Richard Garside

Our Director, Richard Garside, gave evidence to the Justice Committee earlier today as part of the Prison Population 2022: planning for the future inquiry. 

Key questions were asked about:

The seventh edition of UK Justice Policy Review is out now, covering the period from the 2016 Brexit referendum to the 2017 General Election.  

Produced annually, the Review uniquely offers concise coverage of key policy developments in criminal justice across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Knife crime should be treated as a public health challenge, not a policing problem, our Director, Richard Garside, tells The Guardian newspaper today.

There is renewed concern that knife violence is on the rise following the publication of the latest crime data showing a 22 percent increase in knife crime and an 11 percent rise in gun crime.

The death by shooting of a 17-year-old girl in Tottenham has raised fresh concerns about apparently rising violent crime in London.

According to official data, there were 100 suspected homicides in London in the 12 months to March 2012. The following year, it rose to 109, before falling. In the 12 months to March 2017, there were 108 suspected homicides.

Our Director, Richard Garside, spoke on last night's BBC Newsnight on the dismissal of Nick Hardwick as Chair of the Parole Board.

Richard told the programme:

It’s really important as we look forward that the independence of the Parole Board from political interference is absolutely guaranteed.

It’s really striking in his resignation letter that Nick Hardwick raises the question, effectively, of whether parliament itself should intervene to guarantee the independence of Parole Board decision-making.

Our Director Richard spoke about the prisons crisis at a meeting of the Friends of Le Monde Diplomatique earlier this week.

Richard said that that 'the prisons crisis is not, fundamentally, a crisis in prisons: one that can be resolved if the right reforms, the right action, is taken. It is a crisis of prisons: of our unbending attempts to treat a complex set of social problems - violence, drug, alcohol and mental health problems, poverty and disadvantage, social antagonisms - as if they are a simple set of crime problems, be resolved through punishment'.