David Shipley

The Sentencing Council – the organisation that advises judges on how long convicted criminals should be locked up for – has hit back at criticism from the Justice Secretary. Shabana Mahmood challenged the Council’s apparent embrace of ‘two-tier justice’ last week, after it told judges to order a pre-sentence report (PSR) if an offender is from a

Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, has accused his Labour counterpart Shabana Mahmood of not believing in ‘equality under the law’ and ‘enshrining’ a ‘double standard’ over who is, and isn’t, sent to prison. The accusations against Mahmood – and the Labour government – came after new guidelines from the Sentencing Council were published, which

There are just over a thousand men’s prison places left in the UK out of a total of 88,618 total. Where does the government go from here? Are our prisons about to run out of space? If they do, will we see even earlier releases? To put these figures from the start of the week

Former justice secretary David Gauke’s Independent Sentencing Review (ISR), running since October, was not due to report until the spring. However, following the latest published prison population statistics, which showed there are only just over 1,000 spaces left in men’s prisons and soaring numbers for serious further offences, an interim report has been published. It

Now that the Southport killer Axel Rudakubana has been sentenced for his horrific crimes, we can try to understand how he was free to kill, and what can be done to stop crimes like this in the future. Between 2019 and 2021, this young man was referred three times to Prevent, the counter-extremism programme. On

The details of the terrible murder of Sarah Mayhew are almost too appalling to bear, but one question stands out most of all: why was the convicted murderer who killed her free to take Sarah’s life? Sansom had murdered before, when he was just 19 Sarah, a 38-year-old mother of two, was lured to a

Southport killer Axel Rudakubana will serve a minimum of 52 years in prison for the horrific murder of three young girls. But despite the lengthy sentence handed to the teenager at Liverpool Crown Court today, it’s hard to say that justice has been served. Rudakubana should die behind bars, yet the law prevented the judge,

‘The Amazon Killer’, screams the Sun front page today. ‘Total disgrace he was able to buy knife on Amazon,’ says the Daily Mirror. The backlash to the news that Southport murderer Axel Rudakubana brought his weapon online has been swift. But blaming Amazon for what happened on that horrific day last summer is missing the

Britain should move thousands of inmates into low-security open prisons, according to David Gauke, the former Tory justice secretary, who is chairing the government’s Sentencing Review. Gauke’s comments have sparked a predictably furious backlash, but he’s absolutely correct – and I should know. Locking someone up costs the public about £52,000 per prison place each

What is the British Transport Police playing at? Biologically male officers identifying as female will be allowed to intimately search women so long as they have a gender recognition certificate (GRC). The guidance, which was revealed by the Daily Telegraph, shows that the police aren’t quick to learn lessons when it comes to resolving the question of who

Two recently-released prisoners have lifted the lid on corruption and sexual harassment in Britain’s prisons. Beatrice Auty, who was imprisoned for money laundering, said that she was harassed by a male prison officer at HMP Bronzefield in Surrey. A former officer, Lee Davis, who spent two years in prison for corruption, also told the BBC

Yesterday, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published its annual report on crime in England and Wales. This combines data on crimes reported to the police and the Crime Survey for England and Wales to produce the best estimate of how much crime is being committed. It makes for grim reading. While overall crime is up 10

September’s tranche of early releases did not go as smoothly as the government might have hoped. Footage of delighted prisoners celebrating outside jails, or saying ‘I’m a lifelong Labour voter now’ will, no doubt, resurface in Reform’s local election campaign videos in the spring. Then there was Amari Ward, the man who allegedly sexually assaulted

One of the new government’s first decisions was to announce that most prisoners would be released 40 per cent of the way through their sentence, not half-way through as had been the case before. In July the expectation was that around 5,500 inmates would be released early. In fact 1,700 were released in September, and

High-risk offenders could reportedly be released early from secure government-approved hostels. Shortly before before the election in July, the Ministry of Justice reduced the typical period people spend in an ‘Approved Premises’ from 12 weeks to eight. But what are Approved Premises, and does this matter? ‘Approved Premises’ – or ‘APs’ – are a little-known

‘Purposeful activity’ is a phrase often heard in discussions about our prisons. It describes work, training, therapeutic courses and other meaningful activities which improve prisoners’ mental health and make them less likely to behave antisocially in prison or offend after release. In theory our prisons should make sure that most prisoners are spending a significant

Before I was sentenced to prison I imagined it as a place of discipline, where we who had broken society’s rules would be taught to be better men. I could not have been more wrong. One of the most toxic, and least-understood problems with the British prison system is the moral code it teaches. Terrible,