Prison system was days from collapse three times under Sunak, review finds
The criminal justice system was within days of collapse on three occasions before being bailed out by “last-minute emergency measures”, an independent review by a former prisons watchdog has found.Dame Anne Owers said the prison system, under pressure from overcrowding, was “in crisis” between autumn 2023 and the summer of 2024, but No 10 under Rishi Sunak refused to cut the numbers in jail until “the next predictable cliff edge”.Former ministers and officials interviewed by Owers “expressed frustration and sometimes anger” at the failure to endorse a plan to avert crises and suspected that this was a deliberate move by Downing Street, she said.“Many believed that the default position was to do as little as possible as late as possible, with the consequence that the system repeatedly reached the brink of collapse,” she said.The 25-page report into the teetering Prison Service, which remains at nearly 97.
5% capacity, comes as the criminal justice system is expected to come under renewed pressure this weekend,Police have warned that they could arrest hundreds of people who plan to express support for Palestine Action on Saturday,Forces fear more incidents among people protesting outside hotels housing asylum seekers across Greater London, the north-east of England and East Anglia,The review, commissioned by the justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, in February, detailed claims that Sunak’s office waited until prisons were days from collapsing before acting – to the dismay of some ministers,“Although departmental ministers were convinced by mid-2023 that some form of early release was both necessary and urgent, this required prime ministerial agreement, which was not forthcoming until the system was within three days of potential collapse, and only in incremental stages,” she wrote.
She said Alex Chalk, the then justice secretary, called for an early release scheme from mid-2023 for prisoners who had received standard determinate sentences, but received no backing,Chalk had made clear, she said, that he “was advocating, without success, a version of the SDS early release scheme in order to get ahead of the crisis, rather than the minimal salami-slicing approach that was eventually taken”,“Without exception, all those the review spoke to expressed frustration and sometimes anger at the reluctance to accept and then act on the well-documented and imminent crisis, or to agree any coherent plan to avert it,” she wrote,After the general election was called in May 2024, Sunak called emergency Cobra meetings to discuss “invoking emergency powers” to release prisoners early if the criminal justice system collapsed,“This might be necessary to avert the risk of public disorder if the criminal justice system collapsed during the election campaign,” the report disclosed.
On three occasions, the Sunak government used early release schemes, employing powers designed to allow release on compassionate grounds, the report said.Civil servants were concerned that there would be an investigation into the mismanagement of prisons, the report said.“Senior officials were so concerned about a potential breakdown in the criminal justice system that an audit was kept of all decision-making and documents, in case there was a public or parliamentary inquiry,” the report found.The best public interest journalism relies on first-hand accounts from people in the know.If you have something to share on this subject you can contact us confidentially using the following methods.
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SecureDrop, instant messengers, email, telephone and postSee our guide at theguardian,com/tips for alternative methods and the pros and cons of each,In October 2023, Chalk announced plans to free prisoners 18 days early under the end of custody supervised licence, which was later extended to 35 days and then 70 days,More than 13,000 were released under the scheme,One of Labour’s first acts after forming a government last year was to announce a plan to release offenders with standard determinate sentences after they had served 40% of their term.
Recommendations from David Gauke’s sentencing review, which proposed less jail time for thousands of offenders, including some violent criminals and domestic abusers, are in the process of being implemented.Commenting on the Owers report, Mahmood said it “lays bare the disgraceful way the last Conservative government ran our prisons.They added less than 500 cells to the prison estate over 14 years, released over 10,000 prisoners early under a veil of secrecy, and brought our jails close to total collapse on countless occasions.”The Conservatives and Sunak have been approached for comment.Andrew Neilson, the director of campaigns at the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “This review into prison capacity spells out in forensic detail how the government has found itself facing the prospect of running out of cells.
It is a crisis, or more accurately a series of crises, that has been brewing over several decades and across successive governments.”
The dark side of cryptocurrency
Andrew Bailey is right to distance the British financial system from cryptocurrency, but he is being too polite about it (Editorial, 29 July). Cryptocurrency is evil. Being speculative in nature, it serves no purpose as a useful currency, and being secretive, it facilitates international drug dealing, people trafficking and terrorism. In addition to helping destabilise our precarious world, it has a huge, unnecessary carbon footprint. It’s time for our financial authorities to speak truth to money
OpenAI stops ChatGPT from telling people to break up with partners
ChatGPT will not tell people to break up with their partner and will encourage users to take breaks from long chatbot sessions, under new changes to the artificial intelligence tool.OpenAI, ChatGPT’s developer, said the chatbot would stop giving definitive answers to personal challenges and would instead help people to mull over problems such as potential breakups.“When you ask something like: ‘Should I break up with my boyfriend?’ ChatGPT shouldn’t give you an answer. It should help you think it through – asking questions, weighing pros and cons,” said OpenAI.The US company said new ChatGPT behaviour for dealing with “high-stakes personal decisions” would be rolled out soon
‘We didn’t vote for ChatGPT’: Swedish PM under fire for using AI in role
The Swedish prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, has come under fire after admitting that he regularly consults AI tools for a second opinion in his role running the country.Kristersson, whose Moderate party leads Sweden’s centre-right coalition government, said he used tools including ChatGPT and the French service LeChat. His colleagues also used AI in their daily work, he said.Kristersson told the Swedish business newspaper Dagens industri: “I use it myself quite often. If for nothing else than for a second opinion
Google says its new ‘world model’ could train AI robots in virtual warehouses
Google has outlined its latest step towards artificial general intelligence (AGI) with a new model that allows AI systems to interact with a convincing simulation of the real world.The Genie 3 “world model” could be used to train robots and autonomous vehicles as they engage with realistic recreations of environments such as warehouses, according to Google.The US technology company’s AI division, Google DeepMind, argues that world models are a key step to achieving AGI, a hypothetical level of AI where a system can carry out most tasks on a par with humans – rather than just individual tasks such as playing chess or translating languages – and potentially do someone’s job.DeepMind said such models would play an important role in the development of AI agents, or systems that carry out tasks autonomously.“We expect this technology to play a critical role as we push toward AGI, and agents play a greater role in the world,” DeepMind said
Should big tech be allowed to mine Australians’ text and data to train AI? The Productivity Commission is considering it
The Productivity Commission is examining whether technology firms should be exempt from copyright rules that stop companies mining text and data to train artificial intelligence models.The commission, in its interim report into “harnessing data and the digital economy”, used copyright as a case study for how Australia’s existing regulatory framework could be adapted to manage the risks of artificial intelligence.A key recommendation was that the federal government should conduct a sweeping review of regulations to plug potential gaps that could be exploited by “bad actors” using AI.Scott Farquhar, the co-founder of software company Atlassian, last week called for an “urgent” overhaul of Australia’s copyright rules, arguing they were out of step with other comparable countries.Farquhar said creating exemptions for text and data mining to train large language models “could unlock billions of dollars of foreign investment into Australia”
Dial N for nostalgia: landlines are back | Brief letters
Emma Brockes’ article threw open the door to landline memories (Worried about your child’s screentime? Get a landline, 31 July). When it rang, the enthusiasm that came with the conviction “it’s for me” v the reluctance when seemingly knowing “it’s not for me”. This was undoubtedly because the phone in a cold hallway meant no one wanted to leave the warmth and TV in the sitting room. Virginia RanscombeDerbyhaven, Isle of Man I can’t believe it has taken 40 years and a thinktank to realise the bleeding obvious about the sale of council housing (Right to buy in England ‘fuelled housing crisis and cost taxpayers £200bn’, 3 August). Wrong policy from the very beginning – and the fact it continued for so long is nothing short of scandalous
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