Prisons & Probation – Latest News:
- Wed, 26 Nov 2025 05:00:42 +0000: From the archive: ‘If you decide to cut staff, people die’: how Nottingham prison descended into chaos – podcast - Prisons and probation | The Guardian
We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors.
This week, from 2022: as violence, drug use and suicide at HMP Nottingham reached shocking new levels, the prison became a symbol of a system crumbling into crisis
By Isobel Thompson. Read by Simon Darwen
Continue reading... - Wed, 26 Nov 2025 00:01:35 +0000: Excessive restraint in immigration detention centres ‘deeply concerning’, report finds - Prisons and probation | The Guardian
Watchdog says force being applied ‘inconsistently, disproportionately, and without adequate justification’
Home Office contractors are over-using restraint in immigration detention centres and failing to tackle the toxic culture behind bars, according to the findings of a new watchdog report described as “deeply concerning”.
By Force of Habit: How the Use of Force in Immigration Detention Has Lost Sight of Necessity and Dignity was published by the Independent Monitoring Boards (IMB), which examines conditions in prisons and immigration detention centres. The findings revealed force being applied inconsistently, disproportionately, and without adequate justification, which it said undermined the dignity and welfare of highly vulnerable individuals.
Continue reading... - Thu, 20 Nov 2025 11:47:18 +0000: Why does MoJ want to curtail jury trials in England and Wales? - Prisons and probation | The Guardian
Right to trial by jury seen as bedrock of justice system but Sir Brian Leveson says court backlogs could lead to ‘total system collapse’
The courts minister, Sarah Sackman, has said the government plans to press ahead with radical proposals by Sir Brian Leveson to take thousands of trials in England and Wales away from the jury system to be heard instead by judges and magistrates. What is the reason for these changes, how would they work and why are they controversial?
Continue reading... - Thu, 20 Nov 2025 05:00:14 +0000: ‘Possibly the most prolific sex offender in British history’: the inside story of the Medomsley scandal - Prisons and probation | The Guardian
At a youth detention centre in north-east England, the paedophile Neville Husband raped and assaulted countless boys. Why was his reign of terror allowed to go on – and why hasn’t there been a public inquiry?
When I met Kevin Young in 2012 he was in his early 50s, handsome, charismatic, smart – and utterly broken. The moment he started talking about Medomsley detention centre he was in tears.
Young was born in Newcastle, in 1959. At two, he was taken into care, and his parents were convicted of wilful neglect. At eight, at a school in Devon, he was sexually abused by the gardener. At 14, at St Camillus, a Catholic residential school in Yorkshire, he was sexually assaulted by the headteacher, James Bernard Littlewood. But none of this compared with his experience at Medomsley, a youth detention centre in north-east England.
Continue reading... - Wed, 19 Nov 2025 13:58:30 +0000: Mahmood and Lammy breached human rights law over segregation of prisoner, judge finds - Prisons and probation | The Guardian
Treatment of terrorist with known mental health needs said to have contravened prohibition on inhuman or degrading treatment
Shabana Mahmood and David Lammy have been found to have breached a prohibition on inhuman or degrading treatment with respect to a prisoner who spent months segregated from other inmates, in what is believed to be a legal first.
Sahayb Abu was confined to his cell at HMP Woodhill in Milton Keynes, for 22 hours a day and prevented from associating with other prisoners for more than four months after Hashem Abedi, the brother of the Manchester Arena bomber, allegedly attacked prison officers at HMP Frankland.
Continue reading...