Custodial Review Ed 82 2017

Custodial the

Review

The Custodial Review informing the Prison, Border Agency and Police Services Edition 82

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Penal Affairs with Lord Ramsbotham, Co-Chair, see p8

Prisoners into jobs

by Mike Trace, see p26

The English Jury on Trial

by Dominic Willmott, Daniel Boduszek & Nigel Booth, see p12

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Contents Issue 82

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

4

News

8

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Penal Affairs with Lord Ramsbotham, Co-Chair

12

The English Jury on Trial

by Dominic Willmott, Daniel Boduszek & Nigel Booth

16

News

24

Are All Safes the Same?

By Jeremy Cassady

26

Latest from RAPt

by Mike Trace, Chief Executive of RAPt

28

News from the Howard League

30

Stopping drones, the logical way

By Andy Loakes

Production Editor: Richard Shrubb

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.

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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Wales at forefront of new plans to create 5,000 modern prison places Alun Cairns: New prison will bring economic opportunities to South Wales Prison floor

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Justice Secretary unveils plans for new modern prison in Port Talbot;

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New build to create hundreds of local jobs and turbo-boost regional economy;

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Builds on the Government’s commitment to create up to 10,000 modern places, aimed at reducing overcrowding and creating the right conditions for reform.

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“This significant building programme will not only help create a modern prison estate where wholescale reform can truly take root, but will also provide a thriving, economic lifeline for the local community – creating hundreds of jobs for local people and maximising opportunities for businesses.”

This announcement comes weeks after the opening of HMP Berwyn – the new, modern prison in north Wales which will hold over two thousand prisoners. The construction of this new prison has already contributed over £100m to the local economy and created around 150 jobs and apprenticeships before doors have even opened.

Port Talbot has been earmarked for a new development as part of the Government’s commitment to build up to 10,000 modern prison places by 2020, backed by £1.3bn to transform the estate.

As well as creating a modern establishment fit for the twenty-first century, the proposed new build will also act as a boost to the Welsh economy – creating hundreds of jobs in the construction and manufacturing industries, and generating countless opportunities for thriving community businesses.

Final decisions on the new prison will be subject to planning approvals, as well as value for money and affordability.

Prisons Minister Sam Gyimah said: “We cannot hope to reduce reoffending until we build prisons that are places of reform where hard-work and self-improvement flourish.”

“Outdated prisons, with dark corridors and cramped conditions, will not help offenders turn their back on crime – nor do they provide our professional and dedicated prison officers with the right tools or environment to do their job effectively.” the Custodial Review

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placed into specialist centres, under new rules published on 21 April 2017 by Prisons Minister Sam Gyimah.

Three separation centres are being created and will form part of the wider government strategy to tackle extremism in prisons, holding up to 28 of the most subversive offenders, preventing their influence over others.

Secretary of State for Wales Alun Cairns said: “I am delighted that Port Talbot has been selected as a preferred location for one of the four newest additions to the UK’s prisons estate.”

“Berwyn prison has already had a positive impact on the regional economy of North Wales. A new South Wales prison will bring its own economic opportunities - including new jobs and contracts for local suppliers, and will significantly accelerate the government’s aim of replacing old, uneconomic prisons with modern, more cost-effective facilities.”

Prisons Minister Sam Gyimah has unveiled plans for the building of a new prison in South Wales – creating hundreds of modern prison places and replacing old and overcrowded establishments with new, fit for purpose buildings.

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“I am pleased that Wales is leading the way in providing facilities designed with rehabilitation in mind as well as the traditional security which the public rightly expects.”

An amendment to prison rules laid before Parliament means prisoners can be placed in a separation centre if they are involved in planning terrorism or are considered to pose a risk to national security.

Those who are spreading views that might encourage or influence others to commit terrorism crimes, or anyone whose views are being used in a way which undermines good order and security in prisons, may also be placed in one of the centres.

The first centre will be up and running at HMP Frankland in the coming weeks, with 2 further units to follow at other establishments.

Prisons Minister Sam Gyimah said:

In creating a modern prison estate, old and inefficient prisons will be closed and replaced by the new accommodation. A programme of valuation work will now begin to help inform further decisions about the estate.

Announcements on prison closures will be made later in the year.

“Any form of extremism must be defeated wherever it is found, and it is right that we separate those who pose the greatest risk in order to limit their influence over other prisoners.”

The announcement builds on ambitious reforms to improve safety in prisons, including an additional £100m to bolster frontline staff by 2,500.

“These centres are a crucial part of our wider strategy to help tackle extremism in prisons and ensure the safety and security of both our prisons and the wider public.”

This wholescale, organisational reform will be supported by measures within the Prisons and Court Bill, which will set out a new framework and clear system of accountability for prisons, building on the wide-ranging reforms set out in the Prison Safety and Reform White Paper.

“A prisoner will be considered for one of the centres if their behaviour behind bars meets one of the criteria included in the new prison rule and the level of risk they present can only be managed through separation.”

Dangerous extremists to be separated from mainstream prison population Three separation centres are being created and will form part of the wider government strategy to tackle extremism in prisons.

Dangerous extremists will be separated from the mainstream prison population and Page 4

“Once in a centre, they will be reviewed by experts every 3 months and will only be returned to the mainstream prison population if it is considered that the risk they present has reduced to a level that can be effectively managed there.”

“The introduction of the centres was one of the principal recommendations of a government-commissioned independent review into extremism in prisons. The vast majority of the recommendations are being implemented.” continues overleaf u

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“The government takes the threat of radicalisation and extremism in prisons extremely seriously and has built on the recommendations in the review to further boost efforts to tackle extremism.”

The centres form part of the wider strategy to tackle extremism, which includes:

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The formation of a new directorate for Security, Order and Counter-Terrorism - responsible for monitoring and dealing with the evolving threat of extremism.

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A launch of a new unit that will analyse intelligence and advise prisons in England and Wales on how to deal with specific threats, as well as instruct and train prison and probation staff on how best to deter offenders from being lured into extremism.

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Extremist literature being banned from prisons

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The removal of anyone from communal worship who is promoting dangerous views.

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A new training package to identify, report and combat extremism being rolled out to all prison officers and new preemployment vetting check for chaplains and imams being introduced from February 2017.

The government announced in August its response to a report into extremism in prisons plans ‘to create specialist units within the high security estate to allow greater separation and specialised management of extremists who pose the highest risk to other prisoners’.

New squad formed to tackle drone threat to prisons The new squad is the latest step in efforts to disrupt drugs and mobile phones in prisons.

A specialist squad of prison and police officers has been formed to tackle the threat drones pose to prison security, Prisons Minister Sam Gyimah has revealed.

The team of investigators will work closely with national law enforcement agencies and HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) to inspect drones that have been recovered from prisons in a bid to identify and track down those involved in attempts to smuggle in contraband.

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It follows recent successful convictions of a number of offenders, including two offenders whose collective sentence spans over a decade – the most significant to date.

Prisons Minister Sam Gyimah said:

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training of over 300 drug detection dogs to specifically detect psychoactive substances.

The Government has made it a criminal offence to possess any psychoactive substance in a prison, an offence which is punishable by up to two years.

“We are absolutely determined to tackle the illegal flow of drugs and mobile phones into our prisons and turn them into places of safety and reform.”

Proposed changes in the Prisons and Courts Bill will make it easier for prisons to test offenders for emerging dangerous psychoactive substances, whilst all prisons have been equipped with portable and fixed detectors to tackle phones.

“The threat posed by drones is clear, but our dedicated staff are committed to winning the fight against those who are attempting to thwart progress by wreaking havoc in establishments all over the country.”

A £3 million intelligence hub to tackle gang crime behind bars has also been established by the Justice Secretary.

“My message to those who involve themselves in this type of criminal activity is clear; we will find you and put you behind bars.”

“The newly-formed team of officers will contain staff from the police and HMPPS. They will bring together intelligence from across prisons and the police to identify lines of inquiry, which will then be passed to local forces and organised crime officers.”

This announcement comes after the longest sentence of this type was handed down on Friday 31 March. A joint operation between police and prison officers led to the arrest of Remo White-Channer and Romaine Gayle.

The two were jailed for six years and six months and four years and four months respectively for attempting to flood prisons across Hertfordshire, Suffolk and Kent with contraband worth around £48,000.

As part of a crime group they used drones to try and fly packages containing cannabis, spice and heroin, as well as phones into three different prisons. The strong sentences send a clear message that those found flying drones into prisons will face significant time behind bars.

In December, Dean Rawley-Bell, 21, was jailed for four years and eight months after he used a drone in attempts to smuggle drugs and mobile phones into HMP Manchester.

In October, drug dealer Renelle Carlisle, 23, was jailed for three years and four months after he was caught outside HMP Risley in Warrington with a drone in his bag, trying to smuggle drugs inside.

Crucially, this new set-up will investigate the specific drones use by individuals around prisons.

And in July, 37-year-old Daniel Kelly was locked up for 14 months for trying to supply offenders at HMP Elmley and Swaleside in Sheppey, HMP Wandsworth in London and HMP The Mount in Hemel Hempstead with contraband.

The latest crackdown will help disrupt the flow of drugs and mobile phones, which hinder attempts to create prisons that are places of safety and reform, and where offenders have the chance to turn their lives around.

The new squad is the latest step in efforts to disrupt drugs and mobile phones in prisons.

The Justice Secretary has secured funding for 2,500 extra frontline prison officers, as well as introducing mandatory drug testing and the

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(*See the article on p30 from PDA Electronics about an electronic method of drone deterrence- Editor)

Justice Secretary Elizabeth Truss unveils landmark Prisons and Courts Bill The Prisons and Courts Bill paves the way for the biggest overhaul of prisons in a generation and delivery of a world-class court system.

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Historic Prisons and Courts Bill will transform the lives of offenders and put victims at the heart of the justice system, helping to create a safer and better society.

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New legislation underpins measures outlined in the ground-breaking Prison Safety and Reform White Paper, which will transform how our prisons operate.

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Modernisation of our courts will improve access to justice, better protect the vulnerable and further enhance our status as a world-leading centre for dispute resolution.

On 23rd February 2017, Justice Secretary Elizabeth Truss unveiled the historic Prisons and Courts Bill, paving the way for the biggest overhaul of prisons in a generation and the delivery of a world-class court system.

This key piece of legislation will underpin measures in the recently published Prison Safety and Reform White Paper, and will help transform how our prisons are run. Prisons will punish people who break the law and give offenders the skills they need to turn their lives around, driving down the £15 billion annual cost to society of reoffending.

It sets in law for the first time that a key purpose of prisons is to reform offenders, as well as punish them for the crimes they have committed.

Victims and vulnerable witnesses are also central to the Prisons and Courts Bill, with a range of measures that will bolster their protection in court.

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The government is giving courts the power to put an end to domestic violence victims being quizzed by their attackers in the family courts, calling time on what the Justice Secretary has described as a “humiliating and appalling” practice. This follows an urgent review she commissioned last month.

Car insurance premiums will also be cut by around £40 a year, with new fixed tariffs capping whiplash compensation pay-outs and a ban on claims without medical evidence, helping to crack down on the compensation culture epidemic.

Justice Secretary Elizabeth Truss said: “Prison is about punishing people who have committed heinous crimes, but it should be a place where offenders are given the opportunity to turn their lives around.”

“I want our prisons to be places of discipline, hard work and self-improvement, where staff are empowered to get people off drugs, improve their English and maths and get a job on release.”

“Our courts should be places where victims get the justice they deserve, and where our outstanding independent judiciary can flourish and focus on the cases that matter.”

The Justice secretary went on to say “These changes build on and underpin measures contained in the Prison Safety Reform White Paper, which highlights how the government will drive reform in our prisons.”

Governors will take control of budgets for education, employment and health and they will be held to account for getting people off drugs, into jobs and learning English and maths.

Data for league tables detailing how prisons are performing in these areas will be publicly available from October 2017.

Across the country, more than 2,000 new senior positions are being created for our

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valued and experienced officers to be promoted into. These posts, which include specialist mental health training, will have a salary of up to £30,000.

Prisons and Courts Bill measures relating to courts underline the government’s commitment to victims and the most vulnerable, as well as improving the system for those who use it every day. We are making our courts more open and modern to help cement our place as a world-leader.

Key measures within the legislation will make our courts swifter, more accessible and easier to use for everyone. They will be efficient and fit-for-purpose, with facilities across the entire estate that are modern, user-friendly, and work in favour of our dedicated judges and magistrates.

The use of virtual hearings will be extended, allowing victims to take part without running the risk of coming face-to-face with their assailant. Many hearings, such as bail applications, will be resolved via video or telephone conferencing, allowing justice to be delivered more swiftly.

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also be the most modern, because we have a vision for a justice system that truly works for everyone.Victims and the most vulnerable are at the centre of our changes, which will help deliver swifter and more certain justice for all.”

“We want courts that are efficient and fitfor-purpose, with facilities across the entire estate that are modern, user-friendly, and work in favour of our hard-working and dedicated judges and magistrates.”

The Prisons and Courts Bill underpins this vision – building on the good progress we have already made in improving the experience of all users and cementing our reputation for global legal excellence so we can go on attracting business to the United Kingdom.”

Offenders charged with some less serious criminal offences, such as failure to produce a ticket for travel on a train, will be able to

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plead guilty online accept a conviction be issued a penalty and pay that penalty there and then.

Businesses will be able to recover money much more easily, with digital services that allow them to issue and pursue their cases quickly. This will give them vital confidence to do business here, and will enable our justice system to remain the international destination of choice for dispute resolution.

Justice Minister Sir Oliver Heald said: “Britain has the best justice system in the world, but it should

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The All Party Parliamentary Group on Penal Affairs

Lord Ramsbotham has had a varied career, after rising to the rank of General in the Army he became the Chief Inspector of Prisons in 1995. This was a post that he filled for 5 1/2 years during which he had a somewhat confrontational relationship with both Jack Straw and Michael Howard. He was appointed an independent crossbench member of the House of Lords in 2005 where his passionate interest in penal affairs could be realised further. He is now Co-Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Penal Affairs and also President of the Koestler arts awards.

CR Lord Ramsbotham, tell me who and what is the All Party Parliamentary Group on Penal Affairs? Is it like Select Committees but without the formality?

Lord Ramsbotham (LR) All-Party Groups differ from Select Committees as they consist of members of both Houses, and, while minutes of meetings are issued, no official records are published. There are All Party Groups on every conceivable subject, whose meetings are open to the public, particularly those interested in the particular subject. They have to have co-chairs from each House, who, together with the other officers, have to be elected, or re-elected, at a formal annual AGM. The Penal Affairs Group, whose secretariat is provided by the Prison Reform Trust, meets once a month when Parliament is in session.

Having incorporated two other All Party Groups, one on Prison Education and the other on Prison Health, one meeting each year is dedicated to those each of those subjects. the Custodial Review

Otherwise the agenda is discussed with and agreed by the officers, but it tends to include an address by the Secretary of State for Justice, or another Minister each year. Recently the Secretary of State asked for a meeting with us following the publication of her recent White Paper on prisons, and, in the run up to the Prisons and Courts Bill, we have had briefings about various aspects of penal affairs and the criminal justice system. The most recent speakers were the Inspectors of Prison and Probation, who spoke to us about where the tackling of reoffending is in the country. All meetings are open to members of the public, and a large number of penal organisations are regular attenders. There is always time for questions, but members get first chance. In sum we try to keep ourselves up to date and provide a regular forum for people interested in penal affairs to come and meet practitioners in the field.

CR What is the effect that comes from this exchange of information and opinions?

LR I think the people who attend our meetings are better informed, which is useful when amendments to proposed legislation are tabled. We aim to improve knowledge of penal affairs amongst Members so that they can take a meaningful part in debates. My co-chair, Dominic Grieve MP, who was the Attorney General, is very interested in the rule of law and human rights issues. Being a lawyer, he knows about the courts part of the Prison and Courts Bill, and is very keen that we should have a number of meetings devoted to those issues to enable this information to be spread.

CR Changing topics: Over the last 20 years, has the prisons system got better or worse in your opinion?

LR It’s worse than when I took over as Chief Inspector of Prisons in 1995, which was soon after the 1990 Strangeways riot and the 1991 publication of the White Paper, ‘Custody, Care and Justice’ following the Woolf Report. The White Paper contained 12 priorities that were called ‘The Way Ahead for the Prison Service’ by the then Home Secretary Kenneth Baker.

Unfortunately, none of those priorities have been actioned. Instead various Home Secretaries have taken the Prisons Service in various mad directions. For instance, Jack Straw put prisons and probation together under the National Offender Management Service (NOMS). NOMS is nothing more than a bureaucracy in competition with the Ministry of Justice. Thank God Liz Truss has seen through that, and that it is madness to have both policy and operations in the hands of NOMS, to be judge and jury on their own proceedings. She’s broken up NOMS and taken policy back into the MOJ and left Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service with the operational side.

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Mr Grayling was a disaster as Justice Secretary.

First of all he destroyed Probation which I think was devastating. I must include my condemnation on the officials who didn’t stand up to him. They must have known it was nonsense to align probation with Department of Work and Pensions boundaries and not stick with its alignment with justice and regional boundaries in the country. Secondly to reduce prison staff numbers by a third was absolutely crazy, and I have often wondered how he was allowed to get away with that?

The White Paper, Prison Safety and Reform, which was published last November was a poor successor to Custody, Care and Justice.

My experience in the MOD was that White Papers only resulted from a lot of careful research by a lot of people into a lot of subjects. Prison Safety and Reform bears all the hallmarks of having been written in a hurry by one person.

It is not a White Paper containing direction that can be turned into legislation, but a series of ideas which, to my mind, were just for consultation. Rather than announcing it as a blueprint for the biggest reform of prisons in a generation I think that Liz Truss should have revisited the 12 priorities of 1991, and that her thinking ahead, should have included unravelling some of the nonsenses introduced between 1991 and 2016. The 1991 White Paper was written following the biggest crisis in the prison system and the marvellous report on it, written by Lord Justice Woolf, is one of the great penal documents of all time.

Had successive Secretaries of State built on it, and the resulting White Paper, they could have gone forward, however they didn’t.

CR Do we seem to be at a tipping point now?

LR I think that Liz Truss has done two very brave things in the proposed new Bill. First of all she has put herself in the firing line, as being statutorily accountable for rehabilitation. Up to now the Secretaries of State for Justice have only been responsible for housing prisoners.

I think is very brave of her to now say, “The buck stops with me, and I should be held accountable.” The second brave thing she has done is to make the Prisons Inspectorate responsible for holding her to account, by inspecting and declaring if prisons are failing and demanding that the Secretary of State for Justice should put it right. These changes give a structure on which to build. My concern is, and

I have mentioned it to Liz Truss, is not what is in the Bill but what is not. Both Houses have a chance now to put this right, by tabling amendments to it, so as to make certain that many of the things that are missing are included in the law that eventually comes out.

CR Assuming this carries on and Liz Truss makes herself accountable, can you see this reversing the decline that has been happening up to now over the last 15 -20 years?

LR Yes, I can, provided that individuals are made responsible and accountable for particular functions. If you go into any business, hospital or school you will find named people so responsible and accountable. Different parts of an organisation must be run separately, enabling the person at the top to call on the person responsible and make certain that improvements are made. If you look at the Prison Service, with the exception of high security prisons, nobody is in charge of anything.

I always remember going into Parkhurst when I was HMIP and asking the governor what the aim of his prison was. He said, “To save £500,000 by the end of the financial year.” I said, “That’s not what I asked. Why should a prisoner be sent here, and what has he got

to do to get out? How are you going to help him?” He said, “It is all very well you talking like that but my line manager tells me my aim is to save £500,000!”

If you look at all the parts of the prison system, from local prisons to training prisons, resettlement prisons, women’s prisons, young offender’s prisons, you will find that nobody is in charge. If you look at any prison’s inspection reports over the years you will see it going up and down, depending on the ability of individual Governors, none of whom are bound to carry on from where their predecessor left off.

Governors can interpret the myriads of targets and performance indicators, that come gushing forth from NOMS, in their own way.That there has been no continuity of improvement, is largely because no one has been made responsible for making good practice in one prison common practice in all prisons of its type.

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I would also include in responsibility and accountability certain types of prisoner – sex offenders, lifers, foreign nationals, the elderly, and indeterminate sentence prisoners - who are scattered in prisons all over the country.

Someone should be held responsible for making certain that their sentence plans are successfully followed through, and that prisoners get the treatment outlined in their sentence plan. None of this actually happens.

CR Under the proposals that Liz Truss has put forward, that include devolving authority down to governors for spending and delivery of service, there was much made of unwinding of a hundred NOMS regulations. Can you see that giving governors autonomy is some way of this lack of accountability being challenged?

LR I hope so. There are two words in this. One is ‘what’ and the other is ‘how’.

Governors need to be told ‘what’ to do, and then they should have the autonomy over ‘how’ they do it. What’s happened over the years is that instead of saying ‘what’, NOMS has issued torrents of ‘how’. If a governor is in a local prison, they should be told what to do by the Director of Local Prisons, in line continues overleaf u

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The All Party Parliamentary Group on Penal Affairs continued with directions given to all Governors of local prisons. Governors should be allowed autonomy over ‘how’ they do it according to the local area, because all local conditions will be different. That’s where their leadership can be exercised, leadership being the most powerful driver of outcomes.

Michael Gove mentioned improving autonomy but I don’t think he had actually worked out the difference between ‘what’ and ‘how’. I’m not happy about his six reform prisons being under separate legislation, because it implied that their Governors are going to have freedom over ‘what’ they do, which can’t be good in an overall system.

Autonomy of ‘how’? Yes, I’m all in favour. I remember, when commanding my regiment in Belfast, that it was a very lonely job. Of course ‘how’ I operated in my area was up to me, but I was extremely glad that I had a Brigadier above me who commanded all the battalions, and so was able to put what was required of me in context.

CR Do you see that putting probation and prisons together so it is ‘seamless through the gate’ is going to work?

LR No. I have always hated that. Soon after I became Chief Inspector I tried to find an analogy for prisons in the criminal justice system. The nearest one I could come up with was the position of hospitals in the NHS. Neither has any control over who comes in, but they have to try and make the ‘patient’ better, whilst conscious that the process of ‘healing’ is not going to be completed in either prison or hospital, it is going to have to be continued in the community in the form of aftercare. Both prisons and hospitals are the acute part of their service and the patient or criminal should only go to them if they need the treatment that only they can provide. If you choke either with all sorts of people who shouldn’t be there, the staff can’t do what should with the people who need to be there.

If only the criminal justice system’s default position was in the community we could get better progress.

If prisons were regarded as the acute part of the service, where you only went if you needed the treatment that only they could give, I think this could be a clue how to reduce the numbers in prison. Politicians would have to consider what parts of the community sentencing programme needed to be strengthened, in order to enable them to do their job better. Making probation subordinate to prisons shows a wrong appreciation.

I’ve always thought that one Minister should be made responsible for that part of the Criminal Justice System that is responsible for administering the sentences of the courts, with the Custodial Review

four equal subordinates. One would be the Director General of the Prison Service, and another the Director General of the Probation Service. The third should be the Chairman of the Youth Justice Board, fourth the Chairman of a Women’s Justice Board, responsible for women serving custodial or community sentences. I am interested to see that in Liz Truss’s Bill someone is to be responsible for women in the criminal justice system.

When she and I were talking recently I suggested to her that such a system would work, in the same way that the Director of High Security Prisons has worked ever since that appointment was introduced, by Michael Howard, on the advice of a military contemporary after the escape from Parkhurst.

He, like me, saw there was no structure, and knew that, unless you someone is in charge, nothing will happen. As a result of having its own Director, the High Security estate is the best run part of the Prison Service. If Liz Truss finds that the Director of Women works in the same way, she should put people in charge of the other functions. If she did she would find life much easier because, instead of calling on an official, who is likely to give her a fudged answer, she can go straight to the person responsible and find out what’s actually happening, or initiate improvment.

CR What about yourself? How much longer are you going to carry on doing this?

LR As long as it takes! After my surprise introduction to the criminal justice system in 1995 I’ve been fascinated with it. I hadn’t anything to do with it, and had been out of the army for two and a half years, doing a number of other things, when I was rung up by a head hunter who said, “People say you should let your name go forward for the post of HMIP.” I said, “Which people?” and he said, “I can’t tell you!” I said, “What are the qualifications?’ He said, “You’ve got to be under 60.” I said, “I fail already!”

To my intense surprise I was appointed, and have been closely involved ever since. I do find that in parliament, I am in a position to perhaps make improvements, and I think we have been able to do some very positive things over the years and I would like to carry on for as long as I am allowed.

CR I find watching the Prisons Service operate intensely frustrating and I have been watching it for more than 24 years because no one will take the ballsy decision not to lock up so many people. This is the elephant in the room; do you find it frustrating as well?

LR I used to find it frustrating finding Page 10

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out what was going wrong, and publishing recommendations based on facts, only to find nothing happening. I used to tell Jack Straw, that, while I was telling him facts, his officials were telling him fudge, and improvement cannot be based on fudge. My successor at HMIP coined a much more elegant term for this, describing what officials told Ministers as ‘virtual prisons’. The fact is that there are some wonderful people in the prisons system, both staff and volunteers whom I feel should be helped to do what they can do. We used to identify examples of good practice and include them in the reports - over 2,800 in my time - of which only 50 were picked up and run with because there was nobody to do it. This is because there was no coherent operational management structure, no Directors of particular types of prison or prisoner telling Governors ‘what’ they were to do. We found that after our inspections, 94% of our recommendations were carried out in the prison we had inspected, but virtually nothing of what we had said to Prisons Service HQ or Ministers, particularly about management. I admit to being big-headed enough to believe that, after a lifetime in the Army, I knew more about management than they did, but they weren’t prepared to listen.

It is frustrating because identified good practices provide living proof that nothing that can be tried hasn’t been tried already. The Butler Trust makes annual awards to individual Prison and Probation staff. I find the actual award ceremony, performed by the Princess Royal, the most inspiring and depressing day of the year. It is inspiring because you hear wonderful descriptions of what people have initiated and are doing, but depressing because you know that, all too often, they are merely repeating something that has been done before, in another place, and has fallen by the wayside because a Governor, or the initiator, has moved on.

CR Thank you for talking to Custodial Review.

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The English Jury on Trial

by Dominic Willmott, Daniel Boduszek & Nigel Booth Within the English criminal justice system, trial by jury remains the gold standard means of delivering justice.

The complex mix of evidence against those accused, alongside testimony, which challenges the police interpretation of the facts, is thought to be resolved simply through exposure to a jury of our peers. Of course in practice, things are unlikely to be so simple. In fact, discussing jury decisions with any police officer typically results in the same opinion being expressed: that the only predictable feature of the jury is their unpredictability.

Nonetheless, in the aftermath of a verdict being returned, the typical response from the public and the press alike, is one of unwavering acceptance.

Irrespective of the media’s portrayal of a defendant pre-trial (often rooted in a presumption of guilt), once the jury has decided otherwise, rarely will this be challenged. Public opinion polls consistently display high levels of support for trial by jury, with more than 80% of British citizens strongly advocating use of the system.

Likewise, those working within the judiciary, appear to share such a view. The previous Attorney General Dominic Grieve, responsible for all prosecutions brought in England until mid-2014, stated the jury system to be an essential feature of British justice, “deeply ingrained in our national DNA”. the Custodial Review

Dominic Willmott

Dominic Willmott is a Doctoral Researcher in Forensic & Criminal Psychology based at the University of Huddersfield and a Lecturer in Psychology at Leeds Trinity University. His PhD research focuses on psychological influences upon juror decisions, specifically within sexual offence trials. Contact: dominic.willmott@hud.ac.uk Daniel Boduszek is a Professor of Criminal Psychology based at the University of Huddersfield. Daniel’s current research interests and publications include psychopathy, criminal social identity & criminal thinking styles, mental health in prisons, and homicidal behaviour.

Contact: d.boduszek@hud.ac.uk Nigel Booth is a Criminal barrister of more than twenty years’ experience. He studied Law with German Law at Kings College London. Practicing out of Manchester’s St. Johns Buildings Chambers, Nigel has a particular interest and expertise in both prosecuting and defending sexual offences.

Despite this, over recent year’s critics of the jury system have steadily begun to grow, particularly within the academic community and appearing to be the result of an increasing number of cases where questionable verdicts were returned. Cases that police officers describe as ‘nailed shut’ routinely fail to obtain guilty verdicts and those generating strong public opinion appear most susceptible to bias, leaving many involved asking, what other factors may influence the decision to vote guilty – or not?

English Jury Trials Within England and Wales trial by jury takes place when an individual pleads not guilty to a serious crime and, if found guilty, they face a possible sentence of a considerable number of years in prison. Around 30,000 cases progress to full trial each year, resulting in approximately

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400,000 jurors being summoned to take part.

Interestingly, unlike in other countries where those selected are questioned extensively before the trial begins, within England the law prevents jurors from being asked almost anything related to the case. The reasoning for this being that the random selection of jurors, without the need for qualifying features (except for age, sound mental health, and a lack of criminal convictions), is highly regarded within the English system and, in fact, considered to be fundamental to the fairness of verdicts. This broad inclusion criteria is thought to ensure varied and representative members of the community are present within different cases. As such, huge value (and trust) is placed in the random composition of 12 people from the local community, each of whom bring alternative views and opinions continues overleaf u

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Website: www.edesix.com Twitter @edesix the Custodial Review

The English Jury on Trial continued on the case.Yet with such a wide spectrum of people acting as jurors, comes a whole host of associated biases. Biases which bring the assumption of juror impartiality into question.

Research, emerging largely out of the United States, has shown that the personal characteristics of jurors themselves may have a bearing on the verdicts they return. Factors such as the variation in juror age across the jury panel, as well as racial and gender composition, have all been shown to have some influence upon the final judgements made. In fact, more recently, research has shown that - irrespective of the evidence presented at trial - attitudes that jurors hold towards specific aspects of a case may themselves be able to predict the decisions that individual jurors will make. For example, jurors who hold strong attitudes towards drug use were shown to be much more likely to vote guilty when presented with defendants accused of drug related crimes, regardless of the level of evidence implicating them for such. Whilst this seems somewhat obvious, consideration of the likely ramifications of such juror attitudes upon death penalty verdicts within the United States, highlights the problems therein. Clearly, evidence of a relationship between juror attitudes and the verdict decisions they make, raises serious questions surrounding how impartial and fair juror decision making truly is.

Rape Trials:Time for an Overhaul?

One offence that generates fierce public opinion and debate is the crime of rape.

Despite police figures revealing that false allegations represent just a small proportion of all reported rapes, the common public view towards those reporting such crimes remains one of disbelief and discontent. Substantial evidence exists which displays how widespread inaccurate beliefs surrounding how a ‘real rape victim’ behaves, alongside misconceptions of the typical motivations for claiming rape, are in society. These attitudes are so profound that judges must now routinely warn jurors against drawing upon these false beliefs when making decisions during the trial. However, the extent to which these instructions are taken into consideration remains questionable.

In an attempt to test whether juror bias affects the fairness of decision making, a new approach was devised. Members of the public were invited to take on the role of the jury in much the same way as real juries are selected. In total, 108 individuals responded to the mock summonses and took part in nine separate mock trials. The research began by examining not only juror attitudes, but their psychological make-up too. Every ‘juror’ completed attitudinal and personality assessments, some of which have never before been applied to jurors in this context (For example, Psychopathic Personality Traits

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Scale, Boduszek et al, 2016). Then, with the participation of real lawyers and professional actors, the jurors observed a reconstruction of a genuine rape case over the course of an entire day. The case used was selected as it had equal evidence in favour of both the complainant’s and defendant’s version of events. Alongside this, there was also little other objective evidence for jurors to go on, something that is commonplace within ‘acquaintance’ rapes, which tend to take place in private and between people in some way known to one another.

So far, the findings have led to some important insights. For example, results displayed that juror attitudes were significantly associated with who they believed to be telling the truth, with those scoring high in rape supportive attitudes shown to be much more likely to disbelieve the complainant and believe the defendant. In fact, despite the alleged victim and perpetrator accounts being equally matched in terms of the evidence, all nine trials resulted in not guilty verdicts.

Whilst it is of course possible that some of these verdicts were the result of jurors simply feeling they were not sure beyond a reasonable doubt, evidence of high levels of rape bias appear to suggest overall this was not the case. More importantly, advanced analytical procedures also displayed that scores on factors such as affective responsiveness, cognitive responsiveness, egocentricity, and interpersonal manipulation, were significantly

associated with juror decision making and appear to be predictive of the verdicts jurors will choose.

So what does this mean for the fairness of jury decision making? Well, if a relationship exists between a jurors’ psychological makeup, attitudes towards rape and ultimate verdict returned, this would strongly suggest preconceived biases have much more of a direct influence upon the fairness of rape trials than has previously been portrayed.

Should the jury system in England therefore be overhauled and abolished? We argue not.

Should it be modernised and reviewed based upon scientific evidence? Most definitely, which in turn will make for fairer verdicts. Not just for defendants, but for complainants and victims as well.

Key References:

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Boduszek, D., Debowska, A., Dhingra, K., & DeLisi, M. (2016). Introduction and validation of Psychopathic Personality Traits Scale (PPTS) in a large prison sample. Journal of Criminal Justice, 46, 9-17.

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Debowska, A., Boduszek, D., & Willmott, D. (2017). Psychosocial correlates of attitudes towards male sexual violence in a sample of property crime, financial crime, general violent, and homicide offenders. Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment.

DOI: 10.1177/1079063217691966

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Willmott, D. (2017). Jury Psychology.

In B. Baker, R. Minhas, & L. Wilson (Eds.) What you need to know about Psychology and Law: Factbook Volume II. European Association of Psychology and Law.

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HMYOI Parc Juvenile Unit – safety had deterioriated Although there was still much to commend at Parc, the deterioration in safety and general standards needed to be halted, said Peter Clarke, Chief Inspector of Prisons. On 18 April 2017 he published the report of an unannounced inspection of the young offender institution in South Wales.

HMYOI Parc’s young people’s unit can hold up to 64 boys aged under 18 and is located in the much larger Parc prison. It was last inspected in January 2016 and at that time, and in keeping with previous inspections, inspectors reported positively, although some deterioration was noted. At this more recent inspection, inspectors recorded further deterioration in safety and in maintaining a respectful and decent environment. Procedures and practice to support child protection and safeguarding had worsened significantly. Safety in general was not good enough.

Inspectors were concerned to find that:

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some 42% of boys said when surveyed that they felt victimised by others and 60% felt victimised by staff, which is a significant increase and worse than at comparable young offender institutions; The number of assaults on staff had increased from two to 22 when compared to the six months prior to the previous inspection; Strategies, policies and initiatives existed which intended to reduce violence and intimidation and promote positive behaviour, but they were not applied consistently or effectively; There was insufficient visible leadership on the unit and staff, while generally caring, lacked authority or confidence; Too many boys at risk of self-harm were left isolated and alone in their cell; Environmentally, standards and cleanliness were not good enough; and The amount of time boys spent out of cell had worsened.

However, inspectors were pleased to find that:

• • • • •

Security procedures on the unit were proportionate and had mitigated the influence of illegal drugs; Health care services were mostly good; The delivery of learning and skills was starting to improve, with good quality teaching and good achievements by boys; Services to help boys resettle back into the community were improving and planning for release was generally satisfactory; and Work with families was excellent.

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Peter Clarke said: “The young offender institution at Parc has over recent years been one about which we have been very positive. Arguably it had been one of the best of such institutions and had a number of advantages, not least its small size. There remained still much to commend, notably the provision of learning and skills and resettlement services. The small number of boys held presented significant individual and behavioural challenges. That said, the deterioration in safety and general standards on the unit needed to be reversed. Systems and procedures were in place but they were not working. A firmer grip and visible leadership were needed urgently. Staff needed guidance and support and greater confidence in establishing their authority and exercising better control over what was happening.”

Michael Spurr, Chief Executive of HM Prison and Probation Service, said: “The Director at Parc has taken firm action in response to the Inspectorate’s findings.

“Both the custodial and teaching staff groups have been strengthened and 70 staff have received additional training to support them in working with children with complex needs.

Since the inspection took place there has been a reduction in the number of incidents, fights and the use of restraint.

“As the Chief Inspector says, the regime at Parc has much to commend it, but providing a safe and respectful environment is crucial. Good progress has been made to address concerns and Parc are working with partners including the Children’s Commissioner for Wales’ Office to achieve sustained improvement”.

West Midlands and Warwickshire court custody - reasonably positive

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custody facilities in use, including four Crown courts, seven magistrates’ courts, a youth court and an immigration and asylum tribunal. HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) had contracted GEOAmey to manage court custody and escort services on behalf of HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) in the region.

Working relationships among the three key agencies responsible for delivering court custody were good. It was positive that the key stakeholders, in particular HMCTS, accepted responsibility for the overall care and welfare of detainees.

Staffing levels were adequate and despite some weaknesses in training, custody staff dealt with detainees professionally and, on the whole, paid reasonable attention to their welfare needs during their time in court cells.

Release arrangements were generally good and staff made sure that detainees left court custody safely.

Inspectors were, however, concerned to find that:

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the frequency of observations in a small number of cases, particularly for vulnerable detainees, was not adhered to as required;

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despite cases being prioritised, some detainees spent long periods in court custody due to delays in the attendance of duty solicitors, arriving at court early for an afternoon listing and delays in the authority to release from prison;

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investment in the estate was needed to address some of the conditions inspectors found; and

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handcuffs were applied in secure areas which was often unnecessary and, in the absence of individual risk assessments, could be disproportionate.

Peter Clarke said: “This was a reasonably positive inspection.

While we had significant concerns about some unnecessarily long stays, handcuffing practice and the physical environment in court custody facilities across West Midlands and Warwickshire, we found much good attention to detainee care. We have made recommendations to improve the safety and care of people detained in court custody.”

People detained in court cells were looked after reasonably well but there were some concerns, said Peter Clarke, Chief Inspector of Prisons. On 21 April he published the report of an inspection of court custody facilities in West Midlands and Warwickshire.

Brook House Immigration Removal Centre – clear improvements

The inspection was part of a series of inspections of court custody carried out by HM Inspectorate of Prisons. At the time of inspection there were 13 courts that had

Brook House immigration removal centre had made clear improvements, and staff are to be congratulated, said Peter Clarke, Chief Inspector of Prisons. On 10 March 2017 he

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published the report of an unannounced inspection of the immigration removal centre near Gatwick Airport.

Brook House and a neighbouring immigration removal centre (IRC), Tinsley House, are both operated by G4S and are collectively known as Gatwick IRC. Brook House held just under 400 adult male detainees during the inspection.

At that time, Tinsley House was closed for refurbishment and some of the detainees and most of the staff had been temporarily moved to Brook House. The last inspection was in 2013. As with all IRCs, the major challenge for staff was to manage the frustration felt by many detainees at the length of their detention and the uncertainty surrounding their future.

The centre was assessed as “reasonably good” in all four healthy establishment tests: safety, respect, activities and preparation for removal or release.

Inspectors were pleased to find that:

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Most detainees said they felt safe and levels of violence were fairly low;

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Levels of self-harm were lower than at the previous inspection and those at risk of self-harm were generally positive about the care they received;

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Staff-detainee relationships were a particular strength;

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equality and diversity structures were robust: reasonable use was made of

interpretation for those who did not speak English, support for those with identified disabilities was well organised and attention had been given to detainees in the oldest and youngest age groups;

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There was enough work for most detainees, good access to the library and although the range of education was limited, teaching and learning were good; and

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Welfare services had improved and detainees spoke positively of the support they received from welfare staff.

However, inspectors were concerned to find that:

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The average length of detention at Brook House had increased from 28 to 48 days but there did not appear to have been any analysis as to why this had happened;

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There were some serious delays in some individual cases, with 23 detainees held for over a year and four of these for over two years; and

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The residential units very closely resembled the conditions found in prisons, and these were exacerbated by poor ventilation and unsatisfactory sanitary facilities.

Peter Clarke said: “Overall, this was an encouraging inspection.

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The centre had improved upon the standards we found at the last inspection, and on this occasion was assessed as ‘reasonably good’ in all four of our healthy establishment areas.

This also marks excellent progress from the standards we were seeing at Brook House when it first opened. There is no doubt in my mind that the standards now being observed at the centre are the result of a great deal of hard work by the management and staff.

They should be congratulated on their efforts and I hope are encouraged by this report to maintain and build upon the clear improvements they had made.”

HMP Durham – progress too slow HMP Durham had many strengths but the pace of progress was too slow and it was not safe enough, said Peter Clarke, Chief Inspector of Prisons. On 7 March 2017 he published the report of an unannounced inspection of the local jail.

HMP Durham, in the city centre, dates from the early 19th century. It serves courts in the North East and Cumbria and holds just under 1000 prisoners in often overcrowded accommodation. Nearly half of those held were remanded or serving short sentences.

The high levels of need among the population continues overleaf u the Custodial Review

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were clearly evident and a significant challenge.

During the inspection, inspectors were told of plans to designate Durham as a reception prison with the principal purpose of holding remanded and unsentenced prisoners.

Previous inspections, and this more recent inspection, acknowledged the many positive features of the work done at this prison. The pace of progress, however, has been slow. The prison was still not safe enough. The prison’s work to help prisoners resettle back into the community had deteriorated, as had education, skills and training provision for prisoners.

Inspectors were concerned to find that:

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Four prisoners had taken their own lives since the last inspection in 2013 and there was a further tragic death the week following the inspection. The prison was trying to learn lessons from those deaths and men in crisis said they felt well cared for; Although levels of violence remained broadly unchanged and most incidents were low level, more prisoners said they felt unsafe at the prison than during previous inspections; Just under half the prisoners when surveyed said that illicit drugs were readily available in the prison; Arrangements when prisoners first arrived at the prison were generally poor, which was a major risk in a prison responsible for receiving those new to custody;

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health interventions; Substance misuse services were very good; The quality of teaching and training was good and achievement was high on most courses; Public protection arrangements were robust; and Work with the children and families of prisoners continued to be a real strength.

Peter Clarke said:

“This is a disappointing report. The prison had many strengths, not least a strong local identity and generally friendly staff, but the culture was not as constructive or purposeful as it should have been. It was striking how little had changed since our last inspection, with a passivity, even complacency, about what was needed to take the prison forward. Plans to redefine the prison’s role and purpose arguably provide an opportunity to develop greater momentum towards improvement.”

Michael Spurr, Chief Executive of the National Offender Management Service, said:

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47% of prisoners were locked up or not purposefully occupied during the core day and although most prisoners benefited from some time out of cell in the morning or afternoon, not enough was done to ensure prisoners attended work, training or education;

“The Governor has already taken action to address concerns about reception, first night care and self-harm. Additional staff are also being recruited at Durham and across the Prison Service to improve prisoner supervision and support and I’m confident that with these resources in place the Governor will be able to significantly improve the performance of the prison.”

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Staff-prisoner relationships were improving and inspectors observed commendable interaction and care by many staff, as well as disinterest and lack of care by others; The provision of health care was reasonable with some excellent mental

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HMP Eastwood Park provided some good care to women, but was less stable than previously, said Peter Clarke, Chief Inspector of Prisons.

On 9 March 2017 he published the report of an unannounced inspection of the women’s prison in Gloucestershire.

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The prison remained reasonably safe for most women;

“As HMI Prisons say, assaults have fallen since the last inspection and robust arrangements are in place to keep the public safe, but there is more to do.

HMP Eastwood Park – a well-led women’s prison, showing signs of being under strain

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Inspectors were pleased to find that:

Although communal areas were reasonably clean, cells were often overcrowded, dirty and not properly equipped;

The work of the two community rehabilitation companies (CRCs) and the offender management unit was not integrated well enough.

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The population remained vulnerable. Many women were a long way from home, which was a problem for those with dependent children. Nearly half of the women had a disability and over three quarters reported mental health or emotional well-being issues.

Over half of women said they had issues with drugs, while over a third reported having alcohol problems. Levels of self-harm had increased and were relatively high overall.

Many women continued to report a history of abuse, rape, domestic violence and involvement in prostitution. There had been three selfinflicted deaths in 2016, the first at Eastwood Park for many years.

The use of force had increased threefold, and levels were now higher than at similar prisons;

Many prisoners were transferred on from Durham without a completed assessment of the risks they posed; and

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HMP Eastwood Park held around 400 women, 100 more than at its last inspection in 2013.

The prison housed women with varied circumstances, including those remanded by the courts, a number serving very long sentences and a small group serving indeterminate sentences. It also held some young adult women aged 18 to 21. Most of the women spent short periods at the prison before being released or moved to another prison. The prison served a wide catchment area which had been extended further following the closure of HMP Holloway to encompass nearly all of the south-western quarter of England and Wales.

“The illicit supply of psychoactive drugs has undermined safety in Durham and tackling this, with the support of the Police, is a priority for the Governor.

However, inspectors were pleased to find that:

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Care and support for the most vulnerable women was generally strong and good relationships and time out of their cells and activities mitigated some other problems; Issues with illegal drugs and the diversion of prescribed medications were generally well managed and disciplinary processes were used proportionately; The high levels of mental health need were being matched with some very good treatment; Staff-prisoner relationships remained strong, although staffing shortages had led to some staff being very stretched; Work, training and education were generally well managed; and Work to resettle women back into the community remained reasonably good but more needed to be done to involve women in sentence planning.

However, inspectors were concerned to find that:

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Levels of violence had increased and, while most problems were minor, more women than previously, or compared with similar prisons, said in a survey that they felt unsafe at some time or they had been victimised by other prisoners; continues overleaf u

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the Custodial Review

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Like other women’s local resettlement prisons, Eastwood Park had significant problems supporting women to find secure accommodation on release.

Although support in maintaining and developing contact with families was generally good, many women had not had a visit while at the prison, and the prison needed to explore the reasons behind this and offer support if appropriate.

“Nevertheless, the prison had a good staff culture that underpinned decent and respectful relationships with the women held.

The prison’s committed leadership and staff needed to galvanise their efforts to address challenges, capitalise on the opportunities presented by the forthcoming injection of additional resources, and build on the strengths of the institution.”

HMP Garth – an unsafe prison HMP Garth had made real progress in work to rehabilitate prisoners, but it was very unsafe and violence had increased substantially, said Peter Clarke, Chief Inspector of Prisons.

On 19th April he published the report of an unannounced inspection of the Lancashire training prison.

HMP Garth holds over 800 adult male prisoners. Nearly every prisoner was serving in excess of four years, with half serving over 10 years and 200 serving life. Nearly everyone had been convicted of serious violent offences and just under a quarter of the population were housed in separated accommodation because they had been convicted of sex offences. Garth was managing considerable risk. At its last inspection in 2014, inspectors found a prison experiencing staff shortages and transitioning to a new role and function. Since then, inspectors were told the prison had gone into a steep decline in performance. That

the Custodial Review

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decline had, to an extent, been arrested over the past 18 months, and at this more recent inspection it was clear that progress had been made, notably with work to support the rehabilitation, progression and resettlement of prisoners. The prison, however, was very unsafe.

Inspectors were concerned to find that:

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Levels of violence had increased substantially with many incidents linked to drugs, gangs and debt;

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Assaults on staff had increased and much of the violence was serious;

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around 85 prisoners (in addition to the sex offenders) were held separately because of fears for their safety, the segregation unit was full of prisoners seeking sanctuary and a number of prisoners on the wings were self-isolating and refusing to leave their cells;

Peter Clarke said: “We still considered Eastwood Park to be a well-led, generally safe and decent prison, but it was showing signs of being under strain.

Staffing levels had not kept pace with the rise in population, nor with its increasing complexity. This had been recognised and Eastwood Park was among 10 prisons that would be prioritised to receive additional resources and support. Efforts to understand the recent self-inflicted deaths needed to continue, and urgent action should be taken to address any deficiencies. The increase in violence needed to be addressed with renewed vigour, and aspects of the prison’s activities and resettlement provision required further work.

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The prison had a drug problem, even though security was generally effective and the strategic approach to combating drug supply was improving, leading to some very significant drug finds; Although some staff engaged well with prisoners, some staff lacked confidence, or were dismissive or disengaged, meaning some poor prisoner behaviour went unchallenged;

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Living conditions were very poor in the segregation unit and the staff in the unit were overwhelmed;

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Access to many internal and external health services was inadequate; and

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The promotion of equality and diversity remained weak.

However, inspectors were pleased to find that:

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Mental health provision had increased and was good;

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Prisoners prepared to engage positively could make progress, as time out of cell for most prisoners was reasonable and learning and skills provision was good overall;

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There was enough work, training and education for the population and prisoners achieved well; and

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The high-risk population was served well by some very good offender management work which focused on progression and public protection work was similarly good.

Peter Clarke said: “This was an unusual inspection of contrasting and conflicting outcomes. The progress in rehabilitative work was real and speaks to the potential this establishment has. The prison was, however, one of the most unsafe we have been to in recent times.Violence and

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drugs dominated the prisoner experience.

The prison faces some further uncertainty as a new governor and deputy governor are to be appointed. The management team, in our view, were getting to grips with the challenges they faced, but staff supervision and confidence needed to get better and there needed to be some new thinking on how to reduce violence and maintain better control on the wings.”

Michael Spurr, Chief Executive of HM Prison & Probation Service, said: “As the Chief Inspector points out, there is much good work being done at HMP Garth but the deterioration in safety is a serious concern and reversing this is the top priority.

“An experienced senior management team has been appointed to work alongside a new Governor to help drive progress over the coming months.

“This will be supported by additional staffing and resources and an improvement plan, which is already in place to address the issues raised in the report.”

HMP Guys Marsh – very disappointing The most recent inspection of HMP Guys Marsh found failings in almost every area, said Peter Clarke, Chief Inspector of Prisons.

On 11th April he published the report of an announced inspection of the training and resettlement prison in Dorset.

HMP Guys Marsh holds a mixed population of approximately 550 convicted adult male prisoners. The full range of sentences was represented but many were serving longer sentences, including nearly 100 serving in excess of 10 years or indeterminate sentences.

At its last inspection in 2014, inspectors described a prison in crisis where managers and staff had all but lost control. A new governor had been appointed since then.

This more recent inspection was announced in the hope that awareness of an impending inspection would encourage improvement.

Findings were very disappointing. Less than one-third of previous recommendations had been achieved. Inspectors acknowledge the challenges of Guys Marsh, including a relatively remote location and stretched staff resources.

Many of those held were serious, challenging and in some cases organised offenders. That said, far too little had been done to address the concerns raised in the previous report.

Inspectors were concerned to find that:

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The prison remained unsafe, levels of violence were high and rising and the number of assaults on staff had tripled since the 2014 inspection;

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Too much of the violence was serious and many prisoners were seeking sanctuary or self-isolating for their own protection;

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Much of the violence was directly linked to issues of debt among prisoners and the widespread availability of illegal drugs;

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Some 74% of prisoners said they thought illegal drugs were easily available and nearly a quarter indicated they had acquired a drug problem at the prison;

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Three prisoners had taken their own lives since the last inspection in 2014 and although levels of self-harm had not risen, they remained higher than at similar prisons; Many communal areas and much of the accommodation remained in a poor condition and prisoners expressed frustration at their lack of access to basic amenities such as bedding and kit;

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Staff did not always challenge prisoners’ poor behaviour or set effective boundaries on behaviour;

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At any one time, around 30% of prisoners were not engaged in work, training or

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education, even though there were sufficient places; and

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Staff shortages undermined work to help offenders progress through their sentences and reduce the risks they posed, and despite a relatively high-risk population, about half of prisoners did not have a current risk assessment (OASys).

However, inspectors were pleased to find that:

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Most prisoners said they felt respected by staff and inspectors observed friendly if superficial engagement; and Time out of cell was reasonable for most and the management of learning and skills was improving, but too slowly.

Peter Clarke said: “This inspection found failings in almost every area of the prison we looked at. We were advised that HM Prisons and Probation Service (HMPPS) had recognised some of the strategic problems the prison faced, particularly in relation to staffing numbers, with the promise of new resources a cause for some hope and renewed optimism.

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Any progress from the very low base we identified in 2015 had been very recent and was not well embedded. Some very careful thought needed to be given to how to move the prison forward. Improvement had to be based on a careful analysis and understanding of what was actually happening in the prison; an achievable plan which identified clear priorities and determined leadership focused on delivery were needed. This report provides an analysis and recommendations which we hope will assist in that process.”

Michael Spurr CEO of HMPPS said: “Progress at Guys Marsh has been much slower than required reflecting the deepseated challenges facing the prison.

“Additional staffing and resources to tackle the problems are being provided, including an extra 18 Prison Officer posts. A new, experienced Governor has taken charge at the prison. An improvement plan is in place and we will use the recommendations in this report to drive further progress over the coming months.”

the Custodial Review

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Prisoners at High Security Prison enrol at Leeds Beckett University Prisoners at HMP Full Sutton will enrol as students at Leeds Beckett University as they take part in a new degree-level programme within the prison, alongside Criminology students.

Thirteen prisoners at the High Security prison, near Pocklington in East Yorkshire, will study the Learning Together criminology module at the prison together with 11 finalyear Leeds Beckett University students.

The Learning Together course has been developed in partnership with the University of Cambridge which delivers a similar programme; however, the notable difference is that prisoners on the Leeds Beckett course will be registered students, with all participants receiving 20 level six (final year undergraduate) university credits on completion of the module.

Professor Nick Hardwick, Dr Helen Nichols and Dr Bill Davies

HMP Full Sutton Dr Bill Davies, Co-leader of the Prison Research Network at Leeds Beckett University and Senior Lecturer in Criminology, explained: “The Learning Together project gives prisoners that are stuck doing courses below their ability the opportunity to learn at a higher level.

They want to learn and they want the chance to keep occupied. The aim is to offer them a chance to start on a different trajectory for their futures.

“One of the prisoners at Full Sutton has only served five years of his sentence. With 30 years left, he is not allowed to study a degree through the Open University until he has only six years left in prison. Even then, as university-level education involves a lot of critical discussion, this can be difficult through distance learning. Meanwhile, the only courses offered face-to-face within prison are generally at GCSE level or below.” the Custodial Review

Dr Helen Nichols and Dr Bill Davies

Shaun Williamson, Head of Reducing Reoffending at HMP Full Sutton, said: “I am a firm believer that prisoners who are serving long sentences should have access to a wide range of activities which assist in stimulating thought, and providing opportunity to grow and progress. Education is an extremely important conduit in which to assist with this, generating creativity, hope and inspiring a whole range of potential opportunities. It provides real potential for rehabilitation, whether this is during transition back into the wider community or supporting a custodial journey, creating a sense of being and self-worth played out through positive achievements.

“During my own recent studies at the University of Cambridge, and whilst supporting Dr Helen Nichols, Co-Leader of the Prison Research Network and Senior Lecturer in Criminology, through her PhD studies, I was made aware of and introduced to the ‘Learning Together’ initiative which was being developed at Cambridge. I saw this as both an innovative and inclusive way in bridging the gap between the limited delivery in place within prison and access to a higher, more stimulating curriculum.

We have created a transformational learning experience which will provide benefits for all students engaged within the course.

“The framework to the programme will, for Leeds Beckett students, bring to life criminological theory, whereas for the internal students, there is a real prospect of making learning real, creating the chance for positive use of labelling with potential for those prisoners engaging with the module to be seen as university students and future graduates of Leeds Beckett University, rather than being known by, or for their offence.”

The module, which centres around prison itself from a criminology perspective, starts in January and will run for twelve weeks, with one session taking place every two weeks at HMP Full Sutton. Every other week, the prison Page 22

and student groups will meet on their own to discuss the previous week’s topic and look ahead to the coming week.

Topics covered include: justifications of imprisonment – why prison is used as punishment and why we punish; the legitimacy of punishment; the sociological and psychological impacts of long-term imprisonment; rehabilitation and desistance; convict criminology – a strand taught by Dr Bill Davies, a former prisoner himself, around the transition from prison life to academic life; and maintaining prison standards – a strand taught by Nick Hardwick, Head of the Parole Board and former Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons.

Professor Nick Hardwick, Dr Helen Nichols and Dr Bill Davies Professor Nick Hardwick said: “I have had a connection with Leeds Beckett University for a number of years now because I have been very attracted by Dr Bill Davies’s and Dr Helen Nichols’s innovative approaches to prison research and education in prisons. I was very proud to be awarded an honorary doctorate of laws by the university in the summer of 2016.

“Bill and Helen have been at the forefront of developing the ‘Learning Together’ concept in which students are taken into prisons to learn alongside prisoners. Prisoners benefit from being exposed to positive and different external influences whilst it would be a rare student who did not come away from these encounters with a broader outlook on the world. The course is as academically demanding as any held at the university itself, it is the first of its kind to be accredited and we hope it will lead to the model being extended to a wider variety of courses. ” “Being a student is partly about becoming an adult – deciding what kind of person you are. For the students, we hope that

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working together with prisoners with very different backgrounds and in a very different environment, will help give them a breadth of vision and insights that will be an important part of their overall university experience. We know that for prisoners to stop offending they have to see themselves in a different way – to develop ‘a new me’. By the end of the course I hope the prisoner participants will stop seeing themselves as just ‘offenders’ or ‘prisoners’ but see themselves as ‘students’ too with all the possibilities that implies of a new, positive life ahead when their sentence ends.”

Others teaching as guest lecturers include Dr Ben Crewe and Professor Alison Liebling from the Institute of Criminology at the University of Cambridge, and Dr Rod Earle from the Open University.

Dr Helen Nichols focused her PhD studies around education in prison. She explained: “Prison can be both a physically and mentally challenging environment and education offers an opportunity for prisoners to engage in something constructive that can be beneficial both prior to and following release.

Through offering this programme, we’re giving both prisoners and external students the opportunity to achieve more from an educational experience by breaking down social barriers in the process. As a university, we want to be socially responsible to our students at the university and to our wider community.”

For students and prisoners, assessment will be a reflective learning log, which is built up throughout the course each week, and a group presentation. Groups will be made up of two students from each institution. Following assessment there will be a graduation ceremony held at the prison.

“There are currently around 85,000 criminals in prison, with 75,000 of those being released at some point in the future. With plans to release more prisoners in the future, education is going to be a very important element of prison that universities can support, opening up opportunities for those prisoners when they are released.”

In May 2016, Dame Sally Coates published a report for the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, detailing her

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recommendations for the improvement of education in prison. One of the recommendations relates to the ability of prisoners to access higher level learning. Her report shows that one fifth of the 101,600 adult prisoners participating in prison learning in the academic year 2014-2015 would have preferred to be studying at a higher level than they were currently and that three fifths of prisoners leave prison without an identified employment, education or training outcome.

Prisons Minister, Sam Gyimah, said: “I want to see prisoners spend much more time engaged in the sort of purposeful activity which prepares them for life on the outside - pursuing worthwhile qualifications or work opportunities that will help them get a satisfying job on release.”

“We are committed to helping all offenders turn their lives around and quit crime for good. Schemes like Learning Together are making a vital difference in giving offenders a new start, and the chance to enter the workplace and make a success of their lives.”

A range of collaborative learning programmes currently exist, including the University of Durham’s Inside-Out programme, based on a project established in the US. The Learning Together project adopted by Leeds Beckett was originally set up by the University of Cambridge in collaboration with HMP Grendon, which is a Category B establishment and therapeutic community.

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Dr Helen Nichols and Dr Bill Davies “When the prison module has been completed, we don’t want to stop here,” said Dr Nichols. “We want to be able to continue to offer the prisons new subjects to study, allowing them to build up their university credits with us. Our Youth Work and Community Development course is already interested in running a module and we are keen to involve men’s health, psychology, sport, nutrition, speech and language therapy, English, and more courses as we progress and build our relationship with the prison.

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Leeds Beckett University and HMP Full Sutton are part of Prisoners’ Education Trust’s PUPiL network, which supports and encourages collaborations between universities and prisons. More information on the network, including on existing partnerships and how to set up a new project.

Leeds Beckett University has more than 29,000 students on programmes in Leeds and abroad and just over 3,200 staff.

The Vice Chancellor of Leeds Beckett University is Professor Peter Slee.

Leeds Beckett was one of the first universities to hold the Customer Service Excellence standard across the whole institution.

97% of Leeds Beckett University’s UK students were in work or further study six months after graduating.

Source: Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education 2014/15.

Leeds Beckett was ranked first in the world for technology, with 94.6% satisfaction, and second in the world for virtual learning, with 95.6% satisfaction in the independent Student Barometer survey.

In the next edition there will be an extended article about the course.

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Howard League responds to Northamptonshire probation inspection The Howard League for Penal Reform has responded to Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation’s report on adult probation services in Northamptonshire, published on Thursday 20th April.

The report states that the publicly-run National Probation Service (NPS), responsible for supervising people deemed to present a high risk of reoffending, was performing reasonably well.

However, inspectors criticised the Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC), which is owned by Sodexo in partnership with Nacro and tasked with managing medium- and lowrisk cases. They found that the CRC was not doing enough to prevent reoffending and was not focused enough on protecting the public.

Too little work was being delivered to reduce the likelihood of domestic violence. Problems with the CRC’s work with police and children’s services left victims and their children more vulnerable than necessary.

Staffing shortages made it hard for people to get on to accredited programmes, leaving some unable to fulfil the requirements of their sentences and unable to get the help they needed.

Frances Crook, Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “The break-up 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.”

“This report is the latest in a series of inspections showing how this has failed, increasing the risk to the public and letting down people who are trying to change their lives.”

“A general election is only seven weeks away, and one of the first challenges for a new government will be to sort out this mess.”

“It is time to end the dangerous experiment of ‘community rehabilitation companies’ and return to the single, successful, probation service that we used to have.”

Among the problems identified in the report was Sodexo’s reliance on an IT interface – to be provided by Her Majesty’s Prisons and Probation Service – that is not yet ready. Sodexo went ahead with implementing its new operational model anyway and made staff redundant.

Inspectors said that it was ‘difficult to understand why Sodexo gave so little attention to contingency planning, and went ahead with large-scale redundancies, given the clear dependencies and inherent risks.’ the Custodial Review

Are All Safes the Same?

is why it is important to source a safe which offers at least a basic level of security against the threat of fire.

Jeremy Cassady, discusses some of the distinguishing features of a safe that will provide enhanced security.

Buying a safe can be an especially daunting purchase for not just a first time buyer, but a seasoned buyer as well, especially one who has high security requirements to keep in mind. Depending on your requirements, budget and space availability, a number of factors need to be kept in mind when making this very important purchase. Buying the incorrect safe can negatively impact you in the short run by

the Custodial Review

resulting in loss of valuable items and irreplaceable documents such insurance papers, official paperwork and sensitive memos and, in the long run, leave you with a product that does not cater to your needs. A poor quality safe can not only be time consuming to install but also be a security risk. To help you, we have compiled a clear and concise list of important features to look for in a safe depending on your requirements.

Fire proof security Though all safes provide a degree of security, not all safes guarantee users protection against elements like fire which can destroy items inside. That

Most renowned brands will ensure that they either offer heavy duty models able to withstand temperatures of up to 950°C for an hour, which meet European legislation standards and are clearly labelled to show proof that they have been independently tested and certified to meet the stringent criteria stated, or safes which benefit from a doubled walled construction with a fire resistant barrier material to DIN 4102 to offer users fire protection.

Anchoring the safe Safes are ideally fitted in places that restrict access to the sides and top while ensuring that the door can be easily opened when required by the authorised user. Some safes only provide two basic fixings to anchor a safe to a wall or floor, but safes with four fixings ensure greater security by providing a tight grip against a wide variety of materials that the safe’s surroundings may consist of. Good quality safes should also provide commonly used complementary anchor fixings

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that are perfectly tailored to their safes. With today’s building types it is vital to get a sound fixing as walls are often only studded constructions and using the maximum amount of support is preferred.

Being the master of your own lock One of the most important aspects to keep in mind is the locking system of a safe.

All safes are fitted with a keylock as standard, a mechanical combination or a more advanced digital locking system.

The electronic digital lock works by allowing users to select a unique code to lock and unlock their safes. This offers users extra security against unauthorised users, but can sometimes pose a hurdle for the users themselves. A common problem faced by many users is misplacing or forgetting their unique pin number; this can be overridden with a predetermined master code. As an industry standard, most companies have a series of set master codes that are used to override locks. For security enhancement purposes end users can change these codes, but are often unaware

of it. Hence, there clearly is a potential to risk the security of these safes, should those unchanged standard set codes get into the wrong hands.

Companies now are paying heed to this issue and coming up with suitable solutions. For instance each lock comes with a unique code held by the company (this is different from the code the users sets themselves to access their safe).

If a user forgets or misplaces their pin number, they can call and after passing a series of security questions, will receive that a unique code, only applicable to their safe, which will override the safe’s digital lock.

Having a unique code to override digital locks for every safe will eradicate the problem faced with standard codes, and make access to a safe as secure as possible. Knowing that you have this option available will allow you to make a more informed decision.

Better certified than sorry Though all safes are fitted with some kind of a lock on them, it is important to note that not all

those locks are up to the job. By ensuring that a safe has a lock which has EN 1300 Certification and the safe has an AIS Approval, you can be assured it is of a good quality.

As a further measure of the quality of a safe, look for those that are accredited under the Secured by Design scheme.

Secured by Design is a group of national police projects which acknowledges the quality security of products and crime prevention projects.

They support the principles of ‘designing out crime’ through physical security and processes.

An additional seal of approval from Secured by Design means that a safe has been tested to security standards in response to trends in crime.

bearing all correct testing and warranty badges.

Walls of steel One of the most basic yet fundamental features of a safe is the walls. The material that a safe has been constructed with greatly changes the level of security that it is going to provide for a user. To cut costs so that a safe can be offered for a lower price in the market, some manufacturers offer safes constructed with thin, subpar materials which are folded to look thicker. These materials may look strong, but provide unauthorised users with an easy way into safes.You need to check that any safe that you

buy has an 8mm steel door at the very least and at the bare minimum either a 4mm or a 6mm double-sided steel body to ensure that it will be able to provide a superior level of security when installed.

There are no hard and fast rules as to which features a buyer needs to focus on the most, but they should all be kept in mind according to your unique requirements when making this decision.

Jeremy Cassady is the Managing Director at Securikey.

For further information email enquiries@securikey. co.uk or call 01252311888.

Another important consideration is to look at the testing a safe goes through.

To assure users of their credibility some manufacturers choose to take part in random annual testing of their safes instead of only planned for testing. This ensures that the quality of every safe that they produce meets rigorous quality standards, and this is highlighted by products

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Prisoners into jobs by Mike Trace, Chief Executive of RAPt right mixture of inspiration and realism.

On the one hand, trainers, job coaches and peer supporters must inspire prisoners to make what one of our most charismatic role models calls a ‘career change’. Giving up a life of crime requires motivation and determination, and we need to instil that belief in prisoners that a different way of life is more rewarding, and that they are capable of achieving it.

Mike Trace

Thanks to Brexit and snap general elections, we are (once again) in the position of waiting to see whether existing prison policy directions are going to be maintained under a new government, and who will be in the MOJ ministerial team to take them forward. Specifically with the 2017 version, we have a becalmed white paper (that most of us hope will survive the election and inevitable reshuffle of ministers), and a paused review of key decisions on future use of the estate.

Through this process, there is unlikely to be any significant deviation from the general commitment to strengthen the delivery and accountability arrangements for prisoner rehabilitation to reduce reoffending rates – and in particular the ambition to achieve a step change in the area of prisoner education and employment.

Quite rightly, Ministers and the NPPS management want to focus on new ways to deliver education and employment support to prisoners, that delivers better educational outcomes, and that prepares individuals more directly for entry into the job market. Justice Data Lab (JDL) findings so far indicate that well designed and delivered employment programmes can lead to a significant reduction in reoffending, while it is clear that many of the things we currently spend money on in this area are not having much impact.

The re-commissioning of prisoner education/ employment services later this year gives an opportunity to enshrine this learning and best practice into our strategies and services.

Through RAPt’s merger with Blue Sky two years ago, I have had an insight into the mechanics of preparing prisoners for real work – Blue Sky placed their 1,400th offender into a real job last month, and have the Custodial Review

a 23% reduction in reoffending reported through the JDL. We are working on enshrining this experience into creative new models and pathways into employment that deliver even greater engagement, retention and progression rates in the coming years.

Blue Sky take a ‘work first’ approach – believing that the most effective learning and personal development takes place ‘on the job’. We try to avoid traditional ‘classroom’ approaches – for most of our clients, following their experience of the education system, the classroom is the last place they want to be. That is why the core Blue Sky model is based on placing ex-offenders in real jobs in the real world, and building their skills and confidence while they are also getting in the habit of turning up for work, getting on with colleagues, and paying their taxes.

Being in work, receiving a regular wage, earning respect, being praised, making new friends, getting trained and offered new opportunities - all this helps to change attitudes and instill longerterm thinking, including (and crucially for desistance) the feeling that you now have something to lose, not worth risking through returning to crime.

Blue Sky places hundreds of ex-offenders per year in six month contracts for a wide range of functions - including bus driving, construction, health and fitness, catering, logistics - and, with employers that include many High Street and multinational names. Blue Sky works to ‘de-risk’ this recruitment strategy by filtering, preparing and supporting ex-offenders to successfully complete these contracts – almost 50% of those who do are offered permanent roles, having proved their worth.

Crucial to the success of this model is the Page 26

On the other hand, we don’t do prisoners any favours by pretending that the perfect job is waiting for them to walk into. The reality is that most prisoners have severely constrained CV’s (if any), and most of the jobs realistically available to them are entry level. Of course, prisoners can make great strides in picking up vocational skills, and the life skills that equip them for the workplace, but few are going to find jobs as professional footballers or merchant bankers (or indeed as prison officers). But what they can find through work is a sense of self respect, belonging, and achievement – and that the reward for being reliable and hard working is recognition and advancement. Pride in receiving a pay check and using it to cover the bills is often cited by our employees as their greatest achievement.

Blue Sky runs a job readiness session called ‘10 Ways To Lose A Job’. The first time they ran it in prison, the participants came up with at least 20 ways, some of them very creative.

Apart from being a very engaging session that showed the best of prison humour, it also showed the expectation problem that acts as a barrier to the ‘career change’ we are seeking – most prisoners have an in-built assumption that they are going to struggle in the mainstream, and are tempted to use that as a reason not to try. Literacy, numeracy and vocational courses are obviously important in breaking down that barrier, but equally important is instilling the confidence, belief and sense of belonging that we all need to succeed at work.

RAPt launches new partnership in Hull RAPt and DISC have, on Friday 24 March, launched a new partnership to offer services for people in Hull who are in recovery from addiction.

The partnership, based at Bricworks community centre in Story Street, brings a new role to provide activities tailored to support people in recovery from addiction to maintain their recovery and learn new skills to help them build lives away from addiction and the crime so often associated with drug use.

On the launch Douglas Dunsmore Dawson, RAPt Regional Manager, said: “RAPt is excited

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to launch this new partnership that builds on the services we already offer to people in Hull. Often our clients report feelings of isolation as they leave a life of addiction behind them. This project aims to create a space where they can interact with a community to build their lives away from drugs and alcohol.”

Paul Townsley, Chief Executive at DISC, said: “We’re delighted to be working with RAPt on this partnership. Bricworks provides much needed activities and support for people in recovery from drug and alcohol issues. This partnership will allow us to offer increased support to those people from across Hull who need help in their drive to beat addiction.”

Russell Brand launches new service for addicts and exoffenders Russell Brand, comedian, and patron of leading addiction and prison charity RAPt, launched (18th January 2017) our new employment services at an event at the Trew Era Café and RAPt’s London Recovery Hub next door.

The new services are aimed at supporting people to maintain their recovery from addiction and reduce re-offending by getting and keeping a job. This was also Russell’s aim in setting up the Trew Era Cafe, which he donated to RAPt last year and now forms part of the charity’s employment services.

Russell Brand said: “When people work together they can find the connection required to overcome addiction.”

The new employment services being launched

by RAPt include: training, advice and support to get recovering addicts and offenders ready for work; volunteering, apprenticeship and work experience opportunities; and help to find, get and keep a job.

The Trew Era Café is now part of RAPt’s new employment services, as one of RAPt’s Recovery Enterprises - businesses that are set up and run by people in recovery from addiction or have turned their back on a life of crime. These social enterprises benefit from investment and support from RAPt, in return for creating work experience, training and job opportunities for other recovering addicts and ex-offenders, and are one of the many employment opportunities available through RAPt’s new employment services.

RAPt currently supports three recovery enterprises: the Trew Era Café; catering company Cocoa Delight; and fashion label Nina Baker, which has two RAPt clients in its

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workforce. Vanessa Blythe, founder of Nina Baker, attended the event.

Vanessa said: “Recovery has changed my life and running this fashion label has brought me hope and determination. I started on a market stall in 2014 and after a year I was struggling. Russell introduced me to RAPt and its Recovery Enterprise Initiative. If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be here today.

“I hope to make a difference in people’s lives, as so many people have made a difference in mine and believed in me when I didn’t.”

Former RAPt client, Lacie Mckenna, was also supported by the charity in setting up her own business when it gave her a small grant to help expand her children’s clothing company, Clayton’s Cloth. Lacey Russell with a pair of baby booties and a romper that she had made.

Lacie said: “When I got a call to say I had been given the grant, I couldn’t believe it. RAPt has given me more opportunities than I could ever have imagined and they are still here for me, still supporting me, and now have this fund backing me. With their support, I know that I’ll be making a better future for myself and for my son.”

Mike Trace, CEO of RAPt, said: “Our clients are motivated to put a life of crime and addiction behind them. Getting a job and having a legitimate income is a part of that process. Employers may instinctively avoid recruiting from this group but we are calling on organisations who can offer employment opportunities to our clients to get in touch.

If well motivated and supported, ex-addicts and offenders are committed and reliable employees. We know this because over a third of our own staff are in recovery from addiction or are ex-offenders themselves and we have seen thousands more thrive with other employers or by setting up their own businesses.”

The event took place at the Trew Era Café and RAPt’s London Recovery Hub located next door. Russell Brand donated the Trew Era Café to RAPt in September 2016, having set up the Café in 2015 as a way for people in recovery from addiction to get a job.

RAPt’s Recovery Hubs are safe spaces where people in recovery can get tailored support to maintain their recovery, with a focus on employment support, workshops and recruitment events.

Employment reduces the probability of someone re-offending by up to 50% and is a significant factor in maintaining recovery from addiction and staying free from drink and drugs. Yet fewer than three in ten people said they would have a job to go to after being released from prison, and many prisoners have few or no basic skills, with almost half (47%) having no qualifications at all.

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RAPt awarded new contract to deliver community drug and alcohol services in East Kent RAPt is thrilled to announce it has won a new contract to deliver community substance misuse services in East Kent, in partnership with charities Nacro and ReThink.

The service will provide comprehensive substance misuse services for anyone in East Kent and will include clinical and psychological support; mental health advice; and assistance with employment, housing, education and benefits.

RAPt, alongside its partners Nacro and ReThink, will begin delivering the service from 1st May 2017, and will also be consulting with key stakeholders, clients and their families on the future design of the service, to ensure it provides the best possible substance misuse support for the local community.

Mike Trace, RAPt CEO, said: “I am absolutely delighted that RAPt, in partnership with Rethink and Nacro, have been awarded this contract. RAPt are particularly pleased to have the opportunity to work with the local community in the coming months, to ensure local people have the best possible support.”

David Watson, Director of Justice & Health at Nacro said: “Nacro is delighted to be a member of this new and dynamic partnership.

We are committed to helping people within East Kent that are experiencing drug and alcohol issues, reduce the damaging effects that can not only impact the lives of individuals, but their families and the wider community. By placing a team around individuals and their families we will help and support them to live happier, healthier, and more positive lives.”

Heidi Stewart, Director Enterprise & Innovation at ReThink said: “We are delighted to be working with RAPt on the future design of the service. Our partnership will ensure that people in East Kent have a direct input in the shape of a service that will have a positive impact on many lives.”

A Kent County Council (KCC) spokesperson said: “KCC is pleased to be awarding this new contract for the East Kent Drug and Alcohol Service to RAPt, who will take over the service from Turning Point on 1st May 2017.

This is an essential service that will help provide support to residents in East Kent who are struggling with drug and alcohol misuse. We look forward to working with RAPt, Nacro and ReThink to continue to improve services across East Kent.” the Custodial Review

Cuts to legal aid for prisoners are unlawful Cuts to legal aid for prisoners are unlawful because they are inherently unfair, the Court of Appeal ruled on Monday 10 April in its judgment on a legal challenge brought by the Howard League for Penal Reform and the Prisoners’ Advice Service (PAS).

The ruling is an important step forward in making sure that people in prison move through the system more safely and more efficiently. This will make the public safer and ease pressure on a prison system at breaking point.

Since cuts to legal aid for prisoners came into force in December 2013, violence and self-injury in prisons have risen to record levels. Almost 300 people have lost their lives through suicide.

More prisoners than ever before have called the Howard League and PAS to seek help.

Calls to the two charities’ advice lines have increased by almost 50 per cent since the cuts were imposed.

The legal challenge by the Howard League and PAS began in 2013. At that time, prisoners were completely shut out from any possibility of getting legal aid for a wide range of problems.

In the time between then and the cases coming before the Court of Appeal in January and February this year, the government conceded on four areas of concern. This left five key problems for the Court of Appeal to consider and, in three of the five, judges found the cuts to be inherently unfair.

Lord Justice Beatson, giving judgment, said: “[At] a time when… the evidence about prison staffing levels, the current state of prisons, and the workload of the Parole Board suggests that the system is under considerable pressure, the system has at present not got the capacity sufficiently to fill the gap in the run of cases in those three areas.”

Frances Crook, Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “This decision will make the public safer. It vindicates our concerns that cuts imposed by the former Lord Chancellor, Chris Grayling, in 2013 presented a grave risk that prisoners would become stuck in a broken system. This sends a clear message that important decisions about prisoners cannot be made efficiently or fairly in the face of these cuts. We look forward to hearing from the Lord Chancellor with her plans to give effect to the judgment.”

Deborah Russo, Joint Managing Solicitor of the Prisoners’ Advice Service, said: “This is an unprecedented and groundbreaking legal victory in which the vulnerability of the prison population is fully recognised as a key factor in its limited ability to access justice. Common law came to the rescue of a marginalised and often forgotten sector of our society.” the Custodial Review

Simon Creighton, solicitor for the charities and representative for the Association of Prison Lawyers, said: “Access to legal advice for prisoners makes prisons fairer, safer and better at rehabilitating prisoners. This was first recognised in the Woolf report a quarter of a century ago and this judgment underlines that it is still true today.”

Rebecca Hilsenrath, Chief Executive of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which intervened in the case, said: “It’s a hallmark of a democratic legal system is that it is fair and robust for all users. Without access to legal aid, prisoners with learning difficulties and mental illness would not be able to participate effectively in important decisions about their future, placing them at a significant disadvantage. We welcome today’s judgment that will ensure our legal system continues to provide legal help during these hearings.”

Howard League responds to PPO learning lessons bulletin on suicide in women’s prisons The Howard League for Penal Reform has responded to a learning lessons bulletin on self-inflicted deaths among female prisoners, published on Tuesday 28 March by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO).

The review was prompted by a rise in the number of women who have died by suicide in prison. Drawing on its investigations into 19 cases between 2013 and 2016, the PPO concludes that prison staff must take action to prevent further tragedies.

Twelve women in prison lost their lives through suicide in 2016 – more than twice the number of women who took their own lives during the previous year. So far in 2017, one woman in prison is understood to have lost her life through suicide.

The bulletin comes 10 years after the publication of a seminal report by Baroness Corston, who found that prison was inappropriate for many of the women held there.

While the majority of her 43 recommendations received cross-party support, the sweeping whole-system reform that Baroness Corston envisaged has yet to be delivered.

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Women in the Penal System, which is cochaired by Baroness Corston and receives administrative support from the Howard League, is to conduct an inquiry into progress made in the 10 years since The Corston Report was published.

The Howard League has also worked with another charity, Centre for Mental Health, on Page 28

a joint programme on preventing people from dying by suicide in prison. Reports published as part of this programme have studied issues including prison culture, prisoner-staff relationships and the financial cost of suicide in custody.

Howard League responds to prison-building announcement The Howard League for Penal Reform on Wednesday 22nd March responded to the government’s plans to build four new prisons.

Andrew Neilson, Director of Campaigns at the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “The government is pinning a great deal of hope that its capital investment in new prisons will help to solve the current crisis behind bars, with very little evidence to support that contention.

Prisons across the country are afflicted with problems of deaths, violence and drugs – modern and old alike.

“The real driver behind these new prisons will be cost. Today’s announcement confirms that the Ministry of Justice is still committed to building larger prisons which can make economies of scale, even though smaller institutions can be safer and more stable.

“Ultimately we will only transform the prison system if we do something about a prison population which has doubled in the last twenty years. Until politicians grasp the nettle that we simply jail too many people and for too long, then governments will continue to preside over prisons that shame the nation.”

Prisons need profound culture change to prevent loss of life from suicide Prisons need a profound culture change to prevent people from losing their lives through suicide, according to a report published on Monday 13 February by Centre for Mental Health and the Howard League for Penal Reform.

Preventing suicides: staff perspectives, the last of four reports from an investigation into suicide in prisons by the two charities, finds that distress, self-harm and suicide attempts are too often seen as manipulative rather than signs of need and vulnerability among prisoners.

Staff shortages, a ‘toxic’ working environment and a failure to recognise the traumatising impact of prison for both prisoners and staff all contribute to an unsafe environment. continues overleaf u

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The report is based on interviews with health care staff working in prisons and those reviewing clinical care following suicide deaths.

Its publication follows the release of figures showing that 119 people lost their lives to suicide in English and Welsh prisons in 2016.

The report finds that the majority of prisoners have multiple and complex needs including poor mental health, but many do not get access to mental health support. It concludes that prisons need to shift from a primarily punitive approach to a culture centred on wellbeing, recovery and rehabilitation.

The report sets out three vital steps to improve safety and wellbeing. First, all prisons need to adopt a ‘stepped care’ approach in which the whole system is responsible for a prisoner’s wellbeing and mental health support is available at every level of need. Second, all prison staff need training and support to support prisoners’ wellbeing, and look after their own. And third, robust risk assessments are essential when a person arrives at a prison.

Frances Crook, Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “Overcrowding

and understaffing in prisons is placing intolerable stress on staff and prisoners, and putting lives at risk.

“No one should be so desperate while in the care of the state that they take their own life. Staff who work in prisons should never feel so under pressure that they cannot stop and listen. As prison suicides reach record levels, it is time for action. By taking bold but sensible steps to reduce the number of people in prison, we can save lives and prevent more people being swept away into deeper currents of crime and despair.”

The suicide rate in prisons has more than doubled since 2013 Figures seen by the Howard League for Penal Reform reveal on Thursday 27 April.

Official statistics, published by the Ministry of Justice, show that 113 people – including 10 in women’s prisons – lost their lives through suicide in the year ending March 2017.

They were among a total of 344 people who died in prisons in England and Wales – the highest death toll since current recording practices began in 1978.

Assaults and incidents of self-injury have also risen to record levels as prisons fail to cope with chronic overcrowding and deep staff cuts.

110 per day on average – were recorded in prisons in the year ending December 2016.

This represents a 24 per cent increase on the previous 12 months.

The number of self-injury incidents requiring hospital attendance rose by 21 per cent to 2,740.

Assaults in prisons reached a record high of more than 26,000 in the year ending December 2016 – a 27 per cent increase.

The number of assaults rose by 77 per cent between 2013 and 2016, and the number of serious cases has almost trebled since 2012.

The number of assaults on staff rose by 38 per cent in the year ending December 2016.

Almost 7,000 incidents were recorded – about 19 per day on average.

Stopping drones, the logical way Drones are increasingly being used to get contraband into prisons.

Adept drone pilots can deliver the contraband to designated cell windows or pre-designated drop of points with ease. Until now the solutions to stop these aerial deliveries have proved difficult and labour intensive.

method of removing all these geo-fenced areas from the mapping the drones use. To prove this PDA has (with permission) flown over these protected areas using this ‘hacked’ mapping and videoed the trips to prove that flying into geo-fenced areas is possible. Interestingly these no fly zones only apply to the mapping used by most drones and do not appear on the Civil Aviation Authority mapping. All UK prisons have now been geo-fenced by drone manufacturers in their flight mapping.

PDA Electronics Ltd however have just introduced a new system called REPULSE®

An alternative to the software map hack method is to place aluminium foil over the top of the drone body to prevent the reception of GPS signals. This method makes the drone more difficult to control as there is no automatic correction due to wind issues.

This system produces unique interference signals on both 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz. This creates a bubble that extends over 1km in front of the unit. In effect it creates an electronic ‘no fly zone’ which will defeat all commercially available drones attempts to penetrate it. Any drone entering this field will be immediately “repulsed” and the drone is forced to return to its take off point.

This enables areas, such as prisons, to be fully protected against the wide range of commercially available drones. Unlike many other solutions the Repulse system is designed for continuous operation and therefore offers a 24/7 protection.

Until now authorities have tried to protect areas of concern by using Geo-fencing which involves identifying areas as no fly zones on the electronic mapping the drones use. However it only took a matter of hours to find a software the Custodial Review

Given the number of prison establishments still being targeted by drones it would seem that the criminals have already discovered these techniques.

The PDA Repulse system fully protects an area from both these methods that enable drone incursions.

In some countries the emphasis has been on detecting drones but what use is that?

Knowing that a threat is coming still doesn’t deal with the problem. It’s like having a camera in your house and you watch a criminal enter your property and ransack it. The only real solution is area denial protection. This applies even more so if it’s a terrorists attack when Page 30

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the drone could be carrying either explosives or chemical weapons.

The basic Repulse unit is housed in a compact and rugged Peli-case which only weighs just over 2kg (including the battery) This makes it ideal for quick deployment . The internal battery provides up to 6 hours of operation.

For longer or more permanent deployment, the unit can be powered by a larger battery or a 12VDC mains powered supply. Its’s low powered transmissions are designed so that there is virtually no interference to anyone using a WIFI system nearby so allowing the system to be deployed in areas close to housing and offices.

The Repulse system is now being considered for the protection of aircraft and airfields in many countries outside the UK. Why not the UK? you may ask - well the CAA have deemed it illegal to interfere with any aircraft in flight and then went on to designate a drone as an aircraft thereby creating a dilemma. In the UK if the drone is less than 7kg in weight (which covers most commercially available drones) it can fly where it likes as far as the CAA is concerned. It is time to bring legislation up to date to allow the use of defence systems such as Repulse for this new form of threat to both security and safety.

For more information contact PDA Electronics Ltd,Tel: 01494 -257911, email: sales@pdaelectronics.com or visit www.pdaelectronics.com