Case Study Four The Prison Reform Trust The Prison Reform Trust (PRT) is an independent charity supporting research into the prison system, providing advice for prisoners and their families, and campaigning for reform.
The number of children in prison in England and Wales fell from just over 3,000 in September 2007 to fewer than 1,900 by December 2011, a ten-year low and evidence links changes in practice to the work of the Out of Trouble programme. There are some concerns about sustainability, but as a positive sign, the Coalition Government reduced the capacity for children’s imprisonment by about 800 places. One potentially unfortunate unintended consequence however is that such changes could mean that those children remaining in the prison system end up being further away from their families.
The Fund, through its Penal Reform Initiative, had supported the Prison Reform Trust since 2000 and, in 2007, awarded the charity the single largest grant the Fund will have made: £1.5 million over five years, allowing PRT to play to their strengths with a focus on the detention of under-18s and young people, particularly vulnerable groups. The ‘Out of Trouble’ programme was developed to reduce the number of children and young people in prison, which had increased significantly over the previous two decades. With a political climate not conducive to lobbying for national legislative change (although the Prison Reform Trust’s input to a Justice Green Paper shows indications of successful influence on the law on child remand), Out of Trouble employed a multi-pronged strategy working locally, particularly in high custody areas. Interventions included training for defence solicitors on diverting children from custody; ensuring Youth Offending Teams and Probation Trusts are aware of available diversion schemes; research highlighting where the current system and practice is not working and pointing out solutions with media work and opinion polling.
For the full case study please see Resource Materials 1 – The Fund. Details of resource materials can be found in the Appendix.
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