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Labour in opposition promised reform on IPPs and joint enterprise sentencing – let’s get started!
Action for justice is needed as there are currently 3,000 prisoners behind bars under ‘Imprisonment for Public Protection,’ even though this type of sentence was abolished in 2012, argues KIM JOHNSON MP
EARLY RELEASES: Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood, with prison governor Sarah Bott at HMP Bedford in Harpur, Bedfordshire last Friday, ahead of announcing plans to address prison overcrowding including reducing the time before some prisoners are automatically released

BARELY two weeks since Labour swept to power, prison reform and the desperate need to tackle overcrowding has swept the headlines.

Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood has warned of the “total collapse” of the prison system and a “total breakdown of law and order” if urgent action is not taken. Thousands of prisoners are now due to be released early at the start of September.

All this shows there’s no time like the present to get started with some progressive reforms that will put an end to historic miscarriages of justice, improve the role and outcomes of the criminal justice system, and end the systemic overcrowding of prisons.

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