A new report by the probation watchdog (HMI Probation) has found that the new private Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) are telling staff not to take action against offenders who breach sentence terms, due to the risk of being fined. The findings suggest a damning criticism of government reforms to probation, reforms that have enabled a…
An action plan is “urgently needed to reverse…[the]…rapid deterioration” in prison safety, concludes a new report by the House of Commons Justice Committee. Published just prior to the government’s Queen’s Speech announcement of a major overhaul of prison services, the report issues a serious warning that unless the decline in prison safety is reversed, new…
A new report by the National Audit Office (NAO) has found that the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) does not know how well the companies responsible for running probation services are performing, due to “limitations around data quality and availability.” The findings follow controversial government reforms, in which 70 percent of probation services were privatised to…
The House of Commons Justice Committee has today released a report which calls for the repeal of the criminal courts charge, introduced in April 2015, just prior to the general election. The report considers the effects of the introduction of the charge on the criminal justice system. While the committee was conducting a wider inquiry…
New statistics released by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) reveal that 267 people have died in prisons in England and Wales in the 12 months up to the end of September 2015, an increase of 33 compared to the 12 months ending December 2014. This number includes seven homicides, which was more than double the…
The Home Office has announced a consultation on ‘Reforming the Powers of Police Staff and Volunteers‘, aiming to give Chief Constables much greater flexibility in designating powers on police staff and volunteers. Crucially, the government propose enabling volunteers to be designated with powers in the same ways as staff, with a huge expansion of the…
The implementation of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) has resulted in “large reductions in legal help workload and expenditure”, reveal new Ministry of Justice (MoJ) statistics. The statistics reveal that government reforms and spending cuts have led directly to a large reduction in civil legal aid workload (in both…
New figures released by the Office for Rail and Road (ORR) last week revealed that since privatisation took effect, ticket prices have skyrocketed, with much of the rise happening in unregulated fares – so-called ‘stealth increases’. Between 1995 and 2015 fares rose across all ticket types (including both unregulated and regulated tickets), by an average…
Lawyers fear that further cuts to criminal legal aid under the new Conservative government will lead to a dramatic decline in the quality of legal representation as well as to miscarriages of justice. The Guardian reported last week that the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), the professional body representing criminal barristers, is balloting its 4,000 members…
New Ministry of Justice statistics reveal that in the year up to December 2014 incidents of self-harm and assaults in prisons have increased significantly, revealing a system under serious strain where safety standards have plummeted.