Archive for November, 2007

Poem by a self-harmer

Our legal team works with some very unhappy children, supporting them , caring for them and often being the only adults who stick with them consistently. One of the lads we have worked with for several years is one of the most prolific self harmers in the system. We are thinking about trying to get [...]

November 28, 2007   Posted in: Self-injuring  No Comments

Diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia

I have just come back from a Council of Europe conference for prison directors held in Vienna. The Council of Europe has 47 states and about 35 prison directorates were present. I will write more about this later this week, but now I want to let off steam about Saudi Arabia.
CNN in my hotel was [...]

November 21, 2007   Posted in: Government policy  No Comments

Teenager let down by Crawley Council

We have been supporting a teenage boy in prison who was released on 8th October 2007 to homeless accommodation and now his local authority is telling him to look in the yellow pages for accommodation as he is not a “priority need”. This lad has been rejected by his parents, has spent weeks in residential [...]

November 8, 2007   Posted in: Campaigns  No Comments

Sentencing framework needs reform

There were press reports at the weekend that the government is considering telling the courts not to use short prison sentences if there are no places, but that this would be a temporary measure. We support the principle that short prison sentences are pretty much useless. But, it would be unfair for the courts to [...]

November 5, 2007   Posted in: Sentencing  No Comments

Ministers who break the law

So a home office minister is caught using a mobile whilst he is driving and his excuse is that it was an important call. We all know that talking on a mobile whilst driving is not just illegal but extremely dangerous. A car is potentially a lethal weapon. More than 3,000 are killed or seriously [...]

November 2, 2007   Posted in: Government policy  No Comments

A day at the Howard League

I thought I might post something about what has been happening in the office, not because it is particularly different at the moment, but because it gives a flavour of how we work.
Chris Callender was in at 7.45 this morning to prepare for a meeting with senior counsel about our case going to the House [...]

November 2, 2007   Posted in: Howard League  No Comments