat. Each room has a TV, carpeted area, and softer furnishings than the main residential unit. There are shower facilities, toilet facilities and an open day room association space. There is also a small garden and depending on their circumstances residents can leave there and join others in the main regime. It gives them a space to leave and then return to their own space.

One of the bedrooms in the Care Suite.

CR What about security, how do you keep others from accessing it?

SK It is enclosed from the rest of the centre and there is always a member of staff there when it’s in use. So they get one to one care and support from the officer. It has a stable style door so it can be partially closed if needed, dependent on the risks.

CR What sort of feedback have you had from people using it?

SK It has been quite positive. Staff caring for the residents can see differences in how residents using it engage with them, and how quickly we can de-escalate drama with the people in there. Moving people who are highly charged and emotional can inflame the situation. The care suite is not sterile;

One of the bedrooms in the Care Suite.

it is a very welcoming and a fresh, bright environment. There’s a dining table, kiosk and internet facilities. They are still visited in the normal way, and get the same provision as the main location has. Ministers from whatever religion can visit them or they can attend services dependent on what the risk assessment is.

CR How long do people spend in there?

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SK This can only be a few hours, though can be overnight, and I think the longest has been a couple of weeks. This was a situation that was due to mental health and they were not deemed safe to be around other individuals while they were waiting for a secure bed in another establishment.

CR Thank you for talking to Custodial Review.

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The 2016 POLFED National Custody Seminar The 2016 POLFED National Custody Seminar took place on 20th and 21st September at the Warwick Hilton Hotel and heard from a range of speakers discussing the many issues facing custody officers.

Nick Ephgrave, the Surrey chief constable, and the National Police Chief’s Council Custody lead, spoke on mental health and set the tone on the first day, where Michael Brown from the College of Policing also spoke at length on the issues and Juliet Lyon, chair of the Independent Advisory Panel, also spoke on deaths in custody.

Nick Ephgrave has been involved with the ongoing Independent Review and stated that the care of police officers and staff following a death in custody is something that must be considered in the review which is being carried out by Dame Elish Angiolini.

The Surrey chief constable insisted it is important that the issue is looked at from all areas. “It was due to report in the summer,” he said. “And as the information came in and she started to think about some of the wider issues of deaths in custody and what happens afterwards, the complexity and the different interest groups has become apparent and it has become a more complicated thing to document.

He went on to say “One of the things I’m trying to do from a police service perspective

is to highlight the effects that protracted investigations following the death of a person in police custody have on staff and police officers that have been involved. In my force there have been people who have resigned because they are not prepared to put up with it. I have had people who have had mental health issues because of investigations into what they have or haven’t done in the course of a custody incident, irrespective of what they have or haven’t done – the whole process has created difficulties.”

“Equally, from an operational point of view, I’ve got quite a lot of staff who I can’t deploy because they are the subject of investigations, and I think that’s an issue Dame Elish was unsighted on and I’m very keen to make sure that is taken notice of. It’s a really difficult

Andrew Griffiths,The Regional Director.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) report into deaths in and following custody showed a total of 14 deaths in custody in 2015/16, but CC Ephgrave admits there are wider issues surrounding it.

“The numbers of deaths in custody has significantly reduced over the last decade, but it seems to have levelled out since 2012,” he added. “Each one is regrettable, but each one is complicated and complex, they always are. Of the 14 deaths last year, seven of them had mental health issues or concerns, and 12 continues overleaf u

Arron Plant, the Sales Manager at ISM.

Mark Hill from the Home Office Police Estates Group is shown new custodial Lighting by Steve Wagg, the Projects engineer.

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nut to crack and I’ve got great hopes that at the end of it there will be some simple recommendations that cover all of those expectations from differing points of view.”

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John Moore of Cell Security

The 2016 National Custody Seminar continued and 12 had serious issues with drug and alcohol dependency. This highlights the very real difficulties you have as practitioners of individuals that are at high risk of illness and death and it brings in to focus the importance of getting that risk assessment right.

to court, been tried and convicted in that time.

But if you ask your staff to provide information about the progress of these cases, it’s actually harder than drawing hen’s teeth.

“Officers are thinking ‘do I really want to continue in this job?’ I think it’s appalling to potentially lose people with that level of experience. It’s appalling for them and their families. Do you really think that the changes will improve the functionality of your organisation?”

“A thing that is growing is the number of suicides in the 48 hours post-custody. That was 60 last year. They are almost overwhelmingly male, almost overwhelmingly white and interestingly almost overwhelmingly middleaged. There’s all sorts of postulations about why this may be, it could be the nature of the offence with which they have been arrested, different demographic, a whole range of theories. It just brings in to focus the issue of detention for their own wellbeing and we should be very concerned about the increase in suicides after police custody because some of them will be preventable.”

Dame Anne was also speaking at the seminar where a recurring theme over the two days was the difficulties posed by rising numbers of detainees with mental health problems.

So-called ‘season ticket-holders’ routinely end up in police cells whereas really they need to be detained in alternative more appropriate places of safety commissioned by health and social care providers.

Speaking on the ‘significant rise in suicides after custody’, often featuring detainees with known alcohol, drug and mental health issues, Dame Anne told the audience: “You are not mental health professionals, nor should you pretend to be, but the alternative support should be available to you when you need it.

The role you fulfil is not often given the status and recognition it deserves, but it is crucial. It’s

Dame Anne suggested the length of investigations could be attributed to ‘delays in evidence gathering’, other agencies such as the Crown Prosecution Service and forces’ Professional Standards Directorates, but conceded that ‘new staff took longer than it should’ to carry out investigations, and their organisational structure and misconduct backlogs were clogging up progress.

Above photographs provided by Charlotte Clover-Lambert

about protecting and preserving life.”

Ian Kelcey, a top lawyer who has represented Police Federation members in the past took issue with IPPC chief Dame Anne Owers accusing her organisation of dragging its feet.

He demanded to know how new structural changes to the IPCC would improve the situation for custody personnel and claimed it was like ‘drawing hen’s teeth’ to get any information about cases. Mr Kelcey, said: “Some of the delays have been unconscionable.

Very often, death in custody cases can take 18 months before you even get a report. In other cases, people have been charged, gone

However she admitted: “We have got to get investigations more streamlined; we have got to improve, but we are reliant on other people as well – there are also issues with the length of time it takes for officers to provide their own accounts.”

Mark Hill from the Home Office Police Estates Group also spoke on the layout of custody cells and how they can be used to prevent self-harm in custody, while Professor Michael Zander provided an update on PACE (Police and Criminal Evidence Act) and bail changes in the forthcoming Policing and Crime Bill.

Wednesday began with a fascinating talk from the Law Society’s Richard Atkinson which covered many issues both sides of the legal divide, while Susan Freeburn from Slater & Gordon talked in detail about intimate searches.

Nick Ephgrave and Juliet Lyon.

RHS, Charles Drew, Sales Manager at Wallgate.

Hugh Lloyd-Jukes, Commercial Director.

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Reinventing the Special Supervision Unit as part of prison reform written by Chris Liddle deaths in prisons since 2012 at their conference in Derby in early October.

Chris Liddle, Chairman and head of prison and rehabilitation design at HLM

While offenders are contained in an SSU as a result of serious incidents/incitement and/ or aggressive behaviour so must be confined, they are still a part of the ongoing rehabilitation process.

The key for the success of an SSU is to create a space that is a combination of ‘penalty, security and support.

The current challenges facing today’s prison governors are immense and multiplying. Over summer, a Ministry of Justice (MoJ) report citing official figures, highlighted assaults on prison staff were at a record high. According to the MoJ, there were 5,423 assaults on prison staff in the 12 months to the end of March 2016 - a rise of 40% on last year.

More recently, HMP Pentonville has been under scrutiny after the death of one of the prisoners, Jamal Mahmoud; this was a contributing factor, amongst many others, for the country’s prison governors to vote unanimously for an independent public inquiry into the rise in violence and

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As if the challenge to curb assault, self-harm and fatal injury across both prisoners and those working in prisons was not proving difficult enough to rectify, it has been further compounded by the recent key recommendations by Ian Aecheson to create separate SSUs (Special Supervision Unit) within jails. These would provide independent spaces in which to isolate offenders identified as violent and as determined to undermine the authority and management of the prison while also responding to the Government’s new measures to tackle extremism in prisons, by separating extremists from others who may be vulnerable or susceptible to radicalisation.

It is undeniable that these ‘isolation spaces’ are a requirement for many of the more high-security prisons but they should be regarded as temporary environments where prisoners are held for their own benefit or for the safety of others, the separation should not include a removal from education and rehabilitation programmes and a sense of seclusion of and inaccessibility to, wider prison society. A key element in prison reform is to implement a custodial approach that is decent and humane and that provides opportunities, wherever possible, for rehabilitation.

The purpose of the SSU is: ‘..to safely and securely accommodate prisoners while they are removed from association with others as a result of a disciplinary award or held on Prison Rule 32, (NI) or 45-50 (England and Wales) on grounds of good order and discipline or in their own interests.’ In practice, this results in the confinement of an offender for a specified period of time. Due to the nature of those confined, the SSU must be robust and durable; but they must also have the ability to allow for a regime that enables prisoners to maintain self dignity and engage in activities in a controlled environment.

Generally this removal from

association with others falls in to one of the following four categories.

1 Undergoing a period of cellular confinement as a result of a Governors Adjudication, for varying periods of up to 14 days.

2 Being placed under Prison Rule 32, for a minimum of 2 days but could extend to an indeterminate period of several months.

3 Being placed under Prison Rule 35/4 – pending Governors Adjudication for a period of no more than 48 hours.

4 Being placed in a “Dry Cell” for a short period following a C&R removal from normal location (normally this placement lasts no longer than an hour or so).

Current SSUs are located as standalone facilities adjacent to prisoner accommodation zones; one of the main reasons for this positioning is to minimise the distance that staff and prisoners need to cover to travel between the normal accommodation areas and the SSU. It is often the case that prisoners removed to the SSU resist staff attempts to transfer them and it is therefore preferable that the SSU is situated in an area in close proximity to the prisoner residential accommodation units.

It is important that the routes between the general prisoner accommodation units and the SSU are free from obstruction and as far as possible free from steps to facilitate travel with prisoners who may have to be

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escorted under restraint. With this type of location, the SSU also limits contact (physical, visual and audible) between SSU prisoners and other parts of the prison where there is a high level of activity.

Both sides of the government has been vocal about the importance of safety for prisoners and staff; Justice Secretary Elizabeth Truss and Shadow Prisons Minister Jo Stevens state that the figures in the MOJ’s report are ‘unacceptable’, and that alongside the need to address rehabilitation, safety has become a paramount aspect of prison reform.

Witnessing first-hand that prison environments conducive to safety and well-being are an integral part of prison reform, a concern is this little explored area of the SSU is passed rather than an important part of the debate. Rather than continuing to build ‘prisons within prisons’ wouldn’t it be more relevant and cost-effective to develop an SSU that was actually part of an accommodation block, reducing the need for a separate building, removing the space for transfer, while simultaneously removing the deep sense of isolation?

This combining of space would satisfy the requirements of physical exclusion when required, but would give it temporary status housing those prisoners who on most days may very well be on the road to rehabilitation; the solitary confinement becomes regarded as a ‘cooler’ when needed and a space to be used by the wider jail, when not.

This flexibility not only supports the wider prison in initial costs and maintenance, but the psychological nuance between total isolation and still remaining a part of wider prison society can have a profound effect on a prisoner’s mood and behaviour, to the benefit of themselves and others.

Not all prisons have an SSU, but most prisons have a need for an identified space to accommodate those who become suddenly violent and may be at an immediate risk to themselves or others. The implementation of a

half-way house design not only enables security to be satisfied but the punishment for this should be should be solitary incarceration, not necessarily the removal of respect, selfworth and dignity. As part of the process, it is vital that these ‘more aggressive’ offenders still have a rehabilitation plan and process in place, and are not subjected to an environment that exacerbates their behaviour.

With the increased challenges of dealing with extreme and violent prisoners, and members of terrorist and sectarian groups, the provision of the SSU facilities function are more demanding than ever; but the creation of a ‘prison within a prison,’ is counter-productive to efficient design and a programme of inclusion and rehabilitation. The SSU is a sensitive area that is undiscussed because there isn’t a requirement in every custodial facility; but exploration into the

development of SSUs as a part of flexible wing-design, rather than a standalone facility, addresses the issues of cost, safety, efficiency and wellbeing, with the understanding that one size doesn’t necessarily fit all.

The government’s pledge to open nine new prisons in England and Wales - five by 2020 – under plans to close ‘Victorian’ jails and sell them for much needed housing and redevelopment, offers an opportunity to completely reform the UK’s custodial system, through a reforming approach and design to support that approach.

The current blueprint for what is required within geography of prisons – predominantly guided

by Victorian prison design – needs to be challenged, and a new one introduced, one that is able to address all vital elements of prison geography and design and which has long-term goal of rehabilitation at its heart.

Spit Guard Pro – the safest way to protect staff from being spat at Manufacturers of Spit Guard Pro, the protective hood used to prevent restrained people spitting at members of security staff, say that it is the best method of protecting both parties involved in a restraint situation.

Spit Guard Pro is manufactured by KIT Design, a specialist Personal Protection Clothing company based in Sheffield. Director of the company, Paula Romano, says that it has been developed over many years to the highest standards of health and safety.

“Spit Guard Pro is absolutely the safest and most humane way to protect both the restrainer and the person being restrained. It is manufactured to the highest design standards that take into account both the safety of the user and the person wearing it.

“Spit Guard Pro is only used when someone feels they are in a dangerous position with the threat of being spit at. Apart from the awful discomfort of being spat at, Spit Guard Pro protects against the threat of contracting transferable diseases such as HIV AIDS, Hepatitis C and other infectious diseases.

“The Guard is hypo-allergenic and does not constrain the wearer in any way. It allows them to breathe easily, maintain vision and be able to hear what is being asked of them in a restraint situation. We have spent years developing it and it is the only one of its kind to have been certified under the CE 93/42/EEC Directive. It is globally recognised as the most effective and safest of all similar products,” says Paula Romano.

Spit Guard PRO is currently being used by police forces in Norway, Sweden, Scotland and Finland as well as the British Transport Police, Staffordshire and West Mercia Police.

KIT Design, has been manufacturing its spit guard for over five years and comes with full instructions on how to use it. KIT Design advises all users to contact the British Transport Police about training.

KIT Design Ltd, International House, Nunnery Drive, Sheffield, S2 1TA Tel: 0114 279 8136 or visit www.kitdesignworks.co.uk

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the Custodial Review

Prison drug marke

Annie looks back at HMP Holloway We asked Dr Annie Bartlett to look back on her almost 10 years at HMP Holloway - from her arrival in 2006 until it closed; and throughout her reminiscing there was a smile in her voice, which said so much about the pride about it. “We saved lives; we made people better; I felt like a real doctor!”

We spoke to Annie - Professor Annie Bartlett, psychiatrist and Clinical Director of CNWL’s Offender Care Services - on her last day in the job. She’s keeping on her academic work and will do some occasional work at CNWL and leaves us on a high.

“I went to Holloway just as prison healthcare was to be commissioned for the first time by health - an exciting time. When I arrived the place was actually a little bit too exciting and needed to be calmer and better organised. Women had not received good healthcare and many had had pretty grim experiences. It took some time but we built what Lord Darzi might call a polyclinic - high quality services where mental health was well resourced, as were detoxification services. Sexual health and also the antenatal care from the midwives - was terrific, and the GPs were really committed to working for the women.”

We had really great prison officers too - who are actually a lot more caring that you might think - or than I did think before I went there. They are often key to understanding the prisoners; I would ask them to tell me about the women, as part of understanding their clinical problems, but also to see the women as people, not just cases. Those staff worried they did not know what to say but were invaluable.”

And there’s an implied note of regret here, that all this expertise is now dissipated as people are moved around the system.

She remembers a woman going into labour in the prison. By the time the ambulance had arrived the GP had delivered the baby and had carried out life-saving treatment. She adds, people often focus on the negative aspects of prisons and prison healthcare and

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it is easy to forget how many emergency situations are successfully managed by staff.

Women’s prisons are well known for their high levels of self harm. Twice, our psychiatrists have stopped someone choking to death - the patient swallowed cloth and they used the Heimlich manoeuvre to save her life.Very recently, two of our staff heard someone thump down, the prisoner was attempting suicide - they rushed in and successfully resuscitated them.

“You could often see people getting better - the pace of work was so much faster than in forensic inpatient services but they were often the same patients. But it was distressing when we could not transfer very ill women - they could end up in a degraded state I remember one woman in total squalor with blood and excrement on the walls. But success might also be just getting people on to the right medication for them or off it through a talking therapy; medication in prisons is tricky because some people don’t like it and some prescribed drugs are also very tradeable amongst the prisoners.

But it was also about dignity and choice for the women. I had a low threshold about risk and I moved women to the secure mental health services if I thought they needed something we could not offer and if it was not safe for them to stay in prison; mostly we had a smooth relationship with external clinicians who could understand what could not be achieved in prison..”

Did she worry that she was being played by some? “Eminently possible!” she says,

“You need to be thoughtful about what people say everywhere in the NHS, not just in prison, but you might say that some prisoners are particularly persuasive! All you can rely on is your own judgement and then sharing it with the team, to think about the case, to keep you on the right track. ” “I do remember one doctor who was busily diagnosing more schizophrenia that we thought likely and that took a bit of a team effort to straighten that out.”

She tells me that the huge Griffin statues that used to stand outside the lifer health block in Holloway are being sent to the prison museum. She doesn’t need to say it, but we hope the experience of great healthcare at Holloway will be preserved too.

“A good job done!” she says, with a smile, and with that smile in her voice.

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Much has been spoken and written about the drug problem in prisons, and after 25 years of an acknowledged entrenched drug market inside UK prisons you might think there’s little hope for change. But in a time when the drug market in our prisons is exercising a greater impact on good order and discipline, and prisoner health, than at any time in my experience, we at RAPt know that there are solutions that do work.

First, it is worth reminding ourselves of the basic facts:

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A culture of enthusiastic use of illegal drugs is well established amongst offenders in the UK, and therefore amongst the prison population.

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Most new prison arrivals have a significant history of drug use, with around half of them dependent on drugs or alcohol, and a large proportion of their offences related to this dependence.

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There is therefore a large and profitable illicit market for drugs in prisons, that has steadily grown over the last 25 years, undiminished by successive security policies and initiatives.

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Those who control that market can make quick money, and build networks of power and influence on the wings.

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The operation of these dealing networks, and the related gang activity, is at the root of most of the violence and intimidation in prisons.

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The uncontrolled use and desperation of drug consumers is responsible for many of the health problems faced by prisoners, most markedly with overdose deaths and suicides, which are now at their highest level on record.

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Failure to break this cycle of drug or alcohol dependence and offending is responsible for the high rates of reoffending amongst released prisoners.

The nature and extent of the challenge has been known for many years, and prison managers have long experience of implementing a range of supply and demand side initiatives designed to undermine and reduce prison drug markets. With the arrival of Spice and other new psychoactive substances on the scene over the last couple of years, a market for heroin, cannabis and hooch that previously existed has been overlaid with one for the ‘perfect prison drug’ – odourless, hard to detect in searches or through testing, with a significant price mark up, and unpredictable effects that can bring entertainment on the longest day. So, rather than gradually diminishing, the prison drug market is playing

ets – reducing demand is the key By Mike Trace, CEO of RAPt an increasing role in the problems faced daily by prison staff – intoxication, violence, gang activity, self-harm and medical emergencies.

At a time of stretched staffing resources, it is more important than ever to find ways to undermine these markets, and support prisoners in any efforts to overcome drug problems and stay away from drug use.

There seems to be some shared commitment – from Ministers, NOMS, the Prison Inspectorate, Prison Governors Association, and Prison Officers Association - to addressing deteriorating prison conditions, and specifically to do more to undermine prison drug markets.

Announcements already made on officer recruitment and reform prisons need to be incorporated into a comprehensive strategy for prison management for the years to come. Key objectives of this strategy should be a reversal of the current trends in assaults, self-harm and prisoner deaths, as well as a significant reduction in postrelease re-offending.

None of these objectives can be achieved without an effective prison drug strategy.

It is surprising that, with all the concerns articulated in recent years around the negative impact of drug markets, particularly in new psychoactive substances, on prison life, that there is still no central strategic guidance to governors on their options for responding.

Here are some suggestions to fill the vacuum: Reducing the Supply – Most of the weapons in a governor’s armour to reduce drug supply into, and distribution around, prisons are well established. Screening and search powers, surveillance and intelligence systems, sniffer dogs, adjudication and criminal sanctions, and testing technology have all been available for some time. But their utilisation has been limited by resource constraints. It is hard to admit to politicians or the general public, but the level of drug testing, surveillance, or searching of packages, staff or visitors, is insufficient to meaningfully deter prison drug supply. Any realistic increase in these resources will not alter this basic reality. The profits to be made, and the continued high demand, will ensure the continuation of a lucrative market for the foreseeable future. Governors and security departments can and should devise strategies to limit the amount of drugs coming to a prison, and the impact of this market on staff and prisoner safety, but they will not be able to create a drug free prison.

Creating a Controlled Environment – Reductions in prison officer numbers are making it very difficult to retain control of the landings in many prisons. This lack of control undermines any attempts to pursue positive activity, and needs to be resolved if prisons are to live up to the ambition of being places of safety, humanity and rehabilitation.

But there is one initiative that can tilt the balance back in favour of the staff and prisoners who want a stable and supportive place in which to work and live. Recovery wings have been a buzzword for at least five years, but implementation is patchy and uncoordinated. Officially, we have had a handful of pilots, and a low key research project.

Unofficially, many prisons have some sort of wing or landing that tries to create a spirit of mutual support and recovery amongst its participants. RAPt has been managing recovery wings for over 20 years, and has experienced extremely positive outcomes – in terms of prisoner behaviour, and long term recovery.

We can’t understand why every governor doesn’t want one, as they reduce pressure on staff and adjudications, and maximise prisoner co-operation and peer support.

Our recovery wings tap in to the positive peer pressure of prisoners who want to stay away from gangs and drugs, and to use their prison time constructively to break the cycle of drug addiction and offending. There are many different ways to organise a recovery wing – a small unit for prisoners participating in an abstinence based programme; a larger wing where all prisoners (whether attending a programme or not) commit to remaining drug free, and use peer support structures and voluntary testing regimes to maintain the commitment; or a wing for prisoners receiving substitute medication. Whatever the precise function, intake criteria, and operating protocols, recovery wings can foster an environment where conflict is minimised, and rehabilitation programmes can thrive.

Reducing Reoffending – it is well known that a high proportion of prisoners’ offending has been driven by drug or alcohol dependence, and that they will return to the same pattern of offending on release if they do not use their time in prison to confront and overcome their addiction. RAPt has shown that this process of recovery is possible with large numbers of prisoners – over the years, over 6000 prisoners have completed our recovery programmes, and peer reviewed research has shown that this has had a big impact on rates of reoffending after release. When we published this research in 2012, we expected it to lead to a new push for all prisons to offer some form of recovery programme, but the opposite has been the case. Despite many being of poor quality, there were over 100 accredited drug/alcohol recovery programmes being delivered in UK prisons in 2012. There is no officially published figure of the number of programmes now, but it is clearly much lower – almost half of the RAPt programmes running in 2012 have now been closed down, and a parliamentary answer by Ben Gummer (then a junior Health Minister) in June 2016 indicated that investment in drug treatment services in prison had reduced by around 40% in the last three years. We have learned a Page 25

lot over the years about how to deliver high quality interventions to engage with, motivate, and support prisoners towards recovery from addiction, and therefore prevent their reoffending. The provision of both substitution treatment and structured abstinence based programmes has a solid evidence base, but their potential to contribute to safer prisons, and reducing reoffending is sorely underused.

This is particularly baffling at a time when the Justice Data Lab is showing us that most offender interventions in prisons are failing to achieve significant impacts.

Patterns of supply and consumption may vary, but the drug problem in prison is not going away, and addiction will continue to be a major driver of crime in this country. If we are serious about reducing violence and intimidation in prisons, and crime committed by released prisoners, we have to be brave and creative in our responses. We know what works, we just need to find the energy and commitment to make it happen.

Mike Trace is CEO of RAPt, a UK charity that provides substance misuse, mental health and employment services to offenders. As Deputy UK Drug Czar in the 1990s, he oversaw the creation of one of the first nationwide prison drug strategies.

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 at, stevem@custodialreview.co.uk or on

01234 348878 for more details.

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National justice museum to launch in Feb 2017 Justice Museum will also change its name to National Justice Museum, Nottingham and the NCCL will become ‘National Justice Museum Education’.

Tim Desmond, Chief Executive for the National Justice Museum said: “This is a hugely exciting time for our charity as we bring all our work together under one title and truly become a national museum.

Launching in February 2017 following a £1million Heritage Lottery Fund supported project, the National Justice Museum will become the new name for The Egalitarian Trust, which currently incorporates the Galleries of Justice Museum, the City of Caves in Nottingham and the National Centre for Citizenship and the Law (NCCL).

Using the UK’s largest collection relating to law, justice, crime and punishment, the National Justice Museum will include an exciting range of new exhibition areas showcasing even more of the collection.

Visitors will also be able to enjoy a range of brand new fun, interactive activities and exhibitions suitable for all the family.

As part of the changes, the Galleries of

“Our central vision is to provide an opportunity for all to learn about the law so people can be inspired by their rights and responsibilities to make positive changes in their lives. We look forward to engaging with a diverse range of people from across the UK and beyond – whether that be through exhibitions and activities available at our museum, or through our education programmes available at legal and heritage sites across the UK.” The trust was originally established 1993 following a huge fundraising effort, millions of pounds was raised to restore the site of Nottingham’s Shire Hall. The Galleries of Justice Museum opened in 1995 and the NCCL followed in 2002. In 2004 the trust took over the running of Nottingham’s City of Caves.

Since its origin, the organisation has won 34 awards including the prestigious Gulbenkian Prize for Museum of the Year in 2003 for recognition of the innovation of the NCCL and the Visit England Gold Award for Small Visitor Attraction of the Year in 2014.

Over the past few years The Egalitarian Trust and the breadth of its work has grown significantly. Since 2011 the trust has provided education programmes across the UK - which

includes being the education provider for the Royal Courts of Justice in London. The new name reflects the national significance of the collection – which includes over 40 000 objects and archives, as well as the education work that the trust does at legal and heritage sites across the UK. Following a brief closure from December 2016 to enable development works to take place, the National Justice Museum, Nottingham will open on Sat 11 Feb 2017.

The National Justice Museum will help people to gain a practical understanding of the law and justice system, empowering them to make positive changes in their lives and play an active role in their community.

The museum’s impressive collection consists of over 40 000 objects and archives, making it the UK’s largest collection relating to law, justice, crime and punishment. The collection is made up of the following categories: Police, HM Prison Service, Legal, Technology and Law, Costume, The Rainer Foundation Archive and The Crime Writers Association Archive. Some of the museum’s most well-known artefacts include: Oscar Wilde’s cell door, the bath used in the Brides in the Bath murder case, gibbet irons, force feeding equipment used on suffragettes and conscientious objectors, Great Train Robbery evidence and the dock from Bow Street Magistrates Court used in cases such as the trials of Oscar Wilde, Roger Casement, the Kray’s, George Smith who was responsible for the ‘Brides in the Bath’ murders and suffragette Emily Pankhurst.

The museum attracts schools, families and adult visitors from across the UK and beyond including visitors or learners from

Charity’s prisoner and family support service receives Big Lottery funding Spurgeons’ Invisible Walls Project at HMP Winchester awarded Big Lottery Fund grant to support children and families with fathers in prison.

Children and families affected by imprisonment will continue to receive vital support services through the Invisible Walls scheme at HMP Winchester, run by children’s charity Spurgeons, thanks to a £435,000 grant.

The funding, from the Big Lottery Fund, will ensure the scheme continues providing its existing service, as well as enabling scope to develop new initiatives to keep families together and reduce reoffending rates. This includes one-to-one confidential mentoring for prisoners nearing release and monthly homework clubs for 30 fathers and their children to enable them to support and encourage schoolwork and have a positive attitude to education. Practical advice, information and support to 200 families visiting a loved one inside the prison will also be available.

Invisible Walls has been delivering essential support to prisoners and

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their families since 2011. The newly funded Family Intervention Unit (FIU) aims to reach and improve outcomes for the most difficult to engage and isolated of fathers in prison and their families. The FIU will provide keyworkers to be a single point of contact for a prisoner, his family and all prison agencies and community-based services supporting them.

Ross Hendry, Spurgeons Chief Executive, said: “Spurgeons’ Invisible Walls has made a difference to hundreds of children and families through its family support services. As well as a visitors centre open every day, it provides invaluable parenting guidance for fathers in prison and help to resettle them back into their communities and family life on release.

“When a family member goes to prison, in many ways, the whole family also serves the sentence. The Invisible walls team deliver ‘Hidden Sentence’ training to professionals and community partners to help them better understand and respond to the needs of families affected by imprisonment and to reduce the unnecessary stigma faced

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Australia, the USA and China. Over 120, 000 people visited our sites in 2015/16. As well as the extensive collection, visitors come to experience the museum’s grand Victorian courtrooms, 17th century dungeon, the 1800 prison cells, dayrooms and 1833 prison wing and the 1905 police station. The museum’s rich history led to it being voted the most haunted building in the UK in 2014. The museum attracts paranormal groups from across the UK who run regular overnight investigations to find out more about the site’s spooky history and the characters that resided within it.

A leader in public legal education, the museum’s hugely popular education activities are delivered at authentic historical and working courtrooms across the UK, including the Royal Courts of Justice in London. Education programmes encourage people to reflect on what is right and wrong, helping to create a more just society.

22,739 young people took part in education sessions in 2015/16.

The National Justice Museum is a registered charity number 1030554. They are an independent museum and do not receive any core funding from local or national government. Funding from trusts and foundations, sponsorship and charitable donations from individuals allow the museum to deliver learning activities that raise aspirations and empower more people to make positive changes in their lives. Some of the projects that rely on charitable donations include:

•

Help a Child – An early intervention project that aims to keep children away

• • •

•

from crime by teaching them about the law and how to live within it.

Virtual Justice – Aims to safeguard and prevent young people from becoming involved in cybercrime and harassment online.

I Pledge – An early intervention project that focuses on the contemporary justice system.

Creative Courtroom UK – An outreach programme facilitated by a diverse group of interns that enables children and young people to explore an alternative interpretation of the law in their own communities via a pop up courtroom.

Transformers – Uses our collection to teach adults and families about the

law, improve literacy, encourage debate, explore ideas about right and wrong and empowers people to make positive changes to their lives.

•

Take to Law – A social mobility project that gives young people the opportunity to learn about the law and justice system and the careers within it.

About the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) Thanks to National Lottery players, we invest money to help people across the UK explore, enjoy and protect the heritage they care about - from the archaeology under our feet to the historic parks and buildings we love, from precious memories and collections to rare wildlife. www.hlf.org.uk @heritagelottery

by families. We are delighted that the importance of this work has been recognised once more by the Big Lottery who have generously awarded us further grant funding. We look forward to continuing our very positive working relationship with the HMP/YOI Winchester and all our local partners to ensure this work continues.”

who carry emotional burdens and heavy responsibility, or who have been, or are at significant risk of, being harmed or exploited.

A core element of the FIU involves empowering fathers in prison who have benefited from the supportive programme to reach out as Dads Reps to engage other fathers in custody.

•

Specialist support for children experiencing the loss of a parent through imprisonment.

• • •

Child-centred family visiting support service.

Invisible Walls continues to reduce the risk of reoffending in imprisoned fathers. Currently only 10.5% of fathers who use the service are known to have returned to prison within 12 months of their release compared to the national figure of 57%. Since 2013, 14,221 adults and 3,228 children have been supported through the Visitors Centre at Invisible Walls. 339 fathers have attended parenting courses and workshops.

Community support services for families of offenders.

Family based intervention to prevent offending and reoffending.

About The Big Lottery Fund The Big Lottery Fund is the largest funder of community activity in the UK. We put people in the lead to improve their lives and communities, often through small, local projects.

About Spurgeons and our work within the criminal justice system Spurgeons is one of the UK’s leading children’s charities, supporting children and families affected by social disadvantage. In the last year, we delivered 80 services, reaching over 37,000 children and 64,000 parents or carers. We work with: children, young people or families who are struggling to cope with their difficulties; and children and young people

Our work includes supporting children, young people and their families to ensure that the cycle of generational offending is broken. The support we offer in this area includes:

We are responsible for giving out 40% of the money raised by National Lottery players for good causes. Every year we invest over £650 million and award around 12,000 grants across the UK for health, education, environment and charitable purposes.

Since June 2004 we have awarded over £8 billion to projects that change the lives of millions of people.

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Public put at risk by probation sell-off The Howard League for Penal Reform has responded to the joint report by HM Chief Inspectors of Probation and Prisons on Through the Gate resettlement services for short-term prisoners, published on Tuesday 4 October.

The report studies the impact of the government’s Transforming Rehabilitation reforms, under which all prisoners sentenced to 12 months or less are now subject to 12 months’ supervision by probation services on release.

The reforms also involved the break-up of the public probation service, with a large part of it handed to 21 privately-run Community Rehabilitation Companies who are now responsible for supporting people as they pass ‘Through the Gate’ from prison to the community.

Inspectors found that services were poor. Too many prisoners reached their release date without their immediate needs having been met or even recognised. Inspectors were concerned by the high rate at which people had gone on to reoffend and been recalled to prison.

Of the 86 cases inspected, not one prisoner had been helped into employment. More than one-third of prisoners were released with nowhere to live. Not enough help was given to people in debt.

Victims were not protected, as the risk of harm posed by released prisoners was not always recognised. In 61 per cent of cases inspected, the Community Rehabilitation Company had taken insufficient account of public protection issues. This problem was particularly noticeable in domestic abuse cases.

Frances Crook, Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “Transforming Rehabilitation was supposed to turn lives around, reduce reoffending and make us all safer. It is doing precisely the opposite – failing to help people find homes and employment, failing to prevent people committing further offences, and failing by exposing victims of crime to more danger.

“When a Secretary of State refuses to listen to expert advice and ploughs ahead with ideas that are divorced from reality, disastrous policies will always follow.This reckless experiment with public safety, which the Howard League consistently warned against, is a catastrophic example, and its impact will be felt for many years. the Custodial Review

“I call on the new Secretary of State to monitor these contracts with exacting care so that they may be rescinded without any additional cost to the taxpayer. The probation service needs to be reconstructed so that it serves the public and victims of crime.”

Between April and June 2016, there were 9,505 reported incidents of self-harm, of which 665 led to attendances at hospital, and 6,086 assaults, including 1,540 assaults on staff. These are the highest figures for a single quarter on record.

The failure of the Transforming Rehabilitation programme is becoming increasingly clear.

The MoJ has named six prisons in England and Wales whose overall performance is deemed to be of “serious concern”. They are Bristol, Doncaster, Hewell, Isis, Liverpool and Wormwood Scrubs.

In August, HM Inspectorate of Probation reported that the quality of probation work in Durham had declined since the Transforming Rehabilitation programme began. A similar report on services in Derbyshire, which reached the same conclusion, was published the following month.

Less than two weeks ago, the Public Accounts Committee’s report on Transforming Rehabilitation concluded that the government’s promised “rehabilitation revolution” was far from complete.

Only last week, HM Inspectorate of Prisons reported that women’s services had deteriorated and were “under threat” following the implementation of the programme.

Prisons are becoming more dangerous more quickly Deaths, assaults and self-injury are rising in prisons, with safety deteriorating at a faster rate year after year, figures seen by the Howard League for Penal Reform revealed on Thursday 28 July..

Statistics published by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) show that, across England and Wales, 321 people died in prison custody during the 12 months to the end of June 2016 – an increase of 30 per cent.

They included 105 people who are thought to have taken their own lives. The total number of deaths classed as “self-inflicted” rose by 28 per cent compared with the 12 months to the end of June 2015.

The suicide rate among women in prison has risen alarmingly. Eleven women took their own lives during the 12-month period to the end of June 2016, compared with only one during the preceding 12 months. Women make up less than 5 per cent of the population, yet 10 per cent of those who died by suicide in the last 12 months were women.

The number of prisons awarded the worst possible rating has doubled since last year.

Andrew Neilson, Director of Campaigns at the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “Once again, official figures spell out the urgent need for prison reform. Prisons are not only becoming more dangerous; they are becoming more dangerous more quickly.

“That more prisons have been awarded the worst-possible performance rating provides further indication of how the system is failing after years of rising numbers, chronic overcrowding and deep staff cuts.

“It is particularly shocking to see a dramatic increase in the number of women taking their own lives. In the past, a sharp rise in the number of women dying in prison has prompted a government review and promises of action. The high levels of violence and deaths should shame us all, and the new Secretary of State for Justice and her ministers must set out concrete plans to reduce them.”

Prison statistics reveal a bloodbath of assaults, suicide and self-injury The number of people dying in prison has risen by 21 per cent in a year as safety in jails deteriorates further and faster, figures seen by the Howard League for Penal Reform revealed onThursday 27 October) Statistics published by the Ministry of Justice show that the death rate in prisons in England and Wales rose to almost one a day – a record high of 324 in the 12 months to the end of September 2016.

Reported incidents of self-harm in prisons have risen by 27 per cent in a year. There were 34,586 reported incidents in the 12 months to the end of March 2016 – one every 15 minutes.

They included 107 prisoners who took their own lives as the suicide rate behind bars rose by 13 per cent to unprecedented levels. The number has almost doubled since 2011-12, when 57 people died by suicide in prison.

The number of assaults on prison staff has increased by 40 per cent. There were 5,423 incidents during the 12 months to the end of March 2016 – at a rate of almost 15 per day.

Official records of assaults and self-injury incidents show that prison safety is declining at a faster rate year by year.

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The total number of assaults recorded in

prisons increased by more than 34 per cent to 23,775 – about 65 per day – in the 12 months to the end of June 2016.

government’s Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) programme, which saw the part-privatisation of probation.

Assaults recorded in men’s prisons rose to a record high at 22,915 – an increase of 69 per cent in only three years.

Inspectors found that dedicated funding for women’s services had virtually disappeared under TR. As funding is no longer ring-fenced, provision is now discretionary and dependent upon local commissioning arrangements by privately-run Community Rehabilitation Companies.

Assaults in women’s prisons have also risen, increasing by 25 per cent in a year.

In the 12 months to the end of June 2016, 36,440 incidents of self-injury were recorded in prisons. This equates to 100 per day and represents a rise of 26 per cent compared to the previous year.

The number of incidents of self-injury by men in prisons has more than doubled in six years.

Frances Crook, Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “The Ministry of Justice is presiding over a bloodbath of assaults, suicides and self-injury in prisons.

“Cutting staff and prison budgets while allowing the number of people behind bars to grow unchecked has created a toxic mix of violence, death and human misery.

“The Secretary of State for Justice, Elizabeth Truss, has declared that making prisons safer is her priority, and we expect her plans to be made clear next month. But today’s figures show that we cannot wait for legislation – bold and radical action is needed now to stop the death toll rising further.

“The Howard League is about to publish a plan of action to tackle the immediate problems.

We will be suggesting that small behaviour change by magistrates, prisons and probation could ease the pressure on prisons and save lives. I will present this to the Secretary of State at our meeting next month.”

Transforming Rehabilitation programme puts women’s services under threat The Howard League for Penal Reform has responded to Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation’s thematic inspection report on women’s services, published on Thursday 29 September.

The report makes clear that women’s services have deteriorated and are “under threat” following the implementation of the

The report states that women’s centres are particularly vulnerable under the new arrangements and some have already lost funding. This is in spite of the important role they play in turning women away from crime and helping them to rebuild their lives. Inspectors were concerned that these funding difficulties could lead to services being reduced or lost altogether.

Inspectors found that, in one in three women’s cases, the quality of probation work was not good enough. Particularly weak was work to address domestic abuse, sexual exploitation, and other forms of exploitation of women, such as obtaining drugs or alcohol for others.

The report adds that the efforts of probation staff have been hampered by a lack of suitable accommodation for women.

Andrew Neilson, Director of Campaigns at the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “The breakup of the public probation service, with a large part of it handed to 21 private companies, was supposed to turn lives around, reduce reoffending and make us all safer.

Today’s report provides yet more evidence that this is not happening.

“The overhaul of probation was done with men in mind, and now we are seeing the results for a significant minority in the system: women. Women’s centres in the community, which have proved for many years to be successful in guiding women away from crime, are threatened with extinction. Other services are at risk. This is letting down the public and letting down women who are trying to change their lives.

“The Howard League warned that ministers were taking a huge risk by dismantling a service that was performing well. We remain of that view, and our own research on the impact of these reforms on women will be published in due course.”

Holding the system to account Court of Appeal to hear case of boy who was detained in prison after he should have been released Page 29

Case: The Queen on the application of MA v Independent Adjudicator When: Thursday 13 October 2016 Where: Court of Appeal (Civil Division), Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, London, WC2A 2LL The Court of Appeal is to hear legal argument on whether the State should be held accountable after a child was detained in prison after he should have been released.

The boy, who is represented by the Howard League for Penal Reform, was detained for an extra 11 days in Ashfield prison, near Bristol, following a disciplinary hearing before a district judge in 2012. The High Court later issued an order to set aside the decision on the basis that it had been unlawful.

In October 2014, the High Court made a further ruling that the boy was entitled to compensation. That ruling is now being appealed by the Secretary of State for Justice, with the case listed to be heard in the Court of Appeal on 13 October.

The award of compensation is nominal, but the issue is important. The possibility of financial compensation for a child who is detained for additional time following an unlawful decision is an important way of holding the system to account, to ensure fairness and guard against future mistakes.

The Howard League has published research on how prisons in England and Wales operate disciplinary hearings, called adjudications, where allegations of rule-breaking are tried.

A prisoner found guilty at an adjudication can face punishments ranging from loss of canteen to solitary confinement and extra days of imprisonment.

Figures released by the Ministry of Justice in May 2016 showed that more than one million days – or 2,890 years – of additional imprisonment had been imposed on prisoners in the previous six years.

The number of additional days imposed on prisoners increased by almost 38 per cent between 2014 and 2015.

Frances Crook, Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “The punishment system for breaking prison rules has resulted in an explosion in the number of extra days imposed on people, including children.

The system itself is causing chaos in prisons and, as this case shows, mistakes are made.

“Where prisoners are wrongly detained as a result of prison adjudications, accountability should not be tossed aside simply because the continues overleaf

u

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unlawful detention has only been accepted after the time has been served.”

Background to the case The boy at the centre of this case, identified in court as MA, is one of seven children who were unlawfully punished after they were involved in a protest over conditions in Serco-run Ashfield prison, near Bristol, in February 2012.

The protest was witnessed by a district judge, who was visiting the site in his role as an Independent Adjudicator. Despite being invited to recuse himself from either conducting the boys’ adjudication hearings or passing sentence, he declined and imposed additional days’ imprisonment on each of them.

In May 2012, the High Court issued an order setting aside the decision to convict and further detain the boys, on the basis that the Independent Adjudicator’s decision had been unlawful.

MA was the only child who had already started serving the additional days. As a result of the order, the other children did not have to serve them.

The order was part of a wider challenge brought by the Howard League against Ashfield prison in 2012.

The judgment found that children in the prison were subject to an unlawful “shadow segregation” regime. It revealed deep-rooted problems in the prison, including a “wholly inadequate system” for disclosing case papers with senior staff having a “woeful absence of

knowledge” about their legal duties.

Ashfield stopped holding children in 2013.

It is now a Category C prison for men, still operated by Serco.

Chelmsford prison: Dangerous and failing The Howard League for Penal Reform has responded to Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons’ report on Chelmsford prison, published on Tuesday 16 August.

Inspectors visited the prison in April and found that levels of violence had risen sharply, drugs were easy to get and the rate of suicide and self-injury was far higher than at comparable prisons.

Four prisoners had taken their own lives since the last inspection, which was conducted in 2014. One in five prisoners said that they felt unsafe.

Much of the increase in bullying, assaults and fights was thought to be linked to drugs and debt. Half of all prisoners said that it was easy to obtain illegal drugs.

Work to resettle prisoners on release had seen the greatest deterioration. About 100 men are released from Chelmsford each month, but management of the process was weak and staff shortages were having an impact.

Inside the prison, many men struggled to get the basics, such as clean clothes, bedding and cleaning materials. Healthcare was

inadequate, for which inspectors said that staff shortages, weak partnerships and poor clinical governance were to blame.

Learning and skills provision was rated by Ofsted as requiring improvement. Unemployed prisoners could spend as many as 23 hours a day locked inside their cells.

Andrew Neilson, Director of Campaigns at the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “This is the latest in a long series of inspection reports that reveal how the prison system is failing as it contends with the disastrous consequences of chronic overcrowding and deep cuts to budgets.

“Men are dying in Chelmsford prison. It is a jail where men can get illegal drugs but cannot get clean clothes or adequate healthcare. Violence and bullying are rife.

“The rehabilitation revolution that we were promised has not materialised. As prisons struggle, probation reforms have resulted in more people being recalled to custody – feeding the problem even more.

“Cramming more and more men into these dangerous institutions is like throwing them into a fast-flowing river, to be swept away into deeper currents of crime.”

New pilot projects to reduce delays for prisoners The Parole Board is trialling a number of different approaches to reduce the time prisoners have to wait for an oral hearing.

The Parole Board has experienced an increase in the demand for oral hearings since the Osborn, Booth and Riley judgment handed down in 2013. This has resulted in delays for a considerable number of prisoners waiting for an oral hearing date. The listing prioritisation framework, which was developed to help us manage the increased volume of cases, currently prioritises recalled determinate sentenced prisoners above most other prisoners when allocating oral hearing dates each month.

Unfortunately, this has resulted in the majority of other prisoners experiencing much longer delays before their oral hearing date is set. The Parole Board recognise that we need to change our current approach in order to ensure fairness across the system.

To address this problem, we have developed 4 trials that we are piloting until the end of March 2017:

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The Parole Board will work closer with the Public Protection Casework Section (PPCS) to make more effective use of the option of ‘executive release’. Eligible cases will be considered for executive release at an earlier stage of the parole process, before a case is directed to an oral hearing. They hope this will reduce the number of cases waiting in the queue for an oral hearing date and allow prisoners to be released more quickly.

The Parole Board are extending the cut off point for determinate cases with an upcoming Sentence Expiry Date (SED).

We currently conclude cases directed to oral hearing if the SED is within 12 weeks’ time of the oral hearing directions. This is because there is insufficient time to schedule an oral hearing before a prisoner will be automatically released. This will now be extended to 24 weeks.

The Parole Board will change the listing prioritisation framework so that prisoners who have 12 months or less before their SED will no longer be prioritised. This means

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most recall cases will no longer be listed ahead of other sentence types, resulting in a fairer system. A full review of the listings framework will take place by April 2017.

The Parole Board are looking into the possibility of using Ministry of Justice video link rooms across the UK to host hearings for determinate sentence prisoners.

Currently, we can only host video link hearings at their London based office which limits our capacity. We hope that by creating regional hubs across the UK, more cases can be heard more swiftly.

This will also hopefully ensure prisoners with determinate sentences will not be disadvantaged by the above pilots.

The Parole Board are taking a flexible approach to these pilots and if any prisoners believe that they have exceptional circumstances that warrant prioritisation of their case they can write to the Parole Board.

Such circumstances can include, but are not limited to, medical/mental health issues and/ or compassionate reasons for example.