It was announced this week by the Prime Minister that prison security will be boosted by a £100 million investment as part of a crackdown on crime behind bars. The investment will target all types of crime in prison; from drug smugglers fuelling a rise in violence and self-harm, to gang kingpins continuing to run … Continue reading A crackdown on crime behind bars

On 22 July new Parole Board Rules came into effect. These rules introduced a number of important changes that will seek to improve the parole system.  Perhaps most importantly, these rules introduced the new reconsideration mechanism. Under the new system a party to the case — either the prisoner or the Secretary of State — may make … Continue reading ‘Reconsideration’ explained. A change in the way prisoners and victims can ask for a parole board decision to be reconsidered.

This document now replaces PSI 30/2014 Recall, Review and re-release of recalled prisoners Policy Framework Issue date : 1 April 2019 5.12 Executive Release 5.12.1 PPCS, on behalf of the Secretary of State, has the power to executively release determinate sentence prisoners into the community subject to licensed supervision at any time during the recall … Continue reading Update re: Executive Release

Yes he/she can. There has been a long held myth by prisoners, even some prisons that additional days cannot be given to licence recall prisoners. Indeed I still have some of my clients arguing with me that they have never heard of this happening. Well I have and the first time it did I had … Continue reading Can a prisoner be awarded additional days by an Independent Adjudicator if he is a licence recall prisoner?

IPP prisoners or life sentenced prisoners (indeterminate prisoners) do not have a date of release and can only be released by the Parole board. The Parole board will release them when they are satisfied that their risks can be adequately managed in the community. Indeterminate prisoners become eligible for release at the expiration of their … Continue reading What is Pre Tariff Sift?

I receive multiple letters a month from prisoners asking me to help them with issues for which there is no legal aid funding.  The matters they want me to help them with are not in scope for legal aid. Sadly in most cases I have to decline to help. I also receive emails from Solicitors … Continue reading When is legal aid available for prison law

Executive release is a process by which the secretary of state can essentially bypass the Parole Board and release a prisoner on the papers without the necessity of a hearing. Examples where this is utilised is with licence recall.  When an inmate is recalled on his licence he/she can make representations. They can do that … Continue reading What is Executive Release?

Last year,  the Correctional Services Accreditation and Advisory Panel (CSAAP) recommended that the prison service replace Core and Extended programmes with new offender behaviour programmes, Horizon and Kaizen.  Both were only rolled out from August last year and I have just had my first client finish Kaizen so now finally understand what it entails.  Kaizen … Continue reading The Offending Behaviour course – Kaizen