Prisons & Probation – Latest News:
- Mon, 28 Jul 2025 04:00:40 +0000: UK jail escape trial reignites debate over indefinite sentences - Prisons and probation | The Guardian
Joe Outlaw, who climbed on to a prison roof, is using the mental toll of indeterminate detention as a legal defence
The trial of an alleged escapee who spent hours on the roof of a high-security prison in his underpants is set to be the first time the stress caused by indeterminate sentences can be used as a legal defence.
Joe Outlaw is due to stand trial on Monday for climbing on to the roof of HMP Frankland in Durham in June 2023 in protest at the imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentence he and others are serving.
Continue reading... - Mon, 21 Jul 2025 15:28:51 +0000: Labour to review state pension age as Kendall says triple lock commitment ‘out of scope’ of commission - as it happened - Prisons and probation | The Guardian
Work and pensions secretary announces next statutory government review into retirement age
Tony Diver, the Telegraph’s associate political editor, is among the journalists at Nigel Farage’s conference. He has shared Reform’s policy costing document. The party estimates that the total cost of halving crime would be £17.4bn over a five-year parliament, with an annual cost of £3.48bn.
Nigel Farage has been speaking at a press conference in London about what he has framed as “lawless Britain”. Here are some of the highlights of the conference, which you can watch at the top of the blog. The Reform leader did not cite specific evidence or data to back up many of his claims:
He claims successive home secretaries have based claims that crimes in England and Wales are falling on “completely false data”. He says if you look at police recorded crimes there are “significant” rises in crime, particularly those against the person.
Farage says we are facing “nothing short of societal collapse” in many parts of the country, with “people scared to go out to the shops” and to “let their kids out”.
He says criminals and law-abiding citizens respect police less than they used to.
He says low level offences – like phone snatching and shop lifting – are rife in London and not being prosecuted.
Most people don’t even bother calling the police to report a crime because they know officers are unlikely to take any action, Farage said.
Farage said that “nobody in London understands how close we are to civil disobedience” in Britain.
He said that offenders convicted of more than three serious crimes should be “on a course towards life imprisonment”.
Reform would put more knife arches in train stations and other transport hubs to clamp down on crime, Farage suggested.
He said that every shoplifting offence would be prosecuted and every mobile phone theft investigated if Reform got into government at the next election.
Farage indicated that the party would force Reform UK councils to take new prisons in their areas as part of the party’s plans to tackle crime.
Continue reading... - Mon, 21 Jul 2025 10:32:06 +0000: ‘Compassion and care are being stripped away’: a Just Stop Oil activist on her time in prison - Prisons and probation | The Guardian
Louise Lancaster reflects on the unique challenges faced by neurodivergent inmates, raising concerns for those left behind
Louise Lancaster, 59, was one of a group of Just Stop Oil activists given the longest-ever UK sentences for peaceful protest for planning disruption on the M25 in November 2022. This year, she wrote a diary for the Guardian, detailing her first six months behind bars. Here, written before her release on 8 April and after her sentence was reduced on appeal, she reflects on her final months of incarceration.
Continue reading... - Wed, 09 Jul 2025 09:28:23 +0000: Jury-free trials proposed to save criminal justice system from collapse - Prisons and probation | The Guardian
Senior judge Sir Brian Leveson unveils radical proposals to clear huge backlog in crown courts in England and Wales
Thousands of defendants in England and Wales could lose the right to a jury trial under plans designed to save the criminal justice system from collapse.
Sir Brian Leveson, a former judge asked by the government to come up with proposals to tackle a record courts backlog, said he had been forced to make recommendations he did not “rejoice in”.
The creation of a new division of the crown court in which a judge and two magistrates hear “either way” offences – those in which the defendant can currently choose to be heard by either a magistrate or a jury in the crown court.
Removing the right to be tried in the crown court for offences that carry a maximum sentence of no more than two years.
Reclassifying some either way offences so they can be tried only in a magistrates court.
Trial by judge alone for serious and complex fraud cases.
The right for all crown court defendants to elect to be tried by a judge alone.
Continue reading... - Tue, 08 Jul 2025 09:23:15 +0000: More trials with no jury will disadvantage people of colour, charities warn - Prisons and probation | The Guardian
Reformers say more judge-only trials in England and Wales could lead to more miscarriages of justice
Removing the right to a jury trial for more offences would disadvantage people of colour and other minorities and lead to more miscarriages of justice, reformers have warned.
Sir Brian Leveson’s independent review of the criminal courts in England and Wales is expected to be published this week and recommend the creation of intermediate courts, sitting without a jury, to try some offences.
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