Chief justice calls for new approach to law and order

UK: The retiring [ruling class]lord chief justice, Lord Woolf, made a passionate plea for a new approach to law and order which would see a major shift away from punishment towards the solution of problems which generate crime.

Lord Woolf suggests a shortlist of four strictly limited categories of offenders who might be imprisoned and - in sharp contrast to the rhetoric of government ministers - he adds: "We need wider understanding and acceptance that the principles of sentencing are not just founded on punishing offenders."

Lord Woolf is stepping down in September after five years as the most senior criminal judge in England and Wales. His comments come in a response to the Guardian's two-year investigation into the criminal justice system, which uncovered fundamental weaknesses. The heads of prisons, drug treatment and the new National Offender Management Service (Noms) also respond in the paper.

Lord Woolf argues for a fundamental change in the use of imprisonment, restricting its use to the most dangerous offenders and the most serious crimes, as a recognition of special offences and as a fall-back where all other efforts have failed. But his stress is on the need to find more effective ways of cutting crime.

"Whilst I firmly believe that for serious and violent crimes there is no alternative to a custodial sentence, I also believe passionately on taking steps to turn people away from crime," he writes.

"We do not want a system that shuts people outside society, once they have left the prison gates."

He highlights the failure of current measures to prevent reoffending: "All of us working within the system must aim to do much better than that."

He supports moves towards restorative justice, which sees offenders making amends to their victims; and he suggests there might be a wider use of the approach taken with young offenders by the Youth Justice Board, which pulls together different agencies in a concerted attack on the roots of crime: "I see great value in looking at the specific needs and problems of particular groups."

He welcomes the creation of the new Noms but, in an aside which may irritate Whitehall, he acknowledges concerns, highlighted in the Guardian series, that the Home Office is struggling to manage the creation of the new service.

His comments come as the prison population in England and Wales shows alarming signs of surging upwards. On Friday, it reached a new high of 76,877 with predictions that it may break through 77,000 this week - despite the fact that August normally sees a drop in imprisonment.

Courts are apparently being driven into tougher sentencing by the recent outbreak of punitive rhetoric from government ministers, led by the prime minister's comments on young people wearing hoodies. This week a court sentenced a teacher who had had sex with a 14-year-old pupil to 15 months in jail.

Lord Woolf has a history of standing up to ministers and other hardliners over this kind of rhetoric. In May he spoke out against the overcrowding of prisons immediately after the chief constable of Hampshire, Paul Kernaghan, had called for yet more offenders to be jailed.

Last year, he clashed with the former home secretary, David Blunkett, and the Sun newspaper, both of whom attacked his proposal to reduce the time served in prison by murderers who plead guilty. He has also challenged the lord chancellor's intervention in the appointment of judges for public inquiries.

In his response, the chief executive of Noms, Martin Narey, defends the organisation, which is merging prisons and probation. But he is outspoken about the past failings of probation, conceding that reporting to courts was "close to collapse"; some leaders of probation did not believe their clients were capable of being educated, even though this was one of their priorities; and that the caricature of community penalties being badly enforced was "uncomfortably close to reality".

By Nick Davies posted 18 August 05

The Long Trail to Apology

Native America: All manner of unusual things can happen in Washington in an election year, but few seem so refreshing as a proposed official apology from the federal government to American Indians - the first ever - for the "violence, maltreatment and neglect" inflicted upon the tribes for centuries.

Restorative Justice Practices

Restorative Justice Practices of Native American, First Nation and Other Indigenous People of North America. This is part one in a series of articles about restorative justice practices of Native American, First Nation and other indigenous people of North America. The series is not intended to be all-inclusive, but rather a broad thematic overview. A related eForum article, "The Wet'suwet'en Unlocking Aboriginal Justice Program: Restorative Practices in British Columbia, Canada," can be read at:

Restorative Justice and the Law

To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe."-- Marilyn vos Savant.

Government justice not personal justice

Mr Brett Collins of Justice Action said, "Victims should be looked after properly by implementing restorative justice measures and victims should be compensated for their pain and suffering. " However prisoners are entitled to serve their sentences in peace and privacy as well."

Sentencing: Violent crime and practical outcomes

In addition introducing restorative justice programs giving the offender a chance to interact with the offended person if they wish and visa-versa. People are not "dogmatic" therefore should be given a second chance opposed to Life means Life!

Sentencing reform

Beyond Bars is making a submission (with a focus on alternatives to custody) to the sentencing council. "We should consider the alternatives which take into account victims' interests and involvement. Restorative justice. Also mentoring as a positive form of social support, coupled up to restorative justice (as the punishment) to satisfy those who demand it."

RESTORING TRUE JUSTICE:

Australian prisons are fast becoming the new asylums of the third millennium. The prison industry is booming, while Australia spends far less on mental health services than similar countries.

Some Practicalities Of Emptying The Prisons [287]

Given the importance that prisons and punishment have in maintaining control of increasingly restless populations, the task of achieving the release of the people in the jails and the closure of those institutions, seems daunting. But it is so vital to the 2nd Renaissance that we must find ways to do it.

Related:

Britain's only prison ship ends up on the beach
UK: The last inmates have departed and a skeleton staff is left guarding Britain's only prison ship - in case anyone is minded to break in rather than out.

Throw away the key
The one profession to get results on recidivism has been sacrificed to Labour's desire to lock up criminals in private prisons.

Judges' misdeeds will remain secret
UK: Judges who are disciplined for bad behaviour will not have the findings against them made public under a complaints regime to be launched next year.

Prisoner total rises 15% in six years
England and Wales are continuing to jail offenders at a higher rate than any other major country in western Europe, it emerged today. New research indicates that the government's use of prison as its main tool of penal policy has increased by 15% since 1999.

CPS drops prosecution over death in custody
UK: The family of Roger Sylvester, who died after being restrained by police officers, yesterday expressed their disappointment at a decision by the Crown Prosecution Service not to prosecute any of the officers involved.

Prisoner's cell death
UK: A prisoner was found hanged in his cell last week, the Home Office said, fuelling criticism over the soaring number of suicides in custody.

Plans for five new 'superprisons'
Recent figures show a total of 75,550 prisoners were held in 139 jails in England and Wales, nudging up the previous record of April 2004 by just six inmates.

Prison has lost its way - report
UK: Bristol prison is suffering wide-ranging problems because of inconsistent management, the Chief Inspector of Prisons has said.

Row over acupuncture for prisoners
UK: The Home Office has responded to criticism over prison inmates who are being offered acupuncture on the NHS in order to relieve stress.

Number of prisoners sent back to jail trebles
UK: The number of prisoners being sent back to jail after release has nearly trebled in the past five years, according to a report published today.

Top judge says crowded prisons cannot break cycle of crime
UK: Reoffending rates after a prison sentence are at an "unacceptably high level" and the failure of the criminal justice system to stop prisoners reoffending should shock the public, England's top judge, [Ruling Class] Lord Woolf, said last week.

All the World's a Prison: History
No doubt many of my readers, even those who are well-educated or widely read, think that the prison -- the place where dark deeds are darkly answered[2] -- is an ancient institution, a barbaric hold-over from barbaric times. In fact, the prison is of relatively recent origin, and this tells us a great deal about the pretentions and realities of modern times, and the wisdom and high degree of development of the ancients.

Decade after inspector left in disgust, report tells of filth
UK: Dirty, mice-infested cells, high levels of self-harm, and widespread bullying over drugs and medications were just some of the damning findings of a report into conditions at Holloway, Britain's largest women's prison.

Most women 'should not be jailed'
Women make up 6% of the prison population in England and Wales. Imprisonment of women should be "virtually abolished", a prison reform group has said.

Youth 'murdered for officers' pleasure'
UK: An Asian teenager was murdered by a white racist after they were placed in the same cell as part of a game to fulfil the "perverted pleasure" of prison officers, a public inquiry heard on Friday.

Deaths in isolation as prison segregation increases
The use of segregation [solitary confinement] of prisoners as punishment has been increasing recently in Australia, the US, and the UK. Segregation can be used for protection or punishment, but in both cases it results in extreme psychological stress. An indication that segregation is being over-used is the appearance of deaths in custody from suicide of those placed in segregation.

Inquest blames jail for overdose death
UK: An inquest jury returned a verdict itemising a catalogue of faults at Styal prison in Cheshire, concluding that the prison's "failure of duty of care" contributed to the death of Sarah Campbell, 18, who took an overdose of tablets on the first day of her three-year sentence.

Put in the way of self-harm in a place intended to protect others
UK: Sarah Campbell, 18, spent the last hours of her life in the segregation unit of Styal prison, Cheshire. "The seg", as those places are referred to, used to be known as "the block", short for punishment block. [ Seg is a bullshit word for Punishment, Solitary Confinement, Torture, Mental Illness, Self-Harm, Human Rights Abuse and that is State Terror.]

Britain 'sliding into police state'
The home secretary, Charles Clarke, is transforming Britain into a police state, one of the country's former leading anti-terrorist police chiefs [false flag police chiefs] said yesterday.

UK solitary confinement
UK: Segregation units are prisons within prisons - the places where the most unchecked brutality is meted out to prisoners. In recent years conditions in high security segregation units have deteriorated, and the use of long-term segregation as a control mechanism has increased.

Inquiry must root out prison racists
UK: It is difficult to imagine a more brutal murder than that of Zahid Mubarek. The 19-year-old was clubbed to death by his cellmate at Feltham Young Offender Institution in the early hours of 21 March 2000. He was due to be released just a few hours later.

Prison suicides soar as jails hire 'babysitters'
UK: Prison officers are being taken off suicide watch and replaced by unqualified 'babysitters' because the system is overwhelmed by an epidemic of self-harm.

Plan to sell off juvenile jails as job lot
UK: The government is to put out to tender all its dedicated juvenile jails that hold children under 18 in a departure in Whitehall's privatisation programme.

Failure to sack 'racist' prison staff condemned
UK: Two prison officers suspended for racism are still on full pay three years after a stash of Nazi memorabilia, neo-fascist literature and Ku Klux Klan-inspired 'nigger-hunting licences' was found in a police raid on their home.

Report slams 'unjust' jailing of women on remand
UK: Six out of 10 women sent to jail while they await trial are acquitted or given a non-custodial sentence, a report published today reveals. Introducing the report, Lady Kennedy QC calls for a complete review of the use of remand and bail for women saying it is "inhumane and unjust".

Concern as UK prison suicides hit record level
UK: More prisoners took their own lives in English jails in August than in any other month since records began, prison reformers said today.

End of years of despair as Holloway closes its doors
But now Holloway prison in north London - where Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be executed in Britain, was hanged in 1955 - has been earmarked for closure, along with several other women's prisons, which have been hit by a spate of suicides.

How detox and self-help brought suicide jail back from the brink
UK: Six suicides in 12 months made Styal jail notorious and the Prisons Ombudsman criticised the prison and its staff for serious failures. But things are changing.

Belmarsh detainees consider suicide, says freed man
UK: The first of the Muslim detainees released from Belmarsh high security prison after being held on suspicion of terrorism has told the Guardian his fellow prisoners are suffering such severe mental problems that they constantly consider suicide.

Suicides and unrest have soared, admits Home Office
UK:The already overcrowded prison population is set to go on rising and will top 80,000 within the next three years, a senior Home Office civil servant warned yesterday.

England tops the EU in imprisonment
England and Wales jail more offenders per capita than any other European, Union country, according to new figures.

Throw away the key

The one profession to get results on recidivism has been sacrificed to Labour's desire to lock up criminals in private prisons

UK: Patrick Carter is one of Downing Street's thinkers. He was asked to work out a way of streamlining the prison system at a time when the population has reached a record 76,000 and is estimated to hit 93,000 by the end of the decade.

But ever since Downing Street published the Carter review on the new National Offender Management Service (Noms) last winter, the criminal justice community has searched in vain for the evidence base and the business case.

Carter proposed the merger of two professional cultures: prison, which warehouses criminals and probation, which works on how and why offenders offend. To cut custodial sentences he proposed a sentencing regime designed to keep less serious offenders in the community - a scheme expected to fail under pressure from the tabloids and, therefore, Downing Street itself.

Noms is based on an ethic of efficiency and competition, unburdened by professional judgment and public service. But what evidence supports Noms? Judy McKnight is the general secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers, a union whose members, unusually, address the life and times of their clients - criminals - as part of their professional politics, and she has been told that we are not allowed to know.

She asked the Open Government Unit to give the business case for this new monster agency. That was in January. It took until May and the Freedom of Information Act to get a reply. The Open Government Unit said, yes, Noms is controversial and, yes, data is available; but, no, she can't have it. Disclosure would "impinge on the space needed by the government to debate all relevant issues"; it would "lead to speculation on the way Noms is being established", and this could "lead to a decline in support for the policy".

That fear is no doubt cemented by scepticism in the Home Office which, according to leaks, is afraid that the £4bn merger of the two services "faces a high risk of failure". It gets worse. According to the Open Government Unit, disclosure could "jeopardise" Noms by undermining the confidence not only of staff but of the judiciary. "Such prejudice" would be "detrimental to the public interest." "Business cases" may be revised and rejected but must not be revealed, says the unit. Why? Because public debate would "compromise" the procurement programme.

Ah, so it might deter the private sector. Carter proposed simultaneous integration and fragmentation of prison and probation. Scotland had a public debate and preferred a collegial, multi-disciplinary model. But England got a three-week consultation - over Christmas - and a merger. Management of the mega corrections agency would be informed by technical rather than professional values, and would be open to "contestability" - Carter code for privatisation. This will bury the small but sometimes beautiful probation service, probably the most feminised of the criminal-justice professions, and one of the most successful, into the large and largely unsuccessful prison system.

Noms's mission is to reduce re-offending, but custody yields a 60% recidivism rate. And putting more and more people in prison actually puts public safety at risk, says Professor Michael Jacobson, New York's former chief probation officer. He has been in Britain this month arguing that, contrary to myth, the city's crime was cut in the 1990s not by prison but by community punishment and probation. So, why privatise probation, rather than focus on reforming the big but unsuccessful prison service? We are left to guess - and my guess is that the government's view of what works with offenders has become that nothing works, that criminals are part of a larger residuum with criminal tendencies, and if we can't make them earn a legal living wage, and we can't kill them, all we can do is control them. So, criminal justice replaces social justice.

What sponsors crime, the kind of crime that drives communities crazy, is a dangerous kind of knowledge because it tells us so much about what people do with power and powerlessness, what can change and what it costs to create change; and not least what it is about men's culture - most offenders being men - that connects them to cultures of crime. The government bankrolled a research programme on crime and punishment, but that unpublished review has not been allowed to enlighten public debate about the cultures and causes of crime, and the possibilities and limits of change. Not-knowingness encourages the prevailing prejudice that nothing works and therefore public safety can only be gained by curfew, control and containment: if we can't cut their hands off, or their willies, or their heads, then lock 'em up and throw away the key.

This is the orientation that lurks behind the preference for a managerial and technical - rather than professional and public-service - response to crime and punishment. This approach empties the debate of the distinction between efficiency and effectiveness, suggests Richard Garside, the director of the Crime and Society Foundation. Tagging can be done by anyone, Tesco or Group 4. Super-prisons, by the efficiency logic, are better value for money than smaller prisons, and Group 4 can do prison just as well as Her Majesty. Containment is less challenging than addressing offenders' circumstances, the cultures and causes of crime.

The profession associated with change rather than containment is, of course, probation. But it has been disdained as public-service and "soft", even though it has delivered the most creative and challenging work with offenders to reduce recidivism. Pessimism begets prison and privatisation, and that is why the business case - if it exists - must stay secret. But there is hope; the Home Office, after all, has a new, nice team in Charles Clarke, Fiona McTaggart and Baroness Scotland, all thinking people. It is to be hoped that they're not entirely persuaded by the pessimists.

By Beatrix Campbell posted 8 July 05

Related:

Judges' misdeeds will remain secret
UK: Judges who are disciplined for bad behaviour will not have the findings against them made public under a complaints regime to be launched next year.

Prisoner total rises 15% in six years
England and Wales are continuing to jail offenders at a higher rate than any other major country in western Europe, it emerged today. New research indicates that the government's use of prison as its main tool of penal policy has increased by 15% since 1999.

CPS drops prosecution over death in custody
UK: The family of Roger Sylvester, who died after being restrained by police officers, yesterday expressed their disappointment at a decision by the Crown Prosecution Service not to prosecute any of the officers involved.

Prisoner's cell death
UK: A prisoner was found hanged in his cell last week, the Home Office said, fuelling criticism over the soaring number of suicides in custody.

Plans for five new 'superprisons'
Recent figures show a total of 75,550 prisoners were held in 139 jails in England and Wales, nudging up the previous record of April 2004 by just six inmates.

Prison has lost its way - report
UK: Bristol prison is suffering wide-ranging problems because of inconsistent management, the Chief Inspector of Prisons has said.

Row over acupuncture for prisoners
UK: The Home Office has responded to criticism over prison inmates who are being offered acupuncture on the NHS in order to relieve stress.

Number of prisoners sent back to jail trebles
UK: The number of prisoners being sent back to jail after release has nearly trebled in the past five years, according to a report published today.

Top judge says crowded prisons cannot break cycle of crime
UK: Reoffending rates after a prison sentence are at an "unacceptably high level" and the failure of the criminal justice system to stop prisoners reoffending should shock the public, England's top judge, [Ruling Class] Lord Woolf, said last week.

All the World's a Prison: History
No doubt many of my readers, even those who are well-educated or widely read, think that the prison -- the place where dark deeds are darkly answered[2] -- is an ancient institution, a barbaric hold-over from barbaric times. In fact, the prison is of relatively recent origin, and this tells us a great deal about the pretentions and realities of modern times, and the wisdom and high degree of development of the ancients.

Decade after inspector left in disgust, report tells of filth
UK: Dirty, mice-infested cells, high levels of self-harm, and widespread bullying over drugs and medications were just some of the damning findings of a report into conditions at Holloway, Britain's largest women's prison.

Most women 'should not be jailed'
Women make up 6% of the prison population in England and Wales. Imprisonment of women should be "virtually abolished", a prison reform group has said.

Youth 'murdered for officers' pleasure'
UK: An Asian teenager was murdered by a white racist after they were placed in the same cell as part of a game to fulfil the "perverted pleasure" of prison officers, a public inquiry heard on Friday.

Deaths in isolation as prison segregation increases
The use of segregation [solitary confinement] of prisoners as punishment has been increasing recently in Australia, the US, and the UK. Segregation can be used for protection or punishment, but in both cases it results in extreme psychological stress. An indication that segregation is being over-used is the appearance of deaths in custody from suicide of those placed in segregation.

Inquest blames jail for overdose death
UK: An inquest jury returned a verdict itemising a catalogue of faults at Styal prison in Cheshire, concluding that the prison's "failure of duty of care" contributed to the death of Sarah Campbell, 18, who took an overdose of tablets on the first day of her three-year sentence.

Put in the way of self-harm in a place intended to protect others
UK: Sarah Campbell, 18, spent the last hours of her life in the segregation unit of Styal prison, Cheshire. "The seg", as those places are referred to, used to be known as "the block", short for punishment block. [ Seg is a bullshit word for Punishment, Solitary Confinement, Torture, Mental Illness, Self-Harm, Human Rights Abuse and that is State Terror.]

Britain 'sliding into police state'
The home secretary, Charles Clarke, is transforming Britain into a police state, one of the country's former leading anti-terrorist police chiefs [false flag police chiefs] said yesterday.

UK solitary confinement
UK: Segregation units are prisons within prisons - the places where the most unchecked brutality is meted out to prisoners. In recent years conditions in high security segregation units have deteriorated, and the use of long-term segregation as a control mechanism has increased.

Inquiry must root out prison racists
UK: It is difficult to imagine a more brutal murder than that of Zahid Mubarek. The 19-year-old was clubbed to death by his cellmate at Feltham Young Offender Institution in the early hours of 21 March 2000. He was due to be released just a few hours later.

Prison suicides soar as jails hire 'babysitters'
UK: Prison officers are being taken off suicide watch and replaced by unqualified 'babysitters' because the system is overwhelmed by an epidemic of self-harm.

Plan to sell off juvenile jails as job lot
UK: The government is to put out to tender all its dedicated juvenile jails that hold children under 18 in a departure in Whitehall's privatisation programme.

Failure to sack 'racist' prison staff condemned
UK: Two prison officers suspended for racism are still on full pay three years after a stash of Nazi memorabilia, neo-fascist literature and Ku Klux Klan-inspired 'nigger-hunting licences' was found in a police raid on their home.

Report slams 'unjust' jailing of women on remand
UK: Six out of 10 women sent to jail while they await trial are acquitted or given a non-custodial sentence, a report published today reveals. Introducing the report, Lady Kennedy QC calls for a complete review of the use of remand and bail for women saying it is "inhumane and unjust".

Concern as UK prison suicides hit record level
UK: More prisoners took their own lives in English jails in August than in any other month since records began, prison reformers said today.

End of years of despair as Holloway closes its doors
But now Holloway prison in north London - where Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be executed in Britain, was hanged in 1955 - has been earmarked for closure, along with several other women's prisons, which have been hit by a spate of suicides.

How detox and self-help brought suicide jail back from the brink
UK: Six suicides in 12 months made Styal jail notorious and the Prisons Ombudsman criticised the prison and its staff for serious failures. But things are changing.

Belmarsh detainees consider suicide, says freed man
UK: The first of the Muslim detainees released from Belmarsh high security prison after being held on suspicion of terrorism has told the Guardian his fellow prisoners are suffering such severe mental problems that they constantly consider suicide.

Suicides and unrest have soared, admits Home Office
UK:The already overcrowded prison population is set to go on rising and will top 80,000 within the next three years, a senior Home Office civil servant warned yesterday.

England tops the EU in imprisonment
England and Wales jail more offenders per capita than any other European, Union country, according to new figures.

House of Commons Home Affairs Committee Rehabilitation of Prisoners

UK: We have carried out an inquiry into the rehabilitation of offenders as law-abiding and useful members of the wider community.

The best way of reducing re-offending is to ensure that prisoners on their release have the ability to get into work and a home to go to. We focus especially on ways of delivering these aims.

As a result of recent official reports and government initiatives, a basic policy framework is now largely in place which could make possible the more effective rehabilitation of offenders. However, implementation has been patchy. Progress has been made in developing more credible and effective sentencing, and in reviewing sentencing guidelines.

The merger of the Prison and Probation Services to form a National Offender Management Service (NOMS) is a step towards 'end to end' management of prisoners from sentence to resettlement, but NOMS is still in its early stages and much remains to be done.

We welcome the Government's publication of a National Action Plan on reducing reoffending,but are disappointed at the elementary nature of many of its action points. We recommend that it should be reissued in a revised and more detailed form, and that the Home Office should report annually to Parliament on progress made in implementing the Plan.

Despite a welcome recent decrease in re-offending rates, the scale of the problem is massive---it remains the case that nearly three in five prisoners are reconvicted within two years of leaving prison.

We support the use of reconviction rates as a measure of re-offending, and therefore of the success or otherwise of rehabilitation, but we criticise the current 'two-year post-release snapshot' as a blunt measuring tool, and recommend the adoption of more sophisticated measures. We regret the decision by the Home Office to reclassify its PSA Target (of reducing re-offending by 5%) as a 'standard' (committing it not to allow re-offending rates to deteriorate), and call for the reinstatement of the target.

Overcrowding is having a hugely damaging impact on the delivery of rehabilitative regimes across the prison estate, both in terms of quality and quantity of appropriate interventions.

We express scepticism about the Home Office's projection that the prison population will stabilise at about 80,000 by the end of the present decade, exactly matching estimated capacity. This projection depends on very large assumptions about the net effect of sentencing changes.

Regrettably, overcrowding is likely to remain a feature of our prison system for the foreseeable future. It should not be used as an excuse for ignoring the issue of rehabilitation and failing to follow examples of good practice.

The Prison Service has repeatedly failed to meet its target of providing an average of 24 hours' worth of purposeful activity for each prisoner per week. The situation may be even more serious than the official figures suggest. We carried out a 'Prison Diaries Project' which investigates prisoners' own experience of rehabilitative regimes.

First Report of Session 2004--05

By Just Us posted 24 January 05

Related:

England and Wales

Britain 'sliding into police state'
The home secretary, Charles Clarke, is transforming Britain into a police state, one of the country's former leading anti-terrorist police chiefs [false flag police chiefs] said yesterday.

Winning goals: Rethinking Crime and Punishment
I would reallocate resources within the prison service budget to give a higher priority to rehabilitation, retraining for future employment, and an improvement in literacy standards. During my own prison journey I was struck by the astoundingly high levels of illiteracy among prisoners. Tests show that about a third of all prisoners read and write at skill levels below those of 11-year-old schoolchildren.

London police may moor prison ship on Thames
UK: The London police are holding discussions about possibly mooring a prison ship on the River Thames in a bid to ease pressure on the spiralling prisoner population.

UK solitary confinement
UK: Segregation units are prisons within prisons - the places where the most unchecked brutality is meted out to prisoners. In recent years conditions in high security segregation units have deteriorated, and the use of long-term segregation as a control mechanism has increased.

Prisons accused of ignoring age trend
UK: A 70-year-old prisoner who uses a wheelchair has to pay "unofficial helpers" six chocolate bars a week to help him get around and to collect his meals, according to an investigation by the chief inspector of prisons into the growing number of elderly inmates.

Scandal of society's misfits dumped in jail
Up to 70% of inmates in Britain's jails have mental health disorders. In the first of a three-part series, Nick Davies hears their shocking stories.

Blunkett's Quest, but is he on drugs?
The legislation is expected to introduce a new definition of "possession" of an illegal drug, making it an offence to have a certain amount in the bloodstream. This is likely to prove controversial - not least because some drugs, such as cannabis, can remain in the bloodstream for weeks.

Mentally ill face 'Asbo' measures
UK: People with mental health problems living in the community could be banned from leaving their homes under proposals to reform mental health law, a legal expert has warned.

law and order days over, says Blair
UK: Tony Blair will today make the provocative claim that Labour's new five-year crime plan heralds "the end of the 1960s liberal consensus on law and order" by putting the values of the law-abiding majority at the centre of the criminal justice system.

Blunkett charges miscarriage of justice victims 'food and lodgings'
UK: We locked you up in jail for 25 years and you were innocent all along? That'll be £80,000 please.

England tops the EU in imprisonment
England and Wales jail more offenders per capita than any other European, Union country, according to new figures.

Britain ponders new terrorism laws?
The British Government is considering introducing new legislation that it claims would make it easier to convict suspected terrorists.

Blunkett to extend long arm of the law
UK: Sweeping changes to police powers were proposed by the government yesterday, with officers in England and Wales to be permitted to arrest suspects for any offence, rather than only those which attract prison sentences.

Australia

Prison boom will prove a social bust
Hardened criminals are not filling NSW's prisons - the mentally ill and socially disadvantaged are, writes Eileen Baldry.

Isolation, psychiatric treatment and prisoner' control
The 2003 NSW Corrections Health Service (now Justice Health) Report on Mental Illness Among NSW Prisoners states that the 12 month prevalence of any psychiatric disorder in prison is 74%, compared to 22% in the general community, and while this includes substance disorder the high rate cannot be attributed to that alone.

Where the Norm is Not the Norm: HARM-U
In the absence of public policy, this paper is an attempt to shine a light through the rhetoric and test for coherency in the policy and function of NSW’s only supermax prison, the High Risk Management Unit. Its present use will be compared with the ‘vision’ flogged by the Premier and the Department of Corrective Services (the Department) at its inception in 2001.

Crime and Punishment
Mark Findlay argues that the present psychological approach to prison programs is increasing the likelihood of re-offending and the threat to community safety.

Government justice not personal justice
Mr Brett Collins of Justice Action said, "Victims should be looked after properly by implementing restorative justice measures and victims should be compensated for their pain and suffering. " However prisoners are entitled to serve their sentences in peace and privacy as well."

Sentencing: Violent crime and practical outcomes
In addition introducing restorative justice programs giving the offender a chance to interact with the offended person if they wish and visa-versa. People are not "dogmatic" therefore should be given a second chance opposed to Life means Life!

Carr Govt dramatic increases in the NSW prisoner pop...
Following the opening of the 500 bed Kempsey prison, and a new 200-bed prison for women at Windsor the Council of Social Service of NSW (NCOSS) and community organisations specialising in the rehabilitation of prisoners, have expressed concern....

New Zealand

More jails will create more crime says expert
NZ: Once a world leader in restorative justice, New Zealand is regressing by locking more people up for longer, visiting expert Sir Charles Pollard says.

USA

New Strategies for Curbing Recidivism
US: State and federal lawmakers are finally realizing that controlling prison costs means controlling recidivism - by helping newly released people establish viable lives once they get out of jail.

Prison System Fails Women, Study Says
State policies designed for violent men make female offenders' rehabilitation difficult, an oversight panel finds. "If we fail to intervene effectively in the lives of these women and their children now, California will pay the cost for generations to come," said Commissioner Teddie Ray, chairwoman of the subcommittee that produced the report.

Child Offenders on Death Row
Recent Australian studies of alcohol and cannabis use show that girls are increasingly inclined to behave boldly. But boys out number the girls, two to one; and three to one in the juvenile justice system, mortality figures, speeding infringements and car crash statistics.

Restorative Justice and the Law
To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe."-- Marilyn vos Savant.

Restorative Justice Practices
Restorative Justice Practices of Native American, First Nation and Other Indigenous People of North America. This is part one in a series of articles about restorative justice practices of Native American, First Nation and other indigenous people of North America. The series is not intended to be all-inclusive, but rather a broad thematic overview. A related eForum article, "The Wet'suwet'en Unlocking Aboriginal Justice Program: Restorative Practices in British Columbia, Canada," can be read at:

The Long Trail to Apology
Native America: All manner of unusual things can happen in Washington in an election year, but few seem so refreshing as a proposed official apology from the federal government to American Indians - the first ever - for the "violence, maltreatment and neglect" inflicted upon the tribes for centuries.