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Today marks the 30th anniversary of the start of the Strangeways protests.
We were due to hold a conference, After Strangeways: The Past, Present and Future of Prisons, at King's College London to commemorate the longest prison protest in British history.
Although our event has been postponed due to the public health crisis, we have...
Our Director, Richard Garside, is signatory of the mass call to immediately reduce the number of people in detention settings.
The letter, coordinated by Inquest and Women in Prison, and signed by over 100 signatories, asks the government to prioritise the health and wellbeing of prisoners during this public health crisis.
The call concluded with:
A timely, effectively managed and
...
In a new comment piece, our director Richard Garside sets out some of the ways we plan to respond to the growing coronavirus crisis in prisons.
'If an institution was to be invented with the express intention of maximising the spread of coronavirus, and of concentrating it among those most likely to be vulnerable to it', Richard writes, 'that institution would probably look much like a prison.'
Richard's article covers some of...
We are sorry to announce that, due to ongoing concerns relating to coronavirus, the planned conference on 1 April, marking the 30th anniversary of the Strangeways prison protest, has been cancelled.
We are hoping to organise an equivalent event at some point. Given how unpredictable the situation currently is, we are not making any firm plans at this stage.
We will be announcing our future plans for conferences and events via our eBulletin. If you do not currently subscribe, you can...
Before the Strangeways protests in 1990, documentary filmmaker Rex Bloomstein created the series, Strangeways.
Broadcast in 1980, Strangeways explored daily life in the Manchester prison before the protests, showing the public what life was like for those imprisoned.
Rex Bloomstein is a speaker at our upcoming conference,...
Richard Garside comments on overcrowding in prisons.
Prisons will reportedly reach bursting point by the end of this year, fuelled by the demand for spaces as a result of longer sentencing according to The Times.
The prison population has reached over 80,000 at this point, with overcrowding and deteriorating prison conidtions...
Our Research Analyst, Matt Ford, offers an overview of our new project, 'After Prison', for Russell Webster's website
'After Prison' aims to radically downsize the prison population in England and Wales based on the premise that there is always a better way to use a piece of land than as a place for a prison.
You can read the full article on Russell's site...
Congratulations to Mareile Kaufmann, Simon Egbert and Matthias Leese for winning this year's Radzinowicz Prize for their article on predictive policing.
The Radzinowicz Prize, named after criminologist Sir Leon Radzinowicz, is awarded each year to the person who contributes meaningfully to knowledge within criminal justice and criminology.
Chosen by the editorial board of the British Journal of Criminology, this year's winners...
Read Richard Garside on accidental liberalism and criminal justice trends
The latest edition of Probation Quarterly features a piece by our Director, Richard Garside, on criminal justice trends in retrospect and their signification of a flawed, accidental and incomplete liberalism.
Tackling fluctuating police numbers, the dangerous condition of...
Our Director, Richard Garside, yesterday called for a fundamental rethink of prisons policy after the release of a damning report from the National Audit Office.
Released today, the report concluded that the prison service was failing to provide a safe, secure and decent prison estate.
He said:
On just about every measure, the current
...
We need to avoid a slide into a situation where shooting terrorism suspects dead becomes the norm, the Centre's director, Richard Garside, said today.
He was responding to events yesterday afternoon on Streatham High Road in south London, during which twenty-year old Sudesh Amman was shot dead by the police. This followed reports that he had stabbed at least two people and was wearing what...
The Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology's latest research briefing, Non-Custodial Sentences, reviews sentencing trends, non-custodial sentencing and policy considerations.
The briefing, based on literature reviews and interviews with experts across the sector, cites our report by Helen Mills, 'Stopping Short?' Sentencing Reform and Short Prison Sentences...
