Archive for the ‘Howard League’ Category

Less crime, safer communities, fewer people in prison

We have launched our new campaign, which you can find by visiting our website.  Please take two minutes to take action for the Howard League and help us put penal reform at the top of the political agenda during the general election and beyond.

March 5, 2010  Tags:   Posted in: Campaigns, Children and young people, Government policy, Howard League, Overcrowding, Prisons, Public Services, Rehabilitation, Sentencing, Victims  No Comments

A busy affair

Our AGM last night was a busy affair. Around 200 people attended to hear guest speaker Dominic Grieve QC MP, the shadow justice minister, give a comprehensive overview of Conservative party penal policy. He was very straightforward about the challenges they would face in government and overall was pretty well received. He said they had [...]

November 25, 2009   Posted in: Howard League  One Comment

Keir Starmer lecture on the role of the modern prosecutor

The Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, gave a lecture for the Howard League last night discussing issues about the role of the prosecutors in dealing with young people. There were plenty of references to his defence of the Human Rights Act and consequent media attention, but I was really pleased to see that [...]

October 23, 2009  Tags: ,   Posted in: Children and young people, Headline grabbing, Howard League, Uncategorized  2 Comments

Increase in number of children in prison

Well done Barnardo’s for drawing attention to the scandalous increase in the number of children being sent to penal custody.  If anything the charity has been too cautious in its recommendations.  It was only a few years ago that there was just a handful of children aged between 12 and 14 in custody at any [...]

August 13, 2009  Tags: , , ,   Posted in: Children and young people, Howard League, Prisons, Sentencing  2 Comments

Women dying in custody

We launched a campaign to prevent women dying in custody today and had a bit of a run about with the figures.  So some explanation might be helpful.  The main focus of our work over years has been how we could work to reduce the use of prison for women (and men) and prevent deaths.
I [...]

July 13, 2009  Tags: ,   Posted in: Campaigns, Government policy, Howard League, Inside prisons, Self-injuring, Women in custody  One Comment

The Howard League office

This will be my last blog of the old system as we are redesigning the page for next week so I thought I would write something about our office.  We have 20 staff, and volunteers and interns who come in to help.  It is busy and a bit chaotic and shambly, but friendly and everyone [...]

June 26, 2009   Posted in: Howard League  No Comments

Private Eye lunch

I had lunch with the editorial board of Private Eye.  Every couple of weeks the editorial team meets and they have lunch afterwards in a pub in Soho.  The same pub and the same menu for decades.  There are, incredibly, still pubs in the busiest part of London where tourists simply don’t venture.  They invite [...]

April 28, 2009   Posted in: Howard League  No Comments

Friends of the Howard League

It has been a sad start to the year, two deaths.  John Mortimer today, who was our President for many years, amused us at social events, guided us in our tricky relations with ministers and helped to raise shed loads of money.  And last week, Paul Buxton, who had been our Treasurer and Trustee, moral [...]

January 16, 2009   Posted in: Howard League  No Comments

Coldingley social enterprise closed

Our social enterprise in Coldingley prison closed down on Friday.  After two years of producing high quality graphic design for a wide range of
clients, we had to give in and close it down.
We had a useful meeting with the Minister, David Hanson, last week to explain the insurmountable problems that made it impossible to run [...]

December 22, 2008   Posted in: Howard League, Inside prisons  No Comments

A funny old week

It has been a funny old week.  On Monday I was on my way to a debate at the US embassy (I have never been inside, just outside if you see what I mean) and found I had misread the invite and was an hour early. Listening to the car radio I heard that Bloc [...]

October 31, 2008   Posted in: Howard League  No Comments