Overcrowding and early release extended
01 November 2002
The Home Secretary, David Blunkett, has ordered the extension of the Prison Service's early release programme. The changes mean that the Home Detention Curfew (HDC) scheme will be extended to inmates who fall within the limits of the HDC scheme 90 days before the end of their sentence, rather than 60 days, as was previously the case. Over 56,000 inmates have been released under the HDC scheme from its implementation in 1999 to date, with a re-offending rate of less than 5%. The changes are anticipated to affect between 20,000 and 25,000 inmates every year.
It is difficult, though, to square this apparent concern to address the issue of overcrowding with the measures in the proposed Criminal Justice Bill for a "victim-based" criminal justice system which will ratchet up conviction rates and inevitably lead to miscarriages of justice. Among the measures proposed are the abandonment of "double jeopardy", the disclosure of previous convictions to juries as part of the prosecution case, advance notice of defence witnesses as part of defence disclosure, and the introduction of Diplock-style non-jury courts where the issues involved are felt to be "too complex" for a jury, or where there is a "risk" of jury intimidation. Also included in the Bill are the creation of further low-level nuisance offences, to be dealt with by on-the-spot fines, and the likely increase in short sentences for non-payment handed out to fine defaulters.
Meanwhile in her Report of a Visit to HMP Ford, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, Anne Owers, observed that overcrowding was having a corrosive effect on even the most relaxed open prisons. Prisoners were found to be sleeping in cleaning cupboards at one jail, in a move which led the Chief Inspector to question "how some of this accommodation has been certified fit for use." The overcrowded conditions at Ford were "appalling, providing neither privacy nor dignity."
Of 19 new prisons built in the last 10 years, 16 are already overcrowded. Commenting on the government's latest criminal justice proposals and their likely effect on prison overcrowding, Prison Reform Trust director, Juliet Lyons, called for the "rhetoric of crackdown and control to be superceded by the cool voices of reason and common sense."
Guardian 30.0.02; Report of a visit to HMP Ford Open Prison; Prison Reform Trust press release.
UK
Childrens Act applies to child prisoners
The Howard League for Penal Reform was successful in its challenge by way of judicial review to the exemption of child prisoners (under 18s) from the protection afforded by the 1989 Childrens Act. According to the Howard League, child inmates are routinely treated in jail in ways which, were they to occur outside, would trigger child protection investigations. Between April 2000 and May 2002, 976 juveniles were held in segregation conditions for more than one week, and "pain-based" control and restraint measures were used 3615 times. Between April 2000 and November 2001 there were 554 reported cases of juvenile self-harm, and five suicides.
In the High Court, Mr Justice Munby declared that Home Office claims the Childrens Act did not apply to child prisoners were wrong in law. The case will mean that social services and NHS teams will be able to provide young prisoners with the same level of care they would provide to children at risk in the community or in childrens homes. Mr Justice Munby commented that the government "appeared to be failing very badly in its duties towards vulnerable and damaged children"; comments supported by Cherie Blair QC, writing in The Times.
Ms Blair referred to the Second Report of the United Nations Commission on the Rights of the Child, which found that treatment of children in Britain's juveniles prison system had consistently worsened. She observed that "Unless and until the UK government recognises the concept of the human rights of the child it will remain rightly criticised as being only half-hearted about the righ