In 2014 there were 25,775 incidents of self-harm in English and Welsh prisons. In 2015 there were 32,313 – a rise of more than 25% in a single year. What’s more, in 2015 it was found that those serving indeterminate sentences have one of the highest rates of self harm in prison, more than any other type of sentence. What is yet to be examined is whether there is a causal relationship between efforts at rehabilitation and self-harm. Continue reading →

On the 5th of April 2016 the Acting Governor here published a Notice to Prisoners detailing how many prisoners here at HMP Wakefield have progressed to other prisons during the last quarter. She wrote that 3 category A prisoners have been transferred to PIPE units (intensive psychological treatment units), 2 category B prisoners were also transferred to PIPE units, 2 cat B prisoners were transferred to Therapeutic Community prisons (such as Grendon or Dovegate), 5 cat Bs have been transferred in order for them to access offending behaviour programs, 7 cat Bs have been transferred for other progressive reasons, and 3 cat Cs were transferred to category C prisons. During the same period 1 prisoner was recategorised from cat A to cat B, and 11 were recategorised from cat B to cat C. Meanwhile, 3 category B prisoners were released from this prison at the direction of the Parole Board. However, it is what follows these numbers which I dispute and, in my own opinion, is highly dishonest. Continue reading →

In the past few years there has been quite a rise in tech crimes. These are not to be confused with cyber crimes (which are merely one type of tech crime) and include a long list of crimes which are caused or otherwise assisted by modern technology. Continue reading →

I recently read a post by fellow blogger Alex Cavendish about the gross disregard that Her Majesty’s Prison Service (and the healthcare departments of prisons in particular) have for confidentiality. It made me think that I should write a little about my own recent experiences of this issue. Continue reading →

What a lot of people don’t realise is just how hard it can be to do the right thing in prison. Not because it is inherently difficult to try but because, when you do try, you are often pushed further and further to see if you’ll keep trying. This happened to me recently when I bit my tongue in an effort to keep my head down, but was almost immediately required to bite it again for my trouble.

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Given that I am an indeterminate sentenced prisoner who feels failed by ‘the system’ and kept in prison far longer than necessary it may come to your surprise that I actually support the existence of indeterminate sentences and, in fact, think that there should be far more of them. Here is how such sentences run now, and how I’d like to see them run.

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I’ve previously written about the rules concerning such things as visits and letters to prisoners. These posts were quite widely read but there have been a number of important changes over the past couple of years so I thought I should post a short update.

It used to be the case that you could only visit a convicted prisoner if they sent you a Visiting Order. This is no longer the case. Most prisons (including HMP Wakefield from last year) have introduced a new booking procedure where the prisoner adds someone to their approved visitors list and the visitor can then book a visit online via prisonvisits.service.gov.uk whenever they want. It is no longer necessary for the prisoner to send a visiting order at all. In addition, when this system was introduced, everyone who had previously visited a prisoner at their current establishment was added to the approved visitors list automatically so that prisoners don’t have to add a person to their list if they have already had visits with them.

Secondly, a new system for sending money to prisoners has also been introduced. Using gov.uk/send-prisoner-money you can make a wire transfer of money to a prisoner. The advantage of this over previous methods, is that it is free (as opposed to Postal Orders which tend to cost around 10% extra), it is instant (as opposed to cheques which still take around a month to be cleared into a prisoner’s account for them to use), and it is secure (as opposed to cash which has a habit of going missing somewhere between being posted and being received by the prisoner).

It seems that the prison service is finally accepting that it cannot resist the twenty-first century. Hope that info helps, folks.