Issue 360  24th August 2024

The government has activated emergency measures to ease prison overcrowding as more rioters are being sentenced for their role in recent unrest. Across the north of England and parts of the midlands, defendants waiting for a court appearance will be kept in police cells until prison space is available. The system, known as Operation Early Dawn, was activated on Monday morning. It was previously used by the Conservative government in May. Prisons Minister Lord Timpson has said the emergency measures will help "manage the pressure felt in some parts of the country"...

BBC analysis of prison figures has revealed how difficult it was going to be for jails to cope with a sudden influx of both remand and newly-sentenced prisoners. Four days before the riots, HMP Durham - the nearest “reception” prison to the disorder in Sunderland, which would therefore normally be a likely first institution to accommodate newly convicted local men - had just one spare bed because it was already holding 984 inmates...

Under Operation Early Dawn, defendants will only be summoned to a magistrates' court when a space in prison is ready for them. This means court cases could be delayed, with people kept in police cells or released on bail while they await trial. The Ministry of Justice said that anyone who "poses a risk to the public" will not be bailed and the police's ability to arrest criminals will not be affected...

Today’s announcement of the revival of 'Operation Early Dawn' to manage prison capacity pressure is a symptom of long-term neglect of the criminal justice system, the Law Society has said. HM Prison and Probation Service today said it had reactivated the contingency mechanism to ensure that enough prison places are available to accommodate convicted offenders. Under the scheme, alleged offenders 'are summoned to a magistrates’ court only when it is confirmed that a cell in the prison estate is ready for them, should they be remanded into custody'. They are held in a police station until they are summoned to court...

Law Society president Nick Emmerson said the emergency in prisons 'illustrates the consequences of the long-term neglect of the criminal justice system'. This is only one of many connected problems following decades of underfunding and cuts, he said. 'We have seen growing backlogs in the magistrates and Crown courts, a shortage of lawyers, judges and court staff and a crumbling court estate. Probation services are still on their knees. Government is having to take difficult steps to deal with the crisis it inherited, such as reactivating Operation Early Dawn, which will impact victims, defendants and those working in the system including solicitors. In the longer-term, sustained investment is needed across the criminal justice system in order to avoid it collapsing completely’...

The judiciary has asked magistrates' courts to delay sending some criminals to prison in the coming weeks because of the unprecedented overcrowding crisis. The direction to court managers comes as officials battle daily to find cells for offenders, ahead of a new release strategy in September. In the instruction, a senior judge urged court managers to delay the sentencing of some offenders if they are likely to be jailed, but are currently on bail.

Official figures show that the number of prison beds available across England and Wales has fallen to the point where there are now only a few available in each institution. As of Friday morning, there were 88,234 people in jails. The population had risen by 738 the past fortnight, leaving about 1,100 spare beds. Many of the new inmates are either convicted rioters or suspects being held on remand before facing trial for their alleged part in disorder that occurred across England and Northern Ireland in late July and early August.

The direction to magistrates' courts managers, sent on Wednesday, came from Lord Justice Green, a senior judge who overseas the workload of the courts. He asked local officials to carefully consider how they were scheduling cases ahead of the Ministry of Justice’s plan for more early releases, which is set to come into force on 10 September. The judge wrote that local court managers should review all cases listed for sentence up to and including 6 September where the defendant is currently on bail. If a jail sentence is a possible outcome, consideration should be given to rescheduling the hearing as soon as possible, but not earlier than 10 September...

A new survey is seeking to build understanding of the impact of Crown court delays on victims across England and Wales. The victims’ commissioner Baroness Newlove (Helen Newlove) is seeking anonymous feedback from victims of alleged crimes leading in a charge by the CPS, regardless of when the alleged crime took place or whether the case is still ongoing. As of December 2023, 67,573 cases were open in the Crown court, with around 16,000 cases outstanding for a year or longer, according to Ministry of Justice figures.

The new survey ‘aims to give victims a voice’ and ‘shape solutions’, Baroness Newlove said... Findings from the survey, which is open until 12 September, will be published in a report examining how delays are impacting victims’ experience of the court system.

Wandsworth prison is crumbling, overcrowded and vermin-infested, with inmates living in half the cell space available when it was first opened in 1851, according to a report published on Thursday. The south London prison’s independent monitoring board identified a litany of failings in its annual report, concluding that “the prison is not safe” and “conditions remained inhumane”. The number of deaths at the prison more than doubled from four to 10 in the space of a year, with six of them self-inflicted. There were almost 1,000 assaults at the prison and a similar number of self-harm incidents during the board’s inspection period from June 2023 until May 2024... The board raised concerns about the overcrowded conditions many of the prisoners live in, with most cells occupied by two prisoners. The cells were built for one person 173 years ago.

In a response to the findings, government officials accepted that housing two prisoners in such cells was “never desirable”, but added: “Unfortunately this longstanding practice continues to be necessary across the prison estate to accommodate all those committed to custody by the courts”...

Inmates being released early in a bid to reduce overcrowding at a prison are reoffending and being recalled, an inspection has found. The early release scheme - known as the end of custody supervised licence (ECSL), was brought in by the previous Conservative government in a bid to ease prison overcrowding. Now a new report has revealed a quarter of HMP Nottingham prisoners released under the scheme were homeless, leading to "inevitable recalls", said chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor. Mr Taylor said while it was "uncertain how many had been recalled", the number of inmates who were homeless when they were released early was "astonishing". At HMP Nottingham, preparation for the early release of inmates under the scheme was "often chaotic and rushed", despite staff "doing their best", the HM Inspectorate of Prisons report, published on Monday, said. "A quarter of prisoners released on this scheme were homeless and although data was not clear, it resulted in inevitable recalls," Mr Taylor said...

The early release scheme was introduced by Rishi Sunak's Conservative administration in October, initially releasing prisoners 18 days early. That measure was expanded over the past six months, from 18 days to 35 in March, and then to 70 days in May. However, Lord Chancellor Shabana Mahmood announced in July that she would replace the scheme, instead temporarily reducing the proportion of certain custodial sentences. It means that from September, when the changes come into force, some prisoners will automatically be released after serving 40% of their sentences, with "important safeguards and exemptions to keep the public safe", the government previously said...

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) should be replaced with a new body dedicated to combating economic crime, a new paper by think tank Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) has argued. The paper, which was focused on the UK anti-fraud agency, concluded that after “series of institutional failures” it should be replaced.

According to the National Crime Agency (NCA), fraud is the most commonly experienced crime in the UK, accounting for over 40 per cent of crime in England and Wales. However, the IEA outlined that the number of fraud convictions has plummeted from 12,378 in 2012 to 3,455 in 2022. Over 2022/23, the SFO secured four prosecutions “despite spending £76m and employing 450 staff”, the think tank said. This data covers the tenure of the previous director, Lisa Osofsky, as current boss Nick Ephgrave took over in September 2023.

The IEA has called for the SFO to be reformed into a Serious Economic Crime Office (SECO), as it deems it “would take a more active role in the prevention of economic crime.” The think tank was clear in its report that is favours a more focus on prevention, with one of the authors David Shepherd stating the “SFO is hamstrung by its focus on criminal justice and courts that are not fit-for-purpose”...