20 Mr Cameron, 25 Formal complaints 35 In Prison there ought to be more the prisoners’ prerogative Permanently the National Newspaper for Prisoners & Detainees old lags in Whitehall How to make a formal The politics of the IPP Plans to revolutionise complaint the right way sentence by Geir Madland a voice for prisoners 1990 - 2015 jails so prisoners leave by Paul Sullivan A ‘not for profit’ publication / ISSN 1743-7342 / Issue No. 198 / December 2015 / www.insidetime.org rehabilitated and ready for Seasons greetings to all our readers An average of 60,000 copies distributed monthly Independently verified by the Audit Bureau of Circulations work by Jonathan Aitken POA Gives NOMS 28 DAYS to put its House in Order Eric McGraw TEN MOST OVERCROWDED PRISONS at the end of October 2015 n a letter to Michael Spurr, Chief Prison Designed Actually Executive of the National Offender Man- to hold holds agement Service (NOMS), the Prison Officers’ Association (POA) has issued a Kennet 175 317 28-day notice requiring NOMS ‘to Leeds 669 1,166 Iaddress a number of unlawful and widespread Wandsworth 943 1,577 practices which exacerbate the parlous health and safety situation’ in prisons in England and Swansea 271 442 Wales. Failure to do so, they warn, will lead to Exeter 318 511 ‘appropriate legal action’. Durham 595 928 Leicester 214 331 The letter, dated November 11, 2015, states Preston 455 695 that the prison service does not have enough staff to operate safely. This, says the POA, has Brixton 528 802 been caused by a ‘disastrously miscalculated’ Lincoln 403 611 redundancy plan devised by the Government which has reduced the number of staff on the ‘mistaken assumption’ that prison numbers would fall: in fact, as everyone knows, they their ‘Certified Normal Accommodation’ by have risen. upwards of 30 per cent., and in some cases by a factor of almost 100 per cent.. In its attempt Glyn Travis, POA Press Officer, told Inside to fill the ‘yawning gap in staffing levels’, the Time that, based on the number of prison POA says that prison management is resorting places, there had been found to be a shortfall to the imposition of excessive overtime, leading of 2,800 prison officers - only eighteen months to officers working continuous shifts of as much after some 2,000 officers had been offered re- as thirty-six hours. There is also the practice of The Longford Lecture: 2015 dundancy! ‘Detached Duty’, whereby prison officers are Comedian, actor, author and television presenter Michal Palin CBE delivering sent to other establishments, away from their the 14th Longford Lecture in London on November 17, 2015. An extract of his lecture, Overcrowding has resulted in most prisons families, to work in unfamiliar environments, ‘Collateral damage: The effects of prison sentences on offenders’ families’ is on pages 18-19. exceeding the number of prisoners specified in and entailing additional stress and risk. © David Sandison Appeals Crime Prison Law The country’s leading experts in Unhappy with your solicitor? Transfer New Head of Prison Law - Jo Davidson ‹ cm ‹ serious, complex and high your case now. NJGD>D OJMN profile appeals. 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Sentence Calculation closed conditions Robbery POCA Serious assaults, torture HDC Years of experience in Proceeds of Crime Applications Registered with Gang crime including firearms offences, extortion, kidnap Transfers › › Dedicated prisoner hotline: 0161 833 9253 Manchester Office: 13 St John Street, Manchester, M3 4DQ Website: www.cmsolicitors.co.uk where lients atter Freephone: 0800 1 444 111 London Office: 15 Old Bailey, London, EC4M 7EF Video link: Nationwide service If you would like to contribute to Mailbag, please send your letters (including your name, number Insidetime December 2015 2 Mailbag and prison) to ‘Mailbag’, Inside Time, Botley Mills, Botley, Southampton, Hampshire SO30 2GB. www.insidetime.org ‘Best of luck Mr Gove’ ....................................................................................................... Star Letter insidetime SHANE WOODFORD - HMP HULL a voice for prisoners 1990 - 2015 the national newspaper for prisoners published by Oh, Mr Gove, what a beautiful, encouraging, idealistic speech you gave regarding prison and of the Month Inside Time Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of The New Bridge Foundation, founded in 1956 to prison reform at the Conservative Party Conference on the 5th of October. I would love to be Congratulations and a £25 cash prize create links between the offender and the community. able to have the chance to ‘change my life for the better’, to ‘provide for my family and give back for this month’s Star Letter. to the community’. I would love for prison to encourage me, teach me new skills and help build Inside Time is wholly responsible for its editorial content. Comments or complaints should be directed to the or maintain relationships with family, friends and prospective employers on the outside. I Managing Editor and not to New Bridge. welcome a system that allows me to serve my time and come out as an improved, rehabilitated and useful individual. To be able to find employment in a sector suited to my skills, interests a © and abilities. To be respected and forgiven by society. not Board of Directors profit I would love to be able to move forward without judgement of my past mistakes. To have self- publication4 respect and pride in who I am now. To be given opportunities by a penal system that believes in giving individuals another chance, responsibilities and the tools to improve. You are so right Mr Trevor Grove - Former Editor Sunday Telegraph, Journalist and Writer Gove, offenders do deserve another chance. But there are a few problems with your speech. Geoff Hughes - Former Governor, Belmarsh prison. The main problem being how are you going to achieve this utopian vision at a time when the Eric McGraw - Former Director, New Bridge (1986-2002) and founder of Inside Time in 1990. Prison and Probation Services are on their knees? Crippled by budget cuts, understaffed but Drug soaked books? John D Roberts - Former Company Chairman and working at near 100% capacity. A time of rife substance abuse and an inability to detect and ................................................... Managing Director employing ex-offenders. stop the latest scourge of ‘legal highs’. With a lack of trained and experienced staff, an increas- Louise Shorter - Former producer, BBC Rough ing prisoner population and a decaying prison estate. If the prison system was a patient it would MD SOUTER - HMP RYE HILL Justice programme. be on life support with its relatives gathered around the bedside to say their last goodbyes! Alistair H. E. Smith B.Sc F.C.A. - Chartered According to recent headlines the pages of Accountant, Trustee and Treasurer, New Bridge To revive this patient would require massive injections of cash, the right people and serious books sent into prisons are being ‘impreg- Foundation.a © a © not not changes to a system that operates more like a storage company than a place of rehabilitation. nated with mind-bending drugs’. As a profit profit Here at HMP Hull the prison has a motto ‘Serving the community’, which always makes me cynical ex-journalist I know how to read 4 publication4 service smile. The only service this prison provides is one of containment. Don’t get me wrong, Hull isn’t beyond the bold type and explore the a ‘bad’ prison, the staff do the best they can with what little they have. But we could do so much substance (legal or otherwise) of this story. more. We could serve the community properly, with more money, staff and resources. So, best The Editorial Teama © of luck Mr Gove, you are going to need it. At first this tale appears to have some not profit credibility - ‘Inspectors alarmed!’ - we organisation4 Extra 15 months for Where are my books? read. I’m sure the Independent Monitoring ..................................................... Board will be as concerned by that description of them as I am. Hard-working, attempted suicide! CRAIG LLOYD - HMP WEALSTUN ..................................................... they undoubtedly are, but they are not ‘Inspectors’. They are rightly concerned TY JONES - HMP CARDIFF I was transferred from HMP Durham to HMP about legal highs and their widespread Haverigg in September 2014. Shortly after I availability in society, including prison. Rachel Billington OBE Eric McGraw I have never been to prison before, nor been arrived I received notice of a fine of £55.95. Novelist and Author and Managing in trouble with the police, but I was given 4 This was for 5 books that I had borrowed from Editor But, impregnated into books? Frankly Journalist years. A week prior to me being sentenced to the library at HMP Durham the night before I there would be no need, as the report prison my son died, which devastated me. was transferred. I did not know I was going to says, legal highs such as Spice and Black After a while I decided that I no longer wanted be transferred prior to borrowing the books, it Mamba are virtually undetectable, so, to live so I tried to commit suicide by setting came as a complete surprise to me. When it whilst I have never seen it myself I would my mattress alight.