Richard Garside

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'.

Our submission to the House of Commons Justice Committee inquiry into the prison population in 2022 has been published on the Committee's website.

Submitted in partnership with the analytical services organisation, Justice Episteme, our submission offers an analysis of the historical trajectory of the custodial population in England and Wales from 2003, and a projection for the period to 2022 and beyond.

Reflecting on the events of 2017 and looking ahead to 2018, our Director, Richard Garside, said:

2017 has been one of the busiest years for the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies. We have published more than 20 reports, briefings and journal editions. We have held more than 20 events. We have met with ministers and government officials and our work has been cited in parliament.

Criminal justice across the UK has got smaller, but tougher, over recent years, according to a new briefing from the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies. While recorded crime, prosecutions and convictions have all fallen over the past decade, a 'justice dividend' has yet to be realised in the number of people in prison, which have continued to rise.

Commenting on the National Audit Office report, Investigation into changes to Community Rehabilitation Company Contracts, out today, the Director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, Richard Garside, said:

The government admitted some months ago that it had bailed out the struggling private probation companies. Thanks to the National Audit Office, we now know that the bail-out was worth a third of a billion pounds. It is unlikely to be the last bail-out the government will make before the current contracts come to an end in early 2022.

Richard Garside, Director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies today (Thursday, 14 December 2017) commented on a damning annual report by the Chief Inspector of Probation, Dame Glenys Stacey.

'None of government’s stated aspirations for Transforming Rehabilitation have been met in any meaningful way', Dame Glenys noted. She went on to question whether the current model for probation can deliver sufficiently well'.

Speaking today, Richard said:

We've had a busy few weeks in the media, making interventions on a range of matters, from youth prisons to criminal records, knife violence, to the state of the probation service.

The controversial security company G4S should be stripped of its contract to run Oakhill secure training centre, the Director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, Richard Garside, said today, following a damning Ofsted report on the institution.

Richard also called for the government to close the three secure training centres – Medway, Oakhill and Rainsbrook – as part of a plan to end the imprisonment of children.

Our Director Richard Garside today welcomed remarks by the Chair of the all-party group on knife crime that tackling knife violence was a health and education challenge, not a police issue.

The remarks by Sarah Jones, the MP for Croydon Central, came in an interview with The Guardian. She also called for a 10-year, cross-governmental strategy to tackle the problem.