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 […]

18 November 2024 By Laura Janes, Consultant Solicitor, GT Stewart and Scott-Moncrieff and LAPG; Emma Trevett, Solicitor, Lawstop and YLAL Being a lawyer in legal aid and advice work has many pressures. As Joanna Fleck and Rachel Francis say in their book, Vicarious Trauma in the Legal Profession: a practical guide to trauma, burnout and […]

21 September 2024 It is not often in my line of work that you get to the light at the end of the tunnel, but when you do, it gives you the chance to step back and see how differently and better things could be done.  Over 16 years ago, I started work on a […]

5 September 2024 Today the Justice Secretary announced the plan to implement the changes in the Victim and Prisoners Act 2024 affecting people serving Indeterminate Sentences of imprisonment and detention for Public Protection (IPPs and DPPs). You can read the full statement here: https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2024-09-05/hcws72 All the changes in the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 affecting […]