Last week the Domestic Abuse Bill returned to the House of Lords where a coalition of the current and previous Victims’ Commissioners, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner and a number of women’s and victims’ groups succeeded in getting an amendment accepted which will create a new stand-alone offence of non-fatal strangulation… Work with offenders looks at a successful campaign by women’s & victims’ groups...
2021 is set to be a big year for probation and everyone that works in it. As regular readers will know, the Ministry of Justice has finally abandoned its plan to part-privatise the probation service under its Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) programme and the 21 private Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) will… Work with Offenders looks at new government plans to outsource probation training...
On December 18 the Justice Secretary Robert Buckland announced a new review intended to provide better support for people who have a range of neurodivergent conditions (such as autism, ADHD and dyslexia) and come into contact with the criminal justice system. Neurodivergent offenders often have speech and language needs which… Work with Offenders looks at a new MOJ initiative...
When the COVID-19 pandemic first struck, a coalition of penal reform charities, criminal justice commentators and all those concerned with the health and well-being of our prisoners called for a swift reduction in our prison population. There was agreement that prison conditions, with a minimum of 15,000 people in prison… Work with Offenders looks at a renewed risk to people in prison from COVID...
Last week the Ministry of Justice published new plans to strengthen the supervision and monitoring of convicted terrorists and others who pose a terror risk following an independent review carried out by Jonathan Hall QC which resulted in a 66 page report. The review acknowledged that well-established processes were already… Work with offenders looks at new specialist MAPPA guidance...
The quarterly criminal court statistics published jointly by the Ministry of Justice and the Office for National Statistics tell an interesting story. On the one hand, they chart renewed activity in our criminal courts following the initial lockdown restrictions earlier in the year, on the other, it is clear that,… Work with Offenders takes a close look at yesterday’s criminal court statistics...
Last month Work with offenders looked at a new report by academics at Manchester Metropolitan University which looked at women imprisoned for life because of their involvement in gangs. The report, Stories of Injustice, examined the use (and misuse) of the legal concept of “joint enterprise” which permits two or… Work with Offenders looks at new CPS guidance...
The recent White Paper on sentencing reform includes a pledge to simplify Out of Court Disposals (OOCDs) with the ambition of ensuring that “very low-level offenders can be dealt with swiftly and proportionately, without coming before a court”. We have known for a long time that keeping low-level offenders out… Work with Offenders looks at a new briefing from the Centre for Justice Innovation...
We have long known that prosperity and its opposite pole deprivation vary considerably across the country. The need to rebalance investment in different regions has become an increasing political priority, most recently demonstrated by the debate over the “Northern Powerhouse” and over which cities and towns are placed in different… Work with Offenders looks at a new study which reveals a significant north-south divide in rates of women’s imprisonment...
It has been getting harder for people to get to court over the last ten years. Whether you are a lawyer, defendant, witness, victim or jury member, your nearest court is much less likely to be local. The House of Commons Library reported in May this year that 164 magistrates’… Work with Offenders looks at the findings from a recent national report...