{"id":146946,"date":"2018-06-27T01:06:54","date_gmt":"2018-06-27T01:06:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/government-abandons-community-prison-plan-in-favour-of-pilot-scheme\/"},"modified":"2018-06-27T01:06:54","modified_gmt":"2018-06-27T01:06:54","slug":"government-abandons-community-prison-plan-in-favour-of-pilot-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/government-abandons-community-prison-plan-in-favour-of-pilot-scheme\/","title":{"rendered":"Government abandons community prison plan in favour of pilot scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure>                                  <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Picture of woman&#039;s hands in handcuffs.\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/63DD\/production\/_101056552_34d20047-73ba-4cdd-9368-107a73c32ee3.jpg\"\/>Image copyright                  Getty Images                                                    <\/figure>\n<p class=\"caps\">The government has abandoned plans for five community prisons for women in England and Wales.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, the Ministry of Justice will trial five residential centres to help offenders with issues such as finding work and drug rehabilitation.<\/p>\n<p>Justice Secretary David Gauke said short custodial sentences had failed to halt the &quot;cycle of offending&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>Peter Dawson, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said &quot;thousands&quot; of women would benefit from the change.<\/p>\n<p>He described the strategy as a &quot;welcome recognition of the futility of short prison sentences&quot; for women whose offending is often driven by &quot;unmet mental health needs&quot;.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Women criminals &#039;need help not prison&#039;<\/li>\n<li>Why are community sentences falling out of favour?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In the foreword to the strategy published on Wednesday, Mr Gauke said 70.7% of women and 62.9% of men released from custody between April and June 2016 after a sentence of less than a year went on to re-offend within 12 months.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Gauke added there was &quot;persuasive evidence&quot; that the new approach would help reduce re-offending rates.<\/p>\n<p>He said mothers at the trial residential centres might be able to have their children with them.<\/p>\n<h2>Funding concerns<\/h2>\n<p>The government has pledged to spend \u00a35m over two years on &quot;community provision&quot; for women.<\/p>\n<p>The Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) has welcomed the change in strategy.<\/p>\n<p>But Dame Vera Baird QC, representing the APCC, warned the scheme would only work if properly funded and questioned the MoJ&#039;s decision to hand \u00a350m - originally earmarked for the prisons - back to the Treasury.<\/p>\n<p>Frances Crook, chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said ministers deserved &quot;real praise&quot; for the change in approach but - like the APCC - warned it was &quot;essential&quot; that programme is &quot;properly funded&quot;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright Getty Images The government has abandoned plans for five community prisons for women in England and Wales. Instead, the Ministry of Justice will trial five residential centres to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":146947,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-146946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}