Comment
13 November 2023

At StopWatch, we’re currently working in partnership with the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies on a research project funded by the Transition to Adulthood Alliance, on serious violence reduction orders (SVROs).

Comment
25 October 2023

It’s a reform proposal that’s been in and out of favour in recent years.

Back in 2019 Chalk’s predecessor at Justice, David Gauke and the then Prison Minister Rory Stewart set out a rationale for introducing restrictions on short prison sentences. But a planned green paper detailing options was abruptly shelved following Boris Johnson’s election as leader and Prime Minister.  

Comment
19 October 2023

As a recent book – Rethinking Community Sanctions – points out, a more democratic politics around community-based sanctions might help to address the lurch to carceral ‘solutions’.

Whilst taking on this challenging academic text, I mused on twin recollections of my time as a field probation officer in London.

Comment
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4 October 2023

The data revealed by the pilot is new. But the picture it paints is a familiar one to those acquainted with concerns about the operation of joint enterprise.

Comment
29 September 2023

In England and Wales, by contrast, three people were fatally shot by the police in the twelve months to March 2023. I am not aware of any fatal shootings by police officers in Scotland and Northern Ireland during the same period.

I can only imagine the grief, anguish and anger any fatal police shooting must cause family members and friends. We should always aim for no fatal police shootings across the UK, as has been the case in some years.

Comment
27 September 2023

You might think that I would agree with him, but I don’t.

He correctly identifies what is wrong with the prisons. Wandsworth is designated as having space for 1,000 men but is holding 600 over that. Even 1,000 is too many and is a number assessed by the prison service itself. Similarly the other prisons he identifies as being not fit for purpose are dilapidated, vermin infested and simply locking men up all day.

Comment
22 September 2023

It also requires a commitment to the often-overlooked importance of offering respect and dignity to defendants and court users. The impact of this commitment reaches out into the local community.

Such was the lesson from The Power of Dignity, a memorable account by retired US Judge Victoria Pratt of her many years sitting on the bench in New Jersey.

Comment
19 September 2023

In June, we submitted the first freedom of information request to the Home Office as part of our new research on SVROs (which you can read more about here).

Comment
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31 August 2023

In the wake of Black Lives Matter and their call to defund the police, the Casey Report on the serial failings of the Metropolitan Police, Liberty’s collaborative report, Holding Our Own, and the Police Race Action Plan produced by the National Police

Comment
22 August 2023

Such was the case with the edited collection, The Good Prison Officer, which vividly portrays insider perspectives from contributors who have experienced incarceration and those entrusted with the role of of prison officer.

Comment
31 July 2023

The exhibition, organised by UNGRIPP (United Group for the Reform of IPP), told the stories of IPP prisoners, their families and friends. It was a stark reminder of just how corrosive this terrible sentence, passed at the height of the former Labour government’s ‘tough on crime’ obsession, has become to a sense of justice and the rule of law.

Comment
26 July 2023

Here I introduce three key areas we’ll be exploring in this series: serious violence reduction orders, joint enterprise prosecutions and offensive weapons homicide reviews. As well as some of the excellent of collaborators we are delighted to be working with.

One of our first areas we are focusing on is serious violence reduction orders (SVROs).