Latest news with #HMPPS
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Prison service was on verge of collapse over space of nine months
The prison service was on the verge of collapsing on several occasions between autumn 2023 and summer 2024, an independent review has found. The review by Dame Anne Owers was published today, August 5, and shows the potential collapse came as a symptom of a systemic problem which led to recurring prison capacity crises over the last 18 years. The review, commissioned by Lord Chancellor Shabana Mahmood in February this year, details the damaging impact on prisons, probation, prison escort services and the courts up and down the country. It details how senior officials in the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and HM Prison and Probations Service (HMPPS) were meeting daily at times to document, monitor and attempt to resolve the capacity problems at the expense of other aspects of prison strategy and policy. At the height of the prison crisis, frontline staff spent most of their time moving prisoners around and implementing ever-changing release schemes. READ MORE: Girl, four, dies after incident at water park READ MORE: State Pension age to rise in 2026 for people with these birthdays During the crisis, the cost of holding prisoners in police cells reached over £70 million, and construction costs for new prisons nearly doubled, to £10.1 billion Successive governments have been forced to implement last-minute emergency release measures as a result of the crisis. The population pressure has also affected prisons' capacity to operate safe environments, Dame Anne, who previously held the role of Chief Inspector of Prisons between 2001 and 2010, has now said there needs to be a move from crisis management to a strategic approach, this is to ensure the entire prison network as well as probation and other community services are able to work efficiently to prevent offending and reoffending. According to the review, at one point there were fewer than 100 places in adult male prisons, with a COBRA meeting being held in May 2025 following the announcement of the general election and concerns the prison system could collapse during the election campaign. On three occasions, the report said, from 2023 onwards, prisons were running very close to capacity, to the point where the use of early release schemes helped to relieve pressure at the last moment. The report said: "Senior officials were so concerned about a potential breakdown in the criminal justice system that an audit was kept of all decision-making and documents, in case there was a public or parliamentary inquiry. "The system in fact limped through the summer of 2024, helped by the knowledge that relief was coming, in the shape of the new government's pledge to reduce the custodial element of most standard determinate sentences from 50% to 40% (SDS40)." Dame Anne Owers said: 'The scale, likelihood, risks and consequences of the prison capacity crisis could not have been signalled more clearly, at every level of government. "The response was last-minute short-term fixes rather than long-term solutions to the underlying problems. This is part of a repeated pattern of prison capacity crises, under successive governments, which have seriously affected prisons' ability to work effectively and safely. 'This report is the backdrop to David Gauke's review of sentencing and Sir Brian Leveson's review of the criminal courts. The Government should now put in place systems that don't just signal approaching problems, but stimulate action to prevent them. "This involves ensuring not only that prisons have the capacity to work effectively, but that there is proper and sustained investment in community provision, to provide effective support to help reduce offending and reoffending.' Dame Anne made the following recommendations: Developing a ten-year strategy for capacity in probation and community services, similar to the prison capacity strategy published by the Government in December. Establishing an independent advisory body to provide advice and external validation of capacity strategies across both prisons and probation, including the impact of any proposed changes to the criminal justice system. A similar body was recommended in the Independent Review of Sentencing. Mandating the HMPPS Board to evaluate the Prison Service, in discussion with the Chief Inspector of Prisons, and to monitor and report on progress on capacity. Involving the Chief Inspector of Probation and the third sector in discussing the design and delivery of community services, including addiction treatment and housing. Reinvigorating the approach to integrated offender management to bring together agencies to deal with repeat and persistent offenders. Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: 'This report lays bare the disgraceful way the last Conservative Government ran our prisons. They added less than 500 cells to the prison estate over fourteen years, released over 10,000 prisoners early under a veil of secrecy, and brought our jails close to total collapse on countless occasions. 'This Government is fixing our prisons, for good. Days after taking office, we took the emergency action required to stop our prisons from collapsing. We have already opened 2,400 new cells since coming into office, on track for 14,000 by 2031. And we are reforming sentencing to ensure we can always lock up dangerous offenders and keep the public safe."
South Wales Argus
19-07-2025
- General
- South Wales Argus
Craig Smith on Homewards Coalition Trust and Forward Trust's work
Since those early days as a tenancy support worker, I have had the pleasure of having worked in and led services supporting some of the most vulnerable and excluded people across Wales. Although the housing landscape has changed and brought new and increasing pressures and challenges, the single most powerful learning over the past 21+ years has been that when likeminded passionate and values-based people come together to look at a problem and involve and include people with lived experience great things can happen. I joined Forward Trust in late 2022 and was attracted by the Forward vision as it really resonated with me and everything I have strived to offer in my services – 'Our vision is that anyone – whatever their history or circumstances – gets the opportunity and support to live a positive life that fulfils their potential, and to inspire others to follow the same path.' This vision has underpinned everything we do and through developing positive effective working partnerships with HMPPS prison and probation colleagues, local authority homelessness teams, social housing and private rental sector landlords and a wide range of support services we have been able to have a real impact on the lives of people engaging with our service reducing the risk of homelessness and improve housing options available to men on probation and men returning to their communities after a prison sentence. A few months ago our Camau team (Camau accommodation probation service - Forward Trust) came together to develop a local vision for our service which we hope will inspire others to create new and creative housing pathways for 'Our Vision - Everybody deserves a place to call home.' We work with men on probation who are homeless or are at risk of homelessness to progress through their housing journey and take steps towards stable accommodation. In doing this we will connect them to skills, options and services that will empower them to have ownership of their housing journey. Our service supports, informs and empowers our neighbours in custody and the community, on every step of their journey to regain or retain housing and reach their full potential. I recently had the great pleasure of representing Forward Trust at the recent Homewards: Delivering Change Together event in Sheffield to celebrate the second anniversary of the Homewards programme, and met some truly inspirational colleagues from across the UK and a clear message hit home throughout the day 'Together we can end homelessness'. The work of the Homewards delivery partners across the six locations is having an immediate and lasting impact on the communities in which they are being delivered. It's a privilege to be involved in creating a supportive, collaborative partnership of delivery partners with a shared vision of making homelessness rare, brief and unrepeated and I look forward working with colleagues to create new solutions together. Craig Smith is the senior operations manager (Wales) - Commissioned Rehabilitative Services at The Forwards Trust, a Homewards Newport Coalition member.
Telegraph
18-07-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Prisoners get a lie-in as quarry construction forced to start later
Prisoners have been guaranteed their weekend lie-in as a Lib Dem-led council approved quarry works, provided construction starts after 9am. Bosses at HMP Stoke Heath in Shropshire convinced Grundon Sand & Gravel to start work late on Saturdays so they don't disturb inmates' 'quality of life'. Prisoners at the category C jail are allowed to lie-in beyond 7.30am on a Saturday and governors were worried the noisy blasting work would disrupt their sleep. Shropshire council approved the plans after adjustments were made to the application, including limiting its operating hours. The prison had objected to the original proposals after the firm applied for permission to extend its quarry in Tern Hill, Market Drayton, Shropshire, last August. Cushman & Wakefield, on behalf of HM Prison & Probation Service (HMPPS) wrote: 'HMPPS have particular concerns regarding the proposed hours of working on Saturdays where operations are expected to take place from 7am – 1pm. 'From Monday to Friday, prisoners are woken up at 7.30am for activities at the establishment, which include the employment opportunities that some of the prisoners are involved in. 'On Saturdays, prisoners are permitted to sleep in beyond 7.30am. 'HMPPS are therefore concerned that prisoners are likely to experience some level of disruption to their sleep from the operations taking place on Saturdays from 7am, and this could potentially impact their amenity and quality of life.' Construction plans predict the extraction of about 1.2 million tonnes of sand and gravel from the site over a period of 15 years at a rate of around 80,000 tonnes each year. It also outlined plans to use the site as a solar farm while quarrying is underway, partly to provide power for the site, but also to supply electricity back to the grid. The proposal was put before Shropshire Council's northern planning committee this week, where councillors voted unanimously to grant planning permission. As a result of HMPPS concerns, the quarry will be unable to operate before 9am on Saturdays, with no operations taking place on Sunday. Approving the plan, the local planning officer said: 'The potential impacts on the local area, which includes an RAF facility, a young offenders institution and dwellings, can be mitigated and minimised to an acceptable level through site management controls which can be secured by planning conditions. 'There would be some impacts on the local area due to the nature of the proposal, such as from the visibility of the operation and additional traffic levels. 'However, it is considered that these would be mitigated to an acceptable level when balanced against the benefits of the proposal. 'These benefits include the creation of five full-time jobs directly, with a further six part-time indirect positions, a significant level of biodiversity net gain, and the provision of renewable energy from solar panels.'
The Independent
22-05-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Everyone wants prison reformed – even Reform. Labour must be bold
So, the long-awaited recommendations of the independent review of sentencing, chaired by former justice secretary David Gauke, have landed. The recommendations – heavily trailed over the last couple of weeks – are largely welcome, if tempered by a pragmatism that comes from the dire straits His Majesty's Prison and Probation Service finds itself in. At the same time, beyond urging less punitive rhetoric, the review has swerved from addressing the bigger picture of why the government faces a capacity crisis in prison. A quick reminder of the review's context paints the gravity of the situation. Despite spending billions of pounds on new prisons, the government faces an untenable rise in prison numbers of about 30 per cent over the next few years. Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, has admitted, 'We cannot build our way out of this crisis.' Emergency measures have bought some time but the government soon faces running out of prison cells, or a 'total breakdown of law and order', to quote Mahmood once more. The sentencing review's primary answer is to legislate to ensure short custodial sentences are only used in exceptional circumstances in favour of community sentences, to extend the use of suspended sentences, to introduce new models of 'earned progression' that will offer many prisoners an opportunity to be released early (as opposed to the current method of automatic early release), and reforms to how people can be recalled to prison. The combined impact of these measures is estimated to save around 9,800 prison places. More generally, the review criticises previous approaches that put punishment for its own sake above the need to reduce crime. There is evidence that public support can be garnered for these measures. As part of our own work on the sentencing review, the Howard League for Penal Reform asked Public First to conduct polling and focus groups on sentencing reform. While the polling was nationally representative, the focus groups deliberately selected participants who might be expected to be unsympathetic to the government and its agenda. We wanted to understand the views of those who are hardest to persuade and to investigate what arguments they find most convincing. While the public sees public protection and punishment as the criminal justice system 's most important functions, when asked to choose between rehabilitation and punishment as the best way to address crime, more members of the public then choose rehabilitation. When asked what factors should lead to people being given more lenient sentences, the public is also most likely to say that engaging with rehabilitation programmes should make a sentence more lenient. There is broad agreement, including among prospective Reform voters, that reducing short prison sentences and increasing community sentences for people who commit non-violent offences will ease overcrowding, reduce costs, and allow resources to be focused on more dangerous criminals. On short sentences, a plurality, but not a majority, of the public support the complete abolition of prison sentences for low-level offences such as drug possession, vandalism and shoplifting, and their replacement with community sentences. This is particularly true of younger people. A majority of the public, including a plurality of Reform voters, agree with an approach where prison sentences are served partly in prison and partly in the community under licence. There is support in principle, in other words, for the kind of progression model that Gauke has outlined for most prison sentences. That said, it remains to be seen if the government can deliver these changes effectively, given prisons are not the only overcrowded service in criminal justice. The probation service is already facing workloads far beyond its current capacity, and some of the billions earmarked for new prisons would be more wisely spent on investment in the community. Spending money on an expansion of electronic monitoring, as the government intends, is also no substitute for good relational work by experienced probation officers. The review does acknowledge the crucial role the probation service plays but without proper support, there remains a real risk people will be set up to fail. While Gauke's interim report in February identified sentence inflation as the primary driver behind the prison capacity crisis, today's report does not propose how to reverse the trend of ever-longer sentences. With murder sentencing excluded from its purview, it is hard to see how the review could have proposed any deflation of other sentences. However, the review does urge the government to consider these issues if the system is to achieve long-term sustainability. Of course, public opinion is not necessarily in an easy place when it comes to revisiting sentence lengths for more serious crimes. While at a national level, crime is a second-order concern for voters – below issues such as the cost of living, the NHS, the economy and immigration – at a local level it can rank more highly. Meanwhile, there is widespread dissatisfaction among the public with how crime is dealt with and with the state of the criminal justice system as a whole. Yet that is precisely why the government needs to go further. Acting more boldly to create a safe and sustainable prison system that no longer stumbles from crisis to crisis and from emergency measure to emergency measure might start to answer that widespread dissatisfaction. Investing in the probation service and allowing it to focus primarily on the rehabilitative work in the community which is its historic strength, would help address local concerns and show people a system that is working to cut crime. For now, ministers seem to be hoping that the review's package of measures will buy a few years before the same capacity crisis once again grips the system. This may yet prove a missed opportunity.
Sky News
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Sky News
Men's prisons could run out of space in months, government warns
Men's prisons in England and Wales could run out of space later this year, the government has warned, as it announced three new jails worth £4.7bn will be built starting this year. Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood revealed the expansion plans in Downing Street alongside Amy Rees, the outgoing chief executive of His Majesty's Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS). Ms Rees outlined how the male prison population was at 99% capacity and set to run out of room in November. She highlighted issues like longer average sentences and not enough new prison capacity as contributing factors to the crisis. A high number of criminals being recalled to custody was also noted. Repeating previous schemes to release people earlier in their sentences would "only buy us time", Ms Rees said. Ms Mahmood went on to criticise the Conservatives, saying the situation the UK found itself in was "shameful". She claimed Labour added 28,000 places under Sir Tony Blair and Gordon Brown's governments, while the 14 years of Tory-rule after that only saw 500 new places. The justice secretary then confirmed that £4.7bn would be invested to build new prisons. The announcement comes ahead of the spending review and Ms Mahmood says it will allow three penitentiaries to start construction. 12:16 Ms Mahmood said last year that £2.3bn would be spent on prisons, meaning a total of £7bn has been announced by the new government. The three new prisons are the same as those announced last year, and alongside HMP Millsike which has already opened. To relieve the pressure on prisons in the interim, the government said it was going to limit recall conditions for some inmates. This includes prisoners serving up to four years only being subject to recall periods of 28 days, although repeat offenders and those at higher risk will not be eligible for the limit. The plans come after the government's controversial early release scheme last year, which saw some inmates freed after serving only 40% of their sentences, rather than the usual 50%. Meanwhile, the latest weekly statistics for England and Wales showed the prison population stood at 88,087. The figure is 434 below the last peak in the prison population of 88,521 inmates on 6 September 2024 - just before the early release scheme began.
