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UK: finding an outlet
Testimonial
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United Kingdom
England and Wales are two constituent countries of the United Kingdom. While their health, justice and prison policies fall under common legislation, their prison health services differ.
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Long-term prisoners
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ICPR and Prison Insider asked several experts worldwide to share their insights in the framework of the project ‘Understanding and reducing the use of imprisonment in 10 countries’. Helen Mills discusses the vexed problem of short prison sentences.
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Culture
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Long-term prisoners
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“Being encased within steel and mortar shouldn’t alter the fundamental essence of a human being. Amid the brutality and apathy of the prison system, some find the ability to be creative” (Steeldoorstudios exposes the challenges of the creative process in prison.)
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UK: different sides of a shared story
Interview
Coronavirus
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As the pandemic hit the UK, researchers were banned from entering prisons. The Prison Reform Trust remotely mobilised about 800 prisoners to share how the measures were affecting them. Prison Insider asked them three questions.
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With the dismaying announcement that the government plans to fund 18,000 more prison places by 2026, we are forced to ask, once again, why crime prevention fails to get the same emphasis as punishment. Last Wednesday, the chancellor announced more than £4bn in capital funding – spread over four yea…
Source — The Guardian
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Minors
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Figures show that the number of formal hearings has risen to a record high.
In a new briefing, the charity explores how rule-breaking in prisons in England and Wales is managed through formal disciplinary hearings, known as adjudications, where prisoners can be given punishments including solitary…
Source — Ekklesia
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Coronavirus
Minors
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United Kingdom
The 18-year-old didn’t want to be in jail, he told Department of Correction officials one day in 2019, as he covered the window in his cell with a sheet and mattress. He wanted to be with his family.
He was being held in a “Restrictive Housing Unit” at Manson Youth Institution in Cheshire, confined…
Source — The CT mirror
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Coronavirus
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Material conditions
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United Kingdom
The rollout of secure video calls in prisons should be speeded up to ease the distress of families and their loved ones unable to see each other since the cancellation of social visits, a new briefing by the Prison Reform Trust (PRT) suggests.
Based on 278 contributions from families and prisoners…
Source — Prison Reform Trust
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Women
Europe
Access to legal rights
Rehabilitation
United Kingdom
A new report from the Safe Homes for Women Leaving Prison initiative exposes a failing system that leaves thousands of women released from UK prisons with £46, a plastic bag, nowhere to live and the threat of a return to custody if they miss their probation appointment.
The initiative is a collabor…
Source — Ekklesia
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Pre-trial detention
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Work
United Kingdom
Lockdown conditions in prisons have effectively ended opportunities for prisoners to take part in rehabilitation activities and progress in their sentences.
For the nearly 11,000 prisoners serving indeterminate sentences (9,000 unreleased; 2,000 recalled), this could lead to them spending significa…
Source — Prison reform trust
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Europe
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United Kingdom
The slow-motion collapse of England and Wales’ prison system is a textbook example of the government’s repeated public service failures in the age of austerity.
The mismanagement of the prison estate, exposed in a scathing report from the Commons public accounts committee, is a carbon copy of minis…
Source — The Guardian
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Minors
Europe
Justice
United Kingdom
The government is planning to lower the age at which murderers can be jailed for life without parole from 21 to 18.
Source — Sky news
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Coronavirus
Minors
Europe
Mental health
United Kingdom
Rules allowing up to 22 hours of solitary confinement for young offenders could continue, in move lawyers say is ‘very concerning’
Source — The Guardian
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Coronavirus
Europe
Social ties
Rehabilitation
United Kingdom
MoJ says hotels used as last resort to prevent homelessness and reduce coronavirus risk.
Source — The Guardian
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Coronavirus
Europe
Mental health
United Kingdom
An inspection of a Kent prison during lockdown has revealed inmates have been confined to their cells for 23 hours a day and had no face-to-face contact with the outside world for at least 12 weeks.
The report has also highlighted a “self-inflicted death” at HMP Maidstone since the restrictions cam…
Source — KentOnline
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Europe
Health
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Drugs
United Kingdom
My day starts at 07.30am, when we receive handover in a multipurpose room off one of the wings. It’s a Victorian prison: space is tight. A lone cockroach scuttles back into the safety of darkness. At night only cell doors are locked and it’s always odd to walk through open gates.
After the night nu…
Source — Nursingnotes
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Coronavirus
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LGBTI
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Overcrowded, confined spaces are a nightmare for the spread of coronavirus. This makes prisons a potential hotspot for the disease.
Despite this, most researchers who study prisons have been locked out of them at this crucial time. In the UK, the prison and probation service has halted primary rese…
Source — The Conversation
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Coronavirus
Europe
United Kingdom
More than 1,000 prisoners were released into homelessness at the height of the coronavirus pandemic in England and Wales, figures show, prompting the government to increase funding for accommodation for prison leavers.
Figures released to the Labour MP Lyn Brown show 840 men, 89 women and 85 young…
Source — The Guardian
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Europe
Violence
United Kingdom
Erlestoke Prison recorded hundreds of self-harm incidents among its inmates last year, figures show.
Charity The Howard League for Penal Reform said numbers for England and Wales reveal the “sheer scale of human misery behind bars”.
Ministry of Justice data recorded 263 self-harm incidents at HMP E…
Source — Swindon Advertiser
Read more UK: le système pénitentiaire traverse une grave crise, selon le Comité européen anti-torture
News
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