Asked by: Lord Mott (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government, following the recent early release of some prisoners, whether they carried out a risk assessment in relation to the families of those who were released.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
This Government inherited a prison system in crisis and was forced to implement SDS40 to avoid complete collapse of the Criminal Justice System, a risk that would greatly affect victims, families, and the country. In designing the measure, and with thorough consideration of the families of those who were being released, we took every possible step to mitigate risk, including an 8-week implementation period, offence exclusions, and a huge amount of collaboration with partners across the Criminal Justice System.
Exclusions include a series of offences (including stalking, coercive or controlling behaviour and non-fatal strangulation) related to domestic abuse, along with sex offences irrespective of sentence length and serious violent offences with a sentence of four years or more. Critically, the implementation period also gave Probation time to prepare properly and engage with key partners ahead of the initial releases, including informing eligible victims within the Victim Contact Scheme or Victim Notification Scheme and engaging with MAPPA and MARAC.
Once released, offenders will be closely monitored by probation and subject to strict licence conditions, which if breached could lead to their immediate recall to prison.
Asked by: Lord Mott (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to fulfil their commitment to identify the children of prisoners and break the cycle of crime.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Government recently published the first official statistics to estimate the number of children affected by parental imprisonment using administrative government data. It is estimated that between 1 October 2021 and 1 October 2022 there were around 193,000 children with a parent in prison. We recognise the importance of being able to identify children with a parent in prison to make sure they receive the support they need, which is why our Family Support Workers help to re-establish family ties where appropriate, and help to facilitate visits from prisoners’ children.
The Ministry of Justice is working closely with the Department for Education to determine how we can do more to effectively identify these children and provide support for both them and for the parent in prison. The support will be informed by learnings from previous interventions and pilots, and engagement both with those with lived experience and organisations from the Voluntary, Charity and Social Enterprise sector.
Asked by: Lord Mott (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to identify and support the children of prisoners.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Government recently published the first official statistics to estimate the number of children affected by parental imprisonment using administrative government data. It is estimated that between 1 October 2021 and 1 October 2022 there were around 193,000 children with a parent in prison. We recognise the importance of being able to identify children with a parent in prison to make sure they receive the support they need, which is why our Family Support Workers help to re-establish family ties where appropriate, and help to facilitate visits from prisoners’ children.
The Ministry of Justice is working closely with the Department for Education to determine how we can do more to effectively identify these children and provide support for both them and for the parent in prison. The support will be informed by learnings from previous interventions and pilots, and engagement both with those with lived experience and organisations from the Voluntary, Charity and Social Enterprise sector.