Latest news with #HMPPS
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.
The Guardian
06-05-2025
- The Guardian
Prisons minister vows to end ‘toxic' cover-up culture in England and Wales
Sexual harassment, racism and bullying have become 'normalised' in jails and probation offices across England and Wales, the prisons minister has warned, as he announced a plan to overhaul a 'toxic culture of cover-up' among senior staff. James Timpson said one in eight of HM Prison and Probation Service's (HMPPS) 65,000 staff say they have been bullied. Sexual assaults on female staff have led to arrests while black and Asian staff have faced repeated racist comments amid a 'vacuum of pastoral care'. After a review by the department's non-executive director, Jennifer Rademaker, recommended wholesale changes to how HMPPS deals with complaints, Lord Timpson announced a 'seismic shift' to improve professional standards. 'Unacceptable behaviour, language, attitude and action have become normalised, tolerated and accepted over time, and as Jennifer's report shows, bullying, intimidation and harassment in HMPPS has gone unchecked for far too long,' he said. A new, independent unit will investigate and respond to allegations of bullying, harassment and discrimination, he said, because until now, complaints had been submitted to line managers. 'Imagine making complaints knowing, full well, it will be investigated by a senior manager who is friends [with the alleged perpetrator], and they socialise together outside of work too. Timpson, speaking at the launch of the review at HMP High Down, Surrey, pointed to a survey that found 'one in eight HMPPS staff said that they've been bullied or harassed'. 'Many said they didn't feel as though they could come forward or that they would be punished,' he said, adding there were 'too many' examples of racism within HMPPS. 'Colleagues have been repeatedly subjected to racist remarks but keep quiet because they think nothing will change,' he said. Misogyny and sexual harassment incidents inflicted upon prison officers must be exposed, he said, telling the story of one woman officer who was sexually assaulted while on duty. A more senior male officer 'forced his tongue into her mouth' after harassing her, including asking her bra size. The woman initially did not report the officer even though he had 'a reputation' for such behaviour but finally plucked up the courage, leading to his sacking and prosecution for sexual assault. 'His actions were clearly despicable,' said Timpson. 'But her story begs the question, why did it take an assault for this man to finally be called out? Why, when he already had a reputation, was he not exposed sooner?' He contrasted the behaviour of the perpetrator with the bravery of staff responding to help prison officers attacked last month by the Manchester bomb attack plotter at HMP Frankland. The review made a series of recommendations, which senior HMPPS leaders have confirmed that they are going to implement in full. Reacting to the report, the general secretary of the national association of probation officers, Ian Lawrence, said: 'Unfortunately this long awaited report makes for grim reading. It will bring no comfort to our members working in probation within what is often described as a soulless and seriously mis-managed prison-centric organisation. 'We want more to be done to expose the reality of racism, sexism and corruption within HMPPS that our members tell us about.'
South Wales Argus
30-04-2025
- Business
- South Wales Argus
MS says Welsh businesses should consider hiring ex-offenders
This call comes from Jack Sargeant, the Welsh minister for culture, skills and social partnership, who highlights the potential of this often-overlooked talent pool in alleviating workforce shortages. In a statement, Mr Sargeant said: "Around a quarter of the UK population has a conviction. "That's a significant number of people with valuable skills, experience, and knowledge who can make a positive contribution to society – and potentially to your business or organisation as well." Ex-offenders, many of whom have developed new skills during their time in prison, are seen as a resource to help address challenges such as inflation and rising costs, which are currently hampering Welsh small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Support is available from His Majesty's Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS), Working Wales, and the Department for Work and Pensions, offering free access to talent. Prisons across Wales are providing training in areas experiencing skills shortages, such as construction, hospitality, digital technologies, manufacturing, warehousing, and green and net-zero courses. He said research shows that 86 per cent of employers rate ex-offenders as good at their jobs. Businesses are encouraged to contact Business Wales for advice and resources on accessing training and funding opportunities.
Yahoo
31-03-2025
- Yahoo
I was a prison governor for 10 years. This is why corruption is engulfing our criminal justice system
All is not well inside the last Hermit kingdom in public service. I'm referring to His Majesty's Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS), a closed and secretive fiefdom that has acquired a reputation for security scandals and managerial incompetence that even high walls, literal and figurative, can't contain. Behind the austere perimeters of the prison side of business, another disgrace looms – corruption. I was a prison officer and governor for a decade in the 1990s. During this purple patch for the service, the men and women who wore the uniform largely did so with pride and either had years of 'jailcraft' experience to draw on or came to the landings from other walks of life with the requisite emotional maturity to conduct themselves properly. Was it a perfect institution? No. Indeed, the fundamental stressors of the job – working in an environment where anything bad could happen and often did remained. We employed racists and people who caused prisoners and their colleagues no end of difficulty by misusing their immense discretionary power. But these miscreants were in a distinct minority, and staff corruption was either deeply concealed or driven out by an esprit de corps that is so important and so badly missing from today's service. Outside Whitehall, nobody is blind to the multiple lurid stories that have emerged in recent months and years with an uncomfortably common theme: female staff being caught in sexually compromising situations with male prisoners. Jails are places saturated with risk and trauma. Officers and prisoners are locked away in an environment that is far from normal, where sexual predation, conditioning and coercion is baked into the fabric. But I think these recent stories are symptoms of a much larger and more worrying problem than was ever the case when I worked inside. Here is an emblematic example. In June 2024, a female prison officer at HMP Wandsworth (where I was head of security in the 1990s) gained global notoriety after a video filmed inside the prison showed her having sex with an inmate. The footage, which went viral online, led to her arrest. Linda De Sousa Abreu was jailed in January having pled guilty to misconduct in a public office. This officer had passed the HMPPS recruitment security vetting process despite having a publicly available OnlyFans account and being previously featured on the Channel 4 series Open House: The Great Sex Experiment. Neither of these activities is illegal, but only an imbecile would say they were compatible with a front-line security role near seasoned and manipulative criminals. Part of the footage was recovered from her body-worn camera. You couldn't make it up. De Sousa Abreu was hired as a result of a rushed process to get boots on wings denuded of staff as a result of utterly destructive Conservative austerity cuts that drove experience out and allowed in people patently unsuitable to the job. HMP Wandsworth, a major London prison, is falling apart in plain sight. Yet, it is a 20-minute cab ride from HMPPS Headquarters, where thousands of bureaucrats labour in roles that seem to make no difference to the abject state of our penal slums. On some occasions, up to 40 per cent of officers at Wandsworth were routinely unavailable for a workplace that was drowning in filth and drugs where staff could not routinely account for the whereabouts of prisoners. This sort of environment, where leadership and even basic supervision are absent, is ideal for illicit relationships to flourish. The state is not in charge at Wandsworth. When I was head of security there, we were the biggest gang in the jail. There was a sense of discipline in the organisation that is now sneered at and deprecated by the cartel of activist groups and academics that have far too much influence on prison operational policy. These long-dead attributes meant it was almost impossible for blatant abuses of power to occur. Order and control are foundational to prison safety and legitimacy. Where this has foundered, and we have hugely inexperienced youngsters badly selected, poorly trained and unsupervised all sorts of corruption will flourish. The rot extends far beyond prison officers too. Female prison psychologists and teachers have all been exposed in illicit affairs with prisoners. Male staff in female prisons have been jailed for relationships with particularly vulnerable women. Prisons without even elementary security screening processes allow both men and women in uniform and other staff corrupted by sophisticated and well-heeled offenders to run drugs and phones into prisons. The quantities of these items delivered to offenders, who should be doing rehabilitation, not lines of coke, simply cannot be explained by drone deliveries alone. The rampant drug economy flourishing in our prisons unopposed is the lubricant or by-product of much of the corruption we are now reading about. Prof John Podmore, who used to run the counter-corruption operation in the prison service, put it like this: 'Serious organised crime is increasingly well organised in prisons. Control over so many jails has been ceded to highly profitable criminal enterprises.' I feel for the thousands of decent and effective female staff who pull on a uniform every morning and who, on top of all the other stresses of the job, must endure the humiliation of being associated with a minority of their colleagues who have brought the service into such disrepute. I do not accept the formula the spinners at the Ministry of Justice increasingly rely on – that the number of staff being detected means that counter-corruption strategies are working. Something else is going on. Over a third of prison officers now have less than one year's experience in uniform. Many of these recruits will learn on the job as I did and become effective officers doing a vital job for society. But they won't have any of the experience and numbers of colleagues I had to lean on. Too many others will be unsuitable for a uniquely complex job and their immaturity will put them at risk to themselves and security. This law enforcement agency has lost its way. Ministers know this and are helpless to act. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
