Prisons & Probation – Latest News:<\/p>\n
Psychiatrist tasked with assessing the mental state of Irish republican prisoners in the Maze during the 1980s<\/p>
When Irish republicans in the Maze prison began organising hunger strikes<\/a> in 1980 to secure political status for inmates, one of the first experts called in by the Northern Ireland Prison Service was the psychiatrist Dr Ian Bownes.<\/p> Though he was then only a trainee, it was his role to assess the mental state of those threatening to starve themselves to death \u2013 checking whether they had the capacity to understand that their lives could end and had effectively given their consent freely.<\/p> Continue reading...<\/a><\/li> Forcing the abandonment of commonsense, evidence-based guidelines is a new low for a party that once prided itself on justice reform<\/p> A progressive sentencing guideline that was due to come into force today has been shot down in the crossfire of the culture wars. This is devastating news for people whose lives would have been changed by the guideline, such as pregnant women and mothers<\/a>.<\/p> The Sentencing Council\u2019s updated \u201cimposition of community and custodial sentences\u201d guideline signalled a change in sentencing. It would have required magistrates and judges to consult a pre-sentence report before deciding whether to imprison someone of an ethnic or religious minority, alongside other groups including young adults, abuse survivors and mothers. It would have taken into account structural disparities in sentencing outcomes, such as the high risk of stillbirth<\/a> that pregnant women face in prison and the damage caused by separating mothers from children. It would also have introduced measures to combat racism in courts. The UN has described our justice system as systemically racist<\/a>, and a 2017 review conducted by the now minister David Lammy acknowledged its \u201cracial bias<\/a>\u201d.<\/p> Janey Starling is the co-director of gender justice campaign group Level Up<\/p> Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters<\/a> section, please click here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p> Continue reading...<\/a><\/li> Concerns over sentencing guidelines are genuine but government also hopes to win admirers with tough attitude<\/p> From one perspective, having a stand-up row with an organisation meant to advise the government on a key policy area is a bit unseemly. But it is fair to say that Downing Street is ready \u2013 you could even say happy \u2013 to take on the Sentencing Council.<\/p> The row over a review of sentencing guidelines for England and Wales escalated on Friday after the Sentencing Council rejected government demands that it U-turn<\/a> over a plan for judges to take account of pre-sentence reports before jailing people from ethnic or religious minorities.<\/p> Continue reading...<\/a><\/li> PM said ministers would consider next steps over guidance for judges in England and Wales aimed at tackling bias<\/p> The prime minister has signalled he is prepared to change the law to stop the introduction of \u201ctwo-tier\u201d sentencing guidelines, after an arm\u2019s-length body resisted pressure to scrap them.<\/p> Keir Starmer said \u201call options are on the table\u201d after the Sentencing Council for England and Wales refused to back down despite pressure from ministers.<\/p> Continue reading...<\/a><\/li> HMP Millsike, described by critics as a \u2018megaprison\u2019, will add 1,500 places to prison estate in England and Wales<\/p> The government has opened a first-of-its-kind \u201cgreen\u201d prison that will add 1,500 places to the bursting prison estate in England and Wales.<\/p> HMP Millsike in East Yorkshire, described by critics as a \u201cmegaprison\u201d, will be one of Britain\u2019s biggest jails and is the first of four to be built as part of a programme to create 14,000 extra prison places by 2031.<\/p> Continue reading...<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Prisons & Probation – Latest News:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/purdonlaw.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/63"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/purdonlaw.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/purdonlaw.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purdonlaw.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purdonlaw.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/purdonlaw.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/63\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69,"href":"https:\/\/purdonlaw.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/63\/revisions\/69"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/purdonlaw.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}