Professor Ian Acheson is a former prison governor. He was also Director of Community Safety at the Home Office. His book ‘Screwed: Britain’s prison crisis and how to escape it’ is out now.
David Norris was convicted of the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence in April 1993 and now wants to be released from prison. Should he be? That is a question the Parole Board will consider as Norris has now served the minimum custodial term of a life sentence imposed in 2011. This body has the power
A little over two months ago, I stood in the fallow murderscape of the Nir Oz kibbutz facing towards the barbed border fence with Gaza. Once, this village in southern Israel was a thriving community of 400 Jewish people, known for their left-wing ideologies and progressive ideals. But, two years ago on this very day,
Ministers aren’t always the quickest to take accountability in a time of crisis. So, it is easy to see why, after yesterday’s atrocity at a Manchester synagogue, the line being pedalled by the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood this morning was that responsibility for the attack lies with ‘the assailants alone’. Snappy rhetoric, but it won’t
Finally, some good news for the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) – tagging works! Last week, the prisons minister was unleashed to proclaim that the latest data on electronic monitoring (EM) of offenders not in custody shows the concept works. Well, up to a point, Lord Timpson. A study of 3,600 offenders on tagging orders has
If Big Brother is watching you, who is watching Big Brother? A coalition of the willing has come together to challenge the Metropolitan police over plans to use facial recognition technology to prevent disorder at this weekend’s Notting Hill Carnival. Civil liberties and anti-racist groups have written an open letter to the Met Commissioner Sir
Fifteen years ago, at the tail end of Blairism, I was running things for the Home Office in Southwest England. We had well-funded schemes across the region to tackle ‘prolific and other priority offenders’ (PPOs) who were torturing communities with crime. It seems almost quaint in the present context to recall the enthusiasm and effectiveness
Britain’s top cop club has released new guidance to forces in England and Wales on when and how to describe the suspects of serious crimes. It’s a day late and a dollar short. The National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC), stirred from their deckchairs by nationwide riots of only twelve months ago, are now advising constabularies that
Jonathan Porritt’s arrest under the Terrorism Act 2000 is the apogee of a ‘luxury belief.’ Unlike the dozens of other younger people arrested in Westminster on Saturday for supporting the proscribed organisation Palestine Action (PA), Sir Jonathon Espie Porritt, 2nd Baronet CBE is a longstanding member of the administrative and political boss class. He declared
We’re looking at a busy weekend for the country’s criminal justice system, already permanently running red hot. The activist group Defend our Juries is organising a mass protest in London on 9 August to oppose the government’s ban on Palestine Action (PA), which was proscribed as a terrorist organisation in early July. The stated purpose
Policing and crime commissioners haven’t exactly fired up the public imagination since they were introduced in 2012. PCCs were intended to make police forces more accountable, but you’re more likely to come across one in the headlines for personal misconduct than their crime-fighting zeal. However, there are some signs of change in the air thanks
A few years ago, I was encouraged to apply for a role within the College of Policing for an advisory body on a revamped code of ethics for police officers. When asked what sort of qualities the code should embody, my answer was succinct: ‘moral and physical courage.’ I didn’t make the cut, of course,
‘Bear in mind these dead, I can find no plainer words,’ wrote the Northern Irish poet John Hewitt reflecting on the Troubles’s terrible death toll. How we remember the victims of terrorism and articulate the harm it causes comes to mind today, the 20th anniversary of the 7/7 Islamist attack on London’s transport network. The
The murder of a prison officer on duty is closer now than at any time in the last 25 years. That was the inevitable conclusion I reached after the shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick commissioned me to look into the threat posed by terrorists inside our high-security prisons and the safety of front-line staff in
The sentencing reforms announced by Labour last week were primarily an attempt to address a capacity crisis. This is something we need to be clear on, however much David Gauke’s report is embellished by talking points borrowed from the progressive criminal justice commentariat. Eliminating short sentences of twelve months or less is not about community
Could the carnage and horror that played out on the streets of Liverpool city centre yesterday have been averted? We now know that 24 people were hospitalised, four with very serious injuries, when a car drove into crowds attending Liverpool’s Premier League championship victory parade. Merseyside constabulary, undoubtedly stung by their mishandling of the Southport
Our prisons are nearly full to bust once again so the Ministry of Justice has been flying some kites ahead of the review of sentencing led by recovered Tory David Gauke. The ‘leaked’ idea involves the reintroduction of remission of time spent in prison for good behaviour. While the Justice Secretary Shabanna Mahmood is said
The disconnect between actions and consequences that bedevils this country’s justice system suffered a modest reversal today. The government has announced that legislation will be introduced to compel convicted offenders to appear before the judge at a sentencing hearing or face sanctions. This honours a promise made by Keir Starmer’s predecessor Rishi Sunak after he
How do you break the rule of law inside our jails? You could do worse than try to murder a prison officer on duty, which by all accounts nearly came to pass yesterday. The terrorist Hashem Abedi, the brother of the Manchester Arena bomber, reportedly came within seconds of doing so in a frenzied attack
The Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report, published today, addresses the prison cell crisis in the UK, highlighting huge government and organisational failures in managing prison capacity. We may be wary of the term, but it is yet another description of a system in crisis, with many prisoners stuffed into ‘inhumane conditions’, looked after by
At least two people have died and several injured after a car was driven down a busy shopping street yesterday in Mannheim, in western Germany. A 40-year-old man has been arrested. It is not clear yet if this attack was ideologically motivated. But car attacks like this are becoming horrifyingly common in Germany. In Magdeburg
