PRT comment: Justice Committee report on the use of remand

Commenting on the publication today of the Justice Committee’s report on the role of adult custodial remand in the criminal justice system, Peter Dawson, director of the Prison Reform Trust said:

“The Justice Committee’s report shows how a criminal justice system in perpetual crisis ends up failing everyone — and wasting money into the bargain. Courts send people to prison on remand because they don’t have the information from probation to keep them safely in the community, or because the services they need aren’t available. Once there, people are held in the prisons least able to cope, and for much longer than necessary because courts and legal services aren’t resourced to deal with a historic backlog that dates from well before Covid. Bizarrely, people released from prison having been found not guilty, or released from court having served all the time they would otherwise have been sentenced to, get no resettlement support despite the damage done to their chances of work, a home and education that might  otherwise keep their lives on track. And through all of this, victims are kept waiting ever longer for justice to be done.

“This has all been true for the last decade or more. The pandemic certainly caused a surge in remand numbers, but it’s not the cause of the problem. More prisons won’t solve it — but investment in community, legal and probation services just might.”