Let’s not make the racism and misogyny uncovered by the BBC a case of a few ‘rotten apples’ in one police station in central London There is a more general, and persistent, problem in policing There are also many good police officers who will be horrified by the revelations

“Both politics and personal feelings don’t impinge scientific truths and that needs to be clearly understood” www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/09...

💥 #FiLiA2025 speaker news 💥 @jophoenix1.bsky.social Professor of Criminology, author & academic, who has researched sex, gender & justice for more than three decades. Former Trustee of @crimeandjustice.bsky.social 🎟️ filia.org.uk/tickets #SexNotGender #Brighton #Sisterhood #Solidarity

Important to keep the pressure up on the government on the scandalous #IPP sentence Well done IPP Committee in Action www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crim...

“He goes through cycles where he feels just utter despair and it's very hard for us to know how to comfort him, because it is a hopeless situation “How do you keep somebody hopeful when there is no hope?” www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

A further update to the MoJ ministerial line up with Jake Richards & Baroness Levitt added as well as new Lord Chancellor/Justice Sec David Lammy www.russellwebster.com/the-new-just...

We’re currently recruiting for a policy and communications officer Great job for the right candidate On the downside, you’ll be working with me quite a bit of the time www.charityjob.co.uk/jobs/centre-...

I’ll be giving oral evidence to the ‪@houseoflords.parliament.uk‬ Justice and Home Affairs Committee tomorrow at 11.15 am on criminal justice electronic monitoring/tagging Watch it here, if that’s what floats your boat www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/...

Smart, self-critical and less patronising Is it time for a rethink on the way criminal justice reformers do criminal justice reform? My latest commentary on what’s what www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/smart-self-c...

“I am not soft on terrorism. But I am a strong believer that you have to know what it looks like” www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

“The approach in the Ministry of Justice, which oversees prisons policy, was to manage the crisis, doing ‘as little as possible as late as possible’.” www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

”Requiring prison officers to refer to male offenders as women shows how far an organisation whose core business is managing risk related to sex has lost sight of material reality” www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...

“We are keen to continue working proactively and keep abreast of any new developments that can assist in our mission to investigate miscarriages of justice” ccrc.gov.uk/news/ccrc-la...

“One woman has said she was raped from the age of 12 by a serving officer in a marked police car and that he threatened to give her back to the grooming gang if she did not comply” www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/art...

“Many of the men who claimed to be protesting about the savage murders of three little girls at a dance class in Southport had themselves been accused of attacking women... The link between private and public violence has never been clearer” www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Colour me shocked www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Latest crime statistics for England and Wales are released today by the Office for National Statistics I'll be discussing them at 9.45 am this morning on Times Radio www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

Smaller, but tougher Our new report, out today, reveals that fewer young adults are being sent to prison than a decade ago, but those who are imprisoned are getting much longer sentences #SmallerButTougher

“The situation at Pentonville reflects many of the issues our members are experiencing across the country. Overcrowding, understaffing, a squalid prison estate and poor leadership are indicative of a prison system in crisis” www.poauk.org.uk/news-events/...

Interesting new research out in the British Journal of Criminology Homicides in El Salvador rose when tough on crime policies were pursued, and fell when policies based on truces and negotiation with and between gangs were followed academic.oup.com/bjc/advance-...

We have now published all the commended essays (and the winner) of the inaugural Mike Guilfoyle Essay Prize. The annual competition, run with @napotheunion.bsky.social , honours Mike’s memory by encouraging reflections on all that is valuable and important in probation.

“I recently met a young man in a Midlands prison who... has spent more than half his life in prison... He was released a couple of years ago, only to be recalled to custody... for being late to probation appointments, which clashed with his employment” www.independent.co.uk/voices/lord-...

I was at the House of Lords with others to witness the debate first-hand Powerful advocacy for reform, matched by ministerial obtuseness In short, two hours of pushing jelly up a hill So we continue www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crim...

Approach with caution: Does the UK have anything to learn from Texas? A rare opportunity to hear from Michele Deitch, one of the foremost US experts on prisons and sentencing policy. @crimeandjustice.bsky.social event 21 July lunchtime www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/approach-cau...

“In 2003, five protesters known as the the Fairford Five were arrested and charged for disrupting military operations at RAF Fairford. One of the defendants, Josh Richards, was represented by Keir Starmer” www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Recent speech to the UN General Assembly by the Director General of the UN Office on Drugs & Crime, Ghada Waly: “If we measure our societies today, we find them struggling with a silent yet growing prison crisis... This is not sustainable. It is not safe. And it is not humane”

“Thomas has been a casualty in this, but so have I and my mum and family... He deserves to be treated with dignity, and I am just overwhelmed that he will go to a safe environment where he’s not being hurt” www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crim...

This new briefing from the House of Commons library on ‘How to appeal a criminal conviction or sentence’ commonslibrary.parliament.uk/how-to-appea...

Spot on by POA chair, Mark Fairhurst, on the waste of spending billions on new prisons “You could do a lot with that… the estate could be totally modernised, we could fund secure mental health beds in our communities to get people out of prison, we could reform probation and fund them”

‘Prison was the first place we felt sisterhood’: six women return to the ruins of Holloway In an astonishing new documentary, former inmates go back to the cells that once held them. The result is a powerful indictment of our justice system www.theguardian.com/film/2025/ju...

Appointing the redoubtable @verabaird.bsky.social to chair the troubled Criminal Cases Review Commission, if only on an interim basis, strikes me as a very good move www.gov.uk/government/n...

New probation and reoffending directorate being set up at the Ministry of Justice www.civilserviceworld.com/professions/...

My latest commentary on our current crop of politicians Burdened by the past and fearful of the future, they are stuck in a doom loop www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/building-bet...

Join us for our next event, Echoes of tomorrow, on 24 June We’ll be discussing how on present-day criminal justice policy-making is haunted by past decisions and anticipations of what the future might hold

Any Sentencing Review must surely be just a first step in the long promised fundamental appraisal of our entire neglected desperately underfunded Justice system.

A couple of quick thoughts on the Sentencing Review, due out today Successive governments and parliaments have been persistent offenders: driving up sentence lengths, pitching the prison system into recurring crises, then casting around for fixes for the mess they have created

We have known these things for a long time why aren’t we any different from what went before?

Spending billions pumping up long-term prison demand, while taking small, grudging steps to manage short-term capacity pressures, is a recipe for failure. Bad for staff. Bad for prisoners The lack of vision and ambition is staggering

The negative reaction of some trade unions to Supreme Court judgment upholding women's rights in the EA2010 is a disgraceful betrayal of their female members. Trade union history of fighting for women’s rights will stand for nothing if they organise against our sex-based rights in the present. /1

The prison population level is “unacceptable” “There is no money available for the construction of expensive new prisons and many worthwhile schemes to improve the lot of both staff and inmate have had to be postponed or cancelled” Written in 1977, but could have been today

When was this written? “Many members of the Prison Service... have lived in hope for years of seeing, not merely adequate resources to end the sheer physical chaos of overcrowding, but recognition of and encouragement for the positive and imaginative part of their work”

“Restrictive abortion laws in England and Wales nurture an environment of fear, stigmatisation and criminalisation. Abortion reform is urgently needed, and now is the time for change” www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

“It comes up on the doorstep all the time. Winter fuel will lose us the next election, it was a terrible mistake. But it’s probably too late for a U-turn now” www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

“Cathy Larkman, a retired police superintendent... described the strip-search of a female detainee by a biologically male officer who identifies as female as ‘an abuse of power by the state’, adding that to ‘lie to her and say that this officer is a “woman” compounds that abuse’”

Fascinating article on the Victorian-era prisons in England and Wales still in operation today www.theguardian.com/society/ng-i...

I haven't come across much analysis of the implications, for criminal justice, of the Supreme Court ruling on what ‘man’ and ‘woman’ mean in the Equality Act 2010 Maybe I’ve just missed it. Do reply with any examples Here’s my take on a few aspects

“The working from home policy had allowed the CCRC to recruit high-calibre staff from across the UK... MPs were told... “But the committee chair, Andy Slaughter, said he was ‘shocked’ senior staff were absent from the office” www.theguardian.com/law/2025/apr...

“Sentencers may not fully and adequately consider the significant risks that custodial sentences pose to the health and wellbeing of both mother and child; risks that have resulted in the deaths of several babies in the prison estate” www.theguardian.com/law/2025/apr...

“The fact that Starmer and myriad MPs instantly turned about-face once the court had ruled – often rewriting history to insist they had always believed this – suggests that little thought had been given to the issue in the first place” observer.co.uk/news/opinion...

Pick of the week The Guardian recommends the four-part ‘In it together’ podcast on joint enterprise we produced with @jengba.bsky.social All episodes now out. Listen to it wherever you get your podcasts