Prisons in the Press – 30 October
Posted: October 30, 2015 Filed under: News | Tags: Eric Allison, HMP Bristol, HMP Lancaster, HMP Reading, independent monitoring board, Just Solutions International, Justice Secretary, Michael Gove, PITP, Prison Governors Association, Rye Hill, women's prison Leave a commentPrison parties, ageing inmates and Oscar Wilde…

The jail that housed Oscar Wilde could soon be dedicated to his memory. Image: DPMS
Prisons in the press brings you the best articles from the past week to keep you up-to-date on prison news.
Interview with author Lucy Baldwin: mothers on mothers in criminal justice
Posted: October 29, 2015 Filed under: News | Tags: Lucy Baldwin, Mothering Justice, Prison News, women in prison 1 Comment
Lucy Baldwin and fellow authors draw on personal and professional experience for Mothering Justice

Writer Lucy Baldwin says she has compiled the first whole book about motherhood in criminal and social justice
“A pregnant woman has her head swimming with things she should or shouldn’t know or do. Girls are born into this landscape that expects them to be a mother – but only a certain type of mother,” Read the rest of this entry »
Prisons in Parliament
Posted: October 26, 2015 Filed under: News | Tags: Andrew Selous, CRCs, mental health, PIP, prisons, question time, Transforming rehabilitation 1 CommentAndrew Selous on the witness stand this week: it’s question time for prisons
Prisons in Parliament brings you up-to-date on the last week of politics and prisons. What’s been said? And by whom? Get it all here.
Prisons in the press – 23 October
Posted: October 23, 2015 Filed under: News | Tags: books, David Cameron, drugs, HMP Grampian, HMP Onley, HMP Rochester, HMP Stafford, HMP Stocken, illegal highs, libraries, Lord Ramsbotham, PITP, The Clink Leave a comment
Access to libraries cut and use of illegal highs is on the rise

Now books and letters are being used to smuggle drugs into prison. Image: banlon1964
Prisons in the press brings you the best articles from the past week to keep you up-to-date on prison news.
Nine charts and tables on children in UK courts and prisons
Posted: October 22, 2015 Filed under: Facts & stats, News | Tags: children, National Association of Youth Justice, young offenders Leave a commentGood and bad news for young people in trouble
The state of the youth justice system in the United Kingdom has been laid bare in a new report by the National Association of Youth Justice (NAYJ), which campaigns for a child-friendly youth justice system. The charts and tables below tell the story, much of it positive.
Comment: Cautiously optimistic about Gove’s prison reform promises
Posted: October 21, 2015 | Author: Eric Allison | Filed under: Comment | Tags: Chris Grayling, Conservative Party Conference 2, deaths in custody, HMP Liverpool, Jack Straw, Michael Gove, suicide, Winston Churchill | Leave a commentEric Allison scrutinises Gove’s proclamations about reforming the prison system
“We shouldn’t ignore the failures in our criminal justice system. And the biggest failure of all is the failure in our prisons,” Gove told the Conservative party conference. Photo: Conservatives.
In my first column for Prison Watch UK, back in August, I touched on the appointment of Michael Gove as justice secretary. I said he was at least talking honestly about the massive problems in the prison system
and had overturned the ridiculous ban – imposed by his predecessor, Chris Grayling – on sending books to prisoners.
Since then, Gove has taken it up a notch. At the Conservative party conference he continued to talk truthfully about the problems in the prison system. But he also went much further, further in fact than I have heard a politician go in many a long year.
Read the rest of this entry »