ICM survey results offer massive vote of support for community payback and restorative justice.

The results of an ICM telephone poll of 1,000 members of the public, conducted one month after the riots in England, show overwhelming popular support for constructive ways in which offenders can make amends to victims for the harm they have caused.

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Record high prison population

19/08/2011 13:03:00

The Ministry of Justice today announced a new record number of people held in prisons in England and Wales.

Read the response of Geoff Dobson, Deputy Director Prison Reform Trust, here.

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Community penalties are now outperforming short prison sentences, according to statistics released today from the latest edition of the Prison Reform Trust’s Bromley Briefings Prison Factfile. If government succeeds in reforming the justice system, building on the success of community measures including diversion into health treatment where appropriate, and holding prison numbers to an unavoidable minimum, it could deliver on its promise of a “rehabilitation revolution”.

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Overuse of custody over the last fifteen years has been costly and damaging. As it reviews the prison estate, the Ministry of Justice must now make sure that there are effective alternatives to custody and opportunities for diversion into treatment that command the confidence of the courts and the public.

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The Ministry of Justice green paper is a blueprint for moderate and sensible reform and should mark the end of sterile debate on toughness or softness on crime.  Rather than settling for policy-making on the hoof or enduring a crisis-driven justice system, the Secretary of State for justice has opened a proper consultation on sentencing and rehabilitation based on evidence of what works.

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The latest figures released by the Prison Service today show the prison population to be at a new record high of 84,150.

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Building American-style Titan prisons to warehouse thousands of prisoners could fatally undermine the justice system’s ability to cut crime by reforming offenders and instead set England and Wales on the fast-track to copying the damaging and discredited US prison system, a leading US civil rights lawyer will warn tonight at the Prison Reform Trust’s annual lecture. 

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As it publishes the list of the top 20 most overcrowded jails in England and Wales, the Prison Reform Trust warns that the human and financial cost of prison growth and overcrowding is now too great to bear.

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The Prison Service announced on Friday 2 May 2008, that the number of people held in custody in England and Wales had risen to a new all-time high of 82,501.

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"The record high prison population for England and Wales of 81,681 has been fuelled in recent weeks by a sharp increase in the numbers of remand and short term prisoners. Despite opening a new prison this week and extra cellblocks wherever space allowed, government attempts to build its way out of this crisis have failed. In recent weeks, the prison population is growing at a rate which even building a new medium-sized prison every week would not match."

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