News
Comment on Transforming Rehabilitation report
Our Director Richard Garside today welcomed a new report by the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee...
News
Comment on Justice and Home Secretary appointments
Commenting on the appointment of Liz Truss as Justice Secretary our Director, Richard Garside, said:
Liz Truss' predecessor, Michael Gove, seems destined to go down as the great prison reformer whose career was ended before he had time to disappoint prison reformers.
...
Comment
Doing bad policy well
Two developments this month point to deep problems at the heart of the prison and probation systems in England and Wales.
Grim news on prisons
On prisons,...
News
Integrated Offender Management 'promising'
A new joint report by the Probation and Police Inspectorates on integrated offender management (PDF, new window) has concluded that it is 'a...
News
Government guarantees private prisons will not face closure
Government ministers and civil servants reguarly extol the virtues of a 'level playing field' when it comes to the delivery of public services. Neither the public, private nor voluntary sectors should have an unfair advantage when it comes to competing on cost, quality or delivery,...
News
File on Four covers probation privatisation
Yesterday BBC Home Affairs correspondent Danny Shaw investigated the government's plans to privatise probation for the Radio Four current affairs programme File on Four.
He found lots of people who thought it the plans were a terrible idea but few who thought it was a good idea. Apart...
News
Hundreds of probation officers appeal against new jobs
With the onset of probation work being contracted out next year, 'hundreds' of probation officers are appealing against the jobs they have been given. This is set to increase as more staff are informed of changes to their jobs and location of work.
Chris Grayling, the Justice Secretary, ...
News
The House Magazine reviews probation plans
Our Director Richard Garside has written for a House Magazine policy review of the government's plans to privatise probation and introduce 'payment by results' (PbR).
Richard writes:
'Whether PbR will work in the terms the Government expects is impossible to
...
News
Serco London Probation contract to end this year
In a further sign that the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is clearing the decks ahead of the planned probation privatisation, it has announced that Serco's Community Payback contract in London will stop by the end of this year.
The announcement was smuggled into a footnote in an MoJ press...
News
When probation officers become debt collectors
We thought this Human Rights Watch (HRW) film on for-profit probation work in the United States gives a worrying glimpse into the possible future of probation work in England and Wales.
Chris Albin-Lackey of HRW says in the film:
'Many of these probation companies
...
Comment
The coming probation privatisation disaster
If the government's plans to privatise probation under the 'Transforming Rehabilitation' programme end up being as messy, expensive, counter-productive and damaging as many critics fear, today's...
News
Probation risk assessment will be time-consuming and bureaucratic, Napo claims
The Guardian is carrying a story this morning on leaked Ministry of Justice guidance on how 220,000 convicted lawbreakers will be split between...