His Majesty's Prison Service (HMPS) is a part of HM Prison and Probation Service, which is the part of His Majesty's Government charged with managing most of the prisons within England and Wales.
Prison reform is the attempt to improve conditions inside prisons, improve the effectiveness of a penal system, or implement alternatives to incarceration. It also focuses on ensuring the reinstatement of those whose lives are impacted by crimes.
Justice is a human rights and law reform organisation based in the United Kingdom. It is the British section of the International Commission of Jurists, the international human rights organisation of lawyers devoted to the legal protection of human rights worldwide. Members of Justice are predominantly barristers and solicitors, judges, legal academics, and law students.
In England and Wales, life imprisonment is a sentence that lasts until the death of the prisoner, although in most cases the prisoner will be eligible for early release after a minimum term set by the judge. In exceptional cases a judge may impose a "whole life order", meaning that the offender is never considered for parole, although they may still be released on compassionate grounds at the discretion of the Home Secretary. Whole life orders are usually imposed for aggravated murder, and can only be imposed where the offender was at least 21 years old at the time of the offence being committed.
Frances Crook OBE is the former Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, the oldest penal reform charity in the United Kingdom.
The Prison Reform Trust (PRT) was founded in 1981 in London, England, by a small group of prison reform campaigners who were unhappy with the direction in which the Howard League for Penal Reform was heading, concentrating more on community punishments than on traditional prison reform issues. Founding members included Sir Monty Finniston and Veronica Linklater.
Nacro is a social justice charity based in England and Wales. Established in 1966 from the previous National Association of Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Societies, it became the largest criminal justice-related charity in England and Wales. In the 1970s Nacro also became involved in policy discussions with the British Government, particularly with the Home Office, which has responsibility for prisons and probation services. Since 2011, its strategy has focused on extending its high-level influence at government level, with commissioners, policy makers and practitioners, and increasing its partnership work.
Andrew Coyle CMG is Emeritus Professor of Prison Studies at the University of London.
In the United Kingdom, prisoners are divided into four categories of security. Each adult is assigned to a category according to their crime, sentence, the risk of escape, and violent tendencies. The categories are designated with the letters A to D, with A being the highest level of security, and D the lowest.
The Prison Advice and Care Trust (Pact) is an independent UK charity that provides practical services for prisoners and prisoners' families. First established as the Catholic Prisoners Aid Society in 1898, Pact works at several prisons across England and Wales.
The Howard League for Penal Reform Canterbury is an organisation based in Christchurch, New Zealand, that lobbies for prison reform and works in Canterbury prisons. It is based on the British Howard League for Penal Reform.
Una Padel OBE was a British criminal-justice reformer, known for her work in penal reform. She was the director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (CCJS) from 1999 until her death in 2006, after which the centre established the Una Padel Award.
Prisoners' Advice Service (PAS) is a London-based registered charity in England and Wales that provides free, confidential legal advice and representation to prisoners regarding their rights, the application of prison rules and conditions of imprisonment.
Justice Action is a not-for-profit community organisation based in Sydney, Australia. Justice Action focuses on abuses of authority in the criminal justice and mental health systems in Australia. Founded in 1979 as Prisoner Action, Justice Action is independent of the Australian government and is funded by voluntary donations and the work of the social enterprise, Breakout Media Communications. Justice Action's coordinator is Brett Collins, an ex-prisoner who began with the organisation in 1979 as co-founder. Alongside Collins, Justice Action is run by a team of interns who are university students in law and other degrees.
Criminal justice reform seeks to address structural issues in criminal justice systems such as racial profiling, police brutality, overcriminalization, mass incarceration, and recidivism. Criminal justice reform can take place at any point where the criminal justice system intervenes in citizens’ lives, including lawmaking, policing, and sentencing.
Inquest Charitable Trust is a charity concerned with state related deaths in England and Wales. It was founded in 1981. Inquest provides support on state-related deaths, including deaths in custody and their investigation, to bereaved people, lawyers, advice and support agencies, the media and parliamentarians.
Lady Edwina Louise Snow is an English criminologist, philanthropist and prison reformer. She is a founder and a trustee of the charity The Clink, and founder of the charity One Small Thing. She is the sister of Hugh Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster.
Just for Kids Law is a London-based charity which provides advocacy, legal and youth opportunities services to children and young people, as well as campaigning for wider reform to benefit children and young people living in the United Kingdom. Since its foundation in 2006 by youth justice lawyers Aika Stephenson and Shauneen Lambe, the organisation has received particular renown for its work in strategic litigation, securing significant changes to the law on issues such as the treatment of 17-year-olds in police custody, the eligibility of young migrants for student finance, the law of joint enterprise, and the disclosure of youth cautions and reprimands on DBS certificates. The organisation is also known for its approach to youth advocacy support, with an independent evaluation by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations Charities Evaluation Service noting the "numerous positive benefits" of the charity's casework model.
Justice Ishaq Usman Bello is a Nigerian jurist, the Chief Judge of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, and Nigeria's nominated candidate for the 2020 judicial elections of the International Criminal Court based in The Hague, Netherlands. He is better known for his effort towards decongesting several prisons, now known as correctional facilities, in Nigeria.
Debbie Kilroy, née Deborah Harding, is an Australian human rights activist and prison reformer. She is known for having founded Sisters Inside, an independent community organisation based in Queensland, Australia, that advocates for the human rights of women and girls in the criminal legal system. She is a qualified lawyer, who in 2007 was the first person with serious convictions to be allowed to practise law by the Supreme Court of Queensland.
