Another announcement about victims

Jack Straw has announced a new national victims’ service. It won’t be a statutory service, but a sort of unit with a paltry £8 million funding. This comes seven years after legislation was passed to set up a commissioner for victims office. This has not happened, despite being announced several times, until Sara Payne was [...]

January 27, 2010  Tags: ,   Posted in: Government policy, Victims  No Comments

A new face at the top

Phil Wheatley, director general of the national offender management service (NOMS), has announced he is to retire later this year.  I wish him well in his retirement.
This offers a tremendous opportunity for change in the criminal justice system.  A new person at the top could inject some energy into a programme of reform based on [...]

January 18, 2010  Tags: , , , ,   Posted in: Government policy, Prisons, Public Services  One Comment

Some good news

For once there is some good news.
Dominic Grieve, the shadow secretary of state for justice, announced a Conservative government would not now build 5,000 new prison places if elected but would focus on regulating the prison population.
The government justice secretary, Jack Straw, announced on Thursday that women should be sentenced in the community and no [...]

December 8, 2009  Tags: , , ,   Posted in: Government policy, Prisons, Women in custody  No Comments

Plans for a new prison

The Ministry of Justice plans to build a new prison on a hospital site in Essex and is conducting a local consultation. There is a pattern here. In South London the hospital at Banstead was closed and guess what, two prisons were built on the site, Highdown and Downview. Now another mental hospital is closing [...]

October 26, 2009  Tags: ,   Posted in: Government policy, Prisons  No Comments

Still no good

Following widespread objection to a new government law which would allow the state to remove profits from prisoners who represent their crime through any artistic medium, the government has issued two amendments in an aim to placate their critics and pass what remains an oppressive statute.
To recap, Part 7 of the Coroners and Justice Bill [...]

October 16, 2009  Tags:   Posted in: Government policy  No Comments

Some interesting meetings today

Once a month, we hold staff meetings. We now have 29 staff and so they are lively affairs. This morning Frances Flaxington, head of women’s policy at the ministry of justice, came along to talk to us. 
Our campaign to prevent the deaths of women in prison – Lost Daughters – was the focus for the [...]

October 12, 2009  Tags: ,   Posted in: Mental health, Women in custody  No Comments