These opportunities cultivated my interest in criminal justice policy and got me thinking about gaps in the system as a whole. After all, what does successful criminal justice look like? Does it exist?
In fact, health care provision in secure environments is supposed to be of an ‘equivalent’ standard to that provided in the wider community. So let us consider four men and their deaths.
Shortly after these opportunities, I moved to France but remained curious what happens after individuals are released from prison.
I found a re-entry facility in the outskirts of Paris where I volunteered to teach weekly English lessons. The facility aimed to support reintegrating individuals in finding housing, obtaining jobs and building skills necessary for life post-release in order to reduce recidivism.
Debating amendments to the Victims and Prisoners Bill, Peers from across the political spectrum called for urgent measures such as mentoring for people serving IPP, reversing the unjust release test, and establishing a mass resentencing exercise as recommended by the Justice Select Committee and the UN special rapporteur on torture.
This first of a planned annual lecture series in memory of Lord Ramsbotham, former chief inspector of prisons, was held in the Jubilee Room in the Palace of Westminster.
Much of this concern has been in relation to women’s prisons, where the desire of some male prisoners who identify as or claim to be women clashes with a perfectly reasonable expectation of privacy and dignity for female prisoners.
The same year, I volunteered as a General Educational Development (GED) maths tutor at a prison in Maryland for adult, male students.
Similar to my experience in the courthouse, my work in the prison was fraught with stereotypes about the kind of person who was found behind bars.
The life sentence-like IPP was imposed on thousands of people between 2005 and 2012. Abolished in 2012, but not retrospectively, almost 3,000 people remain languishing in prison, sometimes for years after the term set by the court.
Compared with the big challenges any government faces, this is a simple problem to fix. And while Conservative ministers and their Labour shadows agree that something must be done, Parliament remains deadlocked on the solution.
Someone gets assigned ‘criminal’ status, is incarcerated, released, and is often back behind bars shortly after serving time for their first offence.
Having had the opportunity to work in justice system settings at different stages of the criminalisation process, I got to thinking about gaps in the justice system and wider criminal justice policy.
The use of recalls has rocketed in recent years. Back in 1993 there were perhaps fewer than 100 people in England and Wales who were in prison having been recalled. Currently, there are around 12,000.
The sharp rise in the number of prisoners under recall is one of the more immediate factors behind the current prison population crisis.
I mused over who might feature in my post when I worked as a probation officer in London.
Dell (not his real name) approached me in the corridor of the probation office looking for directions. Setting aside my usual caution, I pointed to the door of a colleague.
I hadn’t been for several years until this year’s lecture, given by the former prisons minister Rory Stewart. Diary clashes and the small matter of the Covid lockdown had conspired against attendance.