HMP

The lord chancellor has announced that magistrates will have their sentencing powers increased, after a previous abandoned attempt by the last government  Shabana Mahmood MP confirmed the plans to allow magistrates to issue custodial sentences for up to 12 months for a single offence – a doubling of their current powers. The government claims the […]

The prison population of England and Wales has hit a record high after rising by nearly 1,000 in four weeks. Labour has also activated Operation Early Dawn in parts of England and Wales where defendants will be summoned to a magistrates court only when a space in prison is available. The sharp increase is believed to have been driven

With the maximum capacity for prisoners in England and Wales standing at just over 87,000, the available places is reported to be in the low hundreds. The system is at crisis point, and has been for some time now, and with no apparent solution to remedy this crisis The new Labour government has pledged to

Nearly four in five prisons do not have enough officers trained to deal with riots as part of so-called “Tornado” squads, despite rising violence and disorder behind bars, The Independent can reveal. With the prisons crisis a major concern ahead of the general election, prison officers responded to the revelations by accusing Rishi Sunak’s government

The Lord Chancellor is triggering an emergency measure, Operation Early Dawn, to deal with the worsening problem of the prison population. Details are somewhat lacking but it appears to be an extension of early release and other measures, but there is a particular measure affecting Magistrates\’ courts in England (but not Wales at the moment).

Details of deaths in Britain’s prisons will now be published weekly in a “truly momentous” improvement in openness and transparency. The prisons and probation ombudsman (PPO) will post weekly updates identifying those who have died, the prison where they were being held and the date of their death. Previously, details of those who have died inside prisons have not been released until an

An 18-year-old inmate who lost her baby at Europe\’s largest women\’s prison should never have given birth alone in her cell, according to a critical report from inspectors. The baby died in September 2019 at HMP Bronzefield in Surrey. The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman report found a series of failings in the teenager\’s treatment. The