Issue 77  16th February 2019

Justice Secretary David Gauke today announced the national roll out of new GPS tags which will provide 24/7 location monitoring of offenders.

A wide range of offenders will be eligible for the new tags, including those subject to court-imposed bail, community orders and suspended sentence orders, as well as those on Home Detention Curfew and indeterminate sentenced prisoners released by the Parole Board.

The new technology is also set to be piloted in London (by the London Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime) to monitor offenders released from prison who have been convicted of knife crime offences.

Private firms which manage thousands of offenders in Wales and south west England have gone into administration. Working Links community rehabilitation companies will hand over their work to a firm running the service in south east England.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: "We were aware of Working Links' financial situation and have taken action to ensure continuity of probation services. "That means probation officers will continue to be supported, offenders will be supervised, and the public will be protected. "The chief inspector's report on these CRCs lays bare their unacceptably poor performance and we will work closely with the new provider to urgently raise standards."

In October, the Home Secretary announced that there would be a major independent review of drug misuse, building on the work under way since the government’s drug strategy was published in 2017.

Professor Dame Carol Black has been asked by the government to lead the review which will look at a wide range of issues, including the system of support and enforcement around drug misuse, in order to inform the consideration of what more can be done to tackle drug harms.

The Minister for Crime, Safeguarding and Vulnerability, Victoria Atkins, is examining options for providing further protections for shop workers from violence and abuse. The call for evidence is intended to help strengthen the evidence base and look at all options for addressing these crimes.

The Home Office will additionally provide £50,000 of funding for a sector-led communications campaign to raise awareness of the wide ranging offences that may be used to address this behaviour.

The Crown Prosecution Service has decided that no further action should be taken against a driver involved in a collision on the A149 at Sandringham.

Chris Long, Chief Crown Prosecutor for CPS East of England, said: “The CPS has carefully reviewed material submitted by the police in relation to a traffic collision on the A149 on 17 January this year. We took into account all of the circumstances in this case, including the level of culpability, the age of the driver and the surrender of the driving licence. We have decided that it would not be in the public interest to prosecute. All those involved in the collision have been informed and provided with a full explanation in writing.”

The Criminal Bar Association (CBA) has attacked ‘monstrous’ behaviour from some in senior positions who it says are holding back progress on wellbeing and diversity within the profession. In his weekly message published today CBA chair Chris Henley QC said he is ‘getting irritated’ by too much talk about diversity with ’nothing discernible’ happening.

Henley said many senior roles are occupied by people who have ‘never changed a nappy, had years of interrupted sleep, or the daily admin of kids, and who practised at a time when the work was plenty and the fees were "wow"’. ‘They all have a choice, to continue to manage an orderly decline and withering of the publicly funded profession or to fight for it. Imagination, courage and a little humility will save us,’ he said. ‘It is patently not being taken sufficiently seriously.’