Under the tight restrictions of lockdown in prisons in England and Wales since March 2020 in response to COVID-19, it is now the ‘norm’ for prisoners to be kept in their cells for up to 23 hours a day.
The latest Safety in Custody statistical release from the Ministry of...
Our Director, Richard Garside, today welcomed comments by the former Chief Inspector of Prisons, Lord Ramsbotham, on the crisis in the prisons system.
In remarks reported by the i, Lord Ramsbotham said that the 'avoidable crisis' in prisons had 'been made a great deal worse by the deliberate actions of ministers and their...
There is a sickness haunting the prison service in England and Wales. This sickness, which systematically generates suffering and death, goes right to the very heart of the daily workings of prison regimes.
Our Director, Richard Garside, has called on the government to develop a long-term plan to downsize prisons across England and Wales. The government should aim to at least halve the number of people locked up over the next twenty years, he said.
His call comes as...
The border between prison and the outside community appears to be particularly open to people with mental health problems.
In 1997, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) published a...
Given the parlous state of prisons across England and Wales, a reform-minded Justice Minister like Michael Gove has ample opportunity to make his mark.
Two developments this month point to deep problems at the heart of the prison and probation systems in England and Wales.
On prisons,...
The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman has said that prison staff are overlooking obvious warning signs that prisoners might take their own lives, The...
According to Ministry of Justice figures released last Thursday, there has been a 69% rise in suicides in penal institutions in the 12 months ending in March 2014. ...
According to figures from UK researchers, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, the economic crisis in Europe and North America led to more than 10,000 extra suicides.
Data from 24 EU countries, the...
The annual publication of official crime data has been a bit of a damp squib in recent years, at least as far as press and political interest is concerned. Crime falling is nowhere near as good a...
