The Sentencing Act 2026 received royal assent on 22 January 2026.  The news story on Gov.uk was “Sentencing Act ensuring punishment cuts crime gets Royal Assent” and a sub-headline stating: “New laws will end automatic release for badly behaved offenders and strengthen community punishment.” So how will that change things on the ground? The short […]

“There are at present some 3,000 children in YOIs. Somewhere in the region of 1,000 are aged either 15 or 16. The rest are aged 17. They are, on any view, vulnerable and needy children. Disproportionately they come from chaotic backgrounds. Many have suffered abuse or neglect. The view of the Howard League is that they need help, protection […]

“The laws of God and man both give the party an opportunity to make his defence, if he has any. I remember to have heard it observed by a very learned man, upon such an occasion, that even God himself did not pass sentence upon Adam before he was called upon to make his defence.” […]

5 September 2025 The delayed Sentencing Bill 2025, responding the Independent Review on Sentencing was published on 2 September 2025.  What follows is my initial analysis of the Bill – it is very much a work in progress… The Bill is extensive (90 pages) and will amend the Sentencing Code  (Sentencing Act 2020) – the […]

Why do children always get left behind in the rush to manage and curb the ever-increasing adult prison population? Children were excluded from the end of custody licence release arrangements introduced by the previous government.  SDS40 arrangements only applied to children convicted of more serious crimes and serving longer sentences, so that children on Detention […]

10 May 2025 I have written about the “stain” of the sentences of imprisonment and detention for public protection (IPPs and DPPs) many times now. The changes brought in by the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 were the most progressive attempts to reduce this stain since the sentence was abolished in 2012. I recently asked […]

24 April 2025 When I first started working with children in custody at the Howard League for Penal Reform back in 2005, a huge part of my work was representing girls in the five girls’ units in adult women’s YOIs, which had recently opened in New Hall, Cookham Wood, Eastwood Park, Downview and Foston Hall. […]

5 April 2025 The stinging sense of injustice felt by many poeple serving IPP sentences when they are recalled for matters that in no other circumstance would warrant a period in prison has always been acute.  It is even greater now that, following the implementation of the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024, any recall to […]

22 March 2025 Until November 2024 when a person serving an indeterminate sentence for public protection was recalled to prison, the only route out was via the Parole Board. This was true even if everybody agreed that the person could be safely re-released.  The consequence was that people in that situation often had to wait […]

11 January 2025 “Operation Reset” was introduced last year with the aim of alleviating the workload demands and to protect probation staff time.  It involves suspending contact between probation practitioners and the people they supervise in the final third for all Community Orders and Suspended Sentence Orders with rehabilitation activity requirement, and licences of people […]