 My name is Nikki Padfield. I'm a professor at the University of Cambridge and I am really grateful that I've had the opportunity to encourage colleagues, panellists, you the audience to join this webinar because personally I think that what's going on in prisons today is fundamentally important for us all to think about. Thank you all very, very much for coming. I will of course welcome the panellists and I'll do that a little bit later when I think the attendees have all managed to join in. This is the second of the University of Cambridge's webinars on criminal justice during this COVID-19 pandemic and I have to say you are all very, very welcome. I know that amongst the very large number of people who signed in, there are a number of alumni of the university from all around the world, which is very, very interesting and encouraging. Some of you in the audience are experts, some of you are joining simply because you're keen to understand what's going on. You are all very, very welcome. Your comments, your feedback in the chat or on the more formal questions section are very, very welcome. I'd like to give my thanks to Dan Bates for his excellent IT support and to Claire Gordon, who's our development officer in the faculty, also criminal barrister. Thank you both for your help. As you all know, our focus today is on current conditions in English prisons. At the beginning of the lockdown, I think many of us were very relieved to learn of the government's decision to reduce the prison population. They announced plans to release up to 4,000 prisoners in England and Wales and the Prison Governors Association and Public Health England argued that releasing 10, 15,000 prisoners was needed. That's a big number and only a handful of prisoners appear actually to have been released under these new provisions. So one question is what went wrong? I think attention has now shifted much more to a concern for the welfare health progression of both prisoners and staff. Some people have drawn parallels between our own private lockdowns and life in prison. Personally, I don't think that comparison is necessarily useful. Today's prisons can mean solitary confinement in pretty ghastly conditions surrounded by fear, exacerbated by a lack of information. And of course, the solitary confinement is often not solitary. There's someone else in your rather small, cramped cell. Of course, the conditions in some prisons are very much worse than in other prisons. And we'll, that must be discussing that. In a week when we are reshouting Black Lives Matter, we must also remember that prisoners' lives matter, as do the lives of their families and the lives of those who work or volunteer in prisons. Of course, prisons are disappointingly populated with a disproportionate number of people from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds. The lessons to be learned are numerous and perhaps for the future. Lessons to the prison and the probation system. And now I'm going to bring in our panel. In alphabetical order, we have Andrea Albert, who is president of the Prison Governors Association, Richard Garcy, director of the Center for Crime and Justice Studies, Laura Janes, legal director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, retired Judge John Samuels QC, who's sat on the parole board and is president of the Prisoners Education Trust, and Jesse Smith, current Cambridge PhDs candidate in law, solicitor, formally specializing in national security. I've invited each of our speakers to speak very meanly for only four minutes on the biggest issues as they see them. And I'm going to start by asking Andrea to speak. She can give us a clear insight from the perspective of those who manage our prisons. From Andrea, I'll turn to Laura, then John, then Jesse, and finally, Richard. We'll have the presentations, the four minute perspectives, all on a trot without questions from the audience at that stage. As long as I shut up shortly, we should have a good half an hour for discussions. Do use the chat feature of Zoom. But for your questions, I'll be looking only at the Q&A section. So please put your questions for panel members in the Q&A section. Thank you very, very much for being with us today. And perhaps I can turn straight away to Andrea Albert. Can we stop you for a minute because we can't hear you yet? And are you going to unmute her? I think I've unmuted myself. There we are. We can hear you now. Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. The first thing I'd like to say is that the COVID outbreak to date has been managed well. The initial Public Health England report estimated 3,000 prisoners would die from COVID. A revised report in April estimated 100 deaths. And to date, 23 prisons have died of COVID and 10 staff have died whilst no death is welcomed. But those figures are significantly better than we first thought. The reason it's been successful is that the lockdown regime in prisons commenced at the same time as the lockdown in society. So there was a legitimisation of the decision to lockdown amongst prisoners. We implemented a compartmentalisation strategy, which meant that we had three types of units in prisons. The 14-day reverse cohorting unit for new receptions, the seven-day protective isolation unit for prisons and shielding units for the very vulnerable. Prisoners felt safe. They were locked up. There was good staff-prisoner relationships and staff-prisoner ratios. There was less criminal activity in our prisons and prisoners wanted to survive COVID like the rest of us. So we generally had a passive complying prisoner population. Less prisoners, less overcrowding, we currently have reduced our population by 4,000. It's under 80,000, which is the lowest it's been for 12 years. The reasons for this is nothing to do with an early release scheme announced by the government. We've only released less than 100 on that. It's around a sluggish criminal justice system that has meant that we've been able to release more prisoners than we've had new receptions. Now moving into the riskiest period, the period of recovery. Our society's been unlocked. Prisons aren't being unlocked at the same pace. Will the legitimacy of what we do be accepted by prisoners? I think probably not. I think we'll question it. They'll be wanting to have access to the loved ones and friends in a COVID secure way. That means that in an overcrowded system that becomes very difficult. They'll want access to decent prolonged rich regimes after such a significant period of lockdown. Once again, to deliver that in a COVID secure way in overcrowded prisons is going to be difficult. We have to continue with the compartmentalization strategy for at least another year. It's the criminal justice system ramps up. That small headroom of 4,000 that we've had because of the sluggish system will soon be eaten up, which means that delivering the compartmentalization strategy will become more challenging and that could potentially give us exposure to outbreaks of COVID. As we relax the unlock, prison safety will become more of a concern again and the drivers of violence will become more evident. Things like debt and taxing will begin to increase again. We've had very low self-harm and very low violence because of the lockdown regime. People have felt safe and the drivers of violence, as I've said, have reduced. So with self-harm as we unlock potentially as the fees and concerns of vulnerable prisoners increase, we could have increased self-harm. Assaults as restrictions are lifted, there may be an increase again in assaults and we'll have to somehow try and manage that. So finally, I've got 30 seconds left. The answer is the population must be reduced. We've got to stop short sentences of less than 12 months. That's a PGA position. Have early release schemes, which actually release prisoners rather than being so restrictive that they have very little impact, in fact, no impact. We need more effective community sentences. If we have less people in prison, we will have better staff prisoner ratio. That will improve relationships and as a result will improve safety and rehabilitation in our prisons. Thank you. Thank you. That was fantastic. You stuck to your timetable in a wonderful way and raised many issues both for now and for the future. Thank you. So next to go was Laura and your key points may be a little different. Well, actually, I think Andrea and I agree, particularly with the conclusion that she just ended with. So at the Howard League, we run a specialist advice line where we speak to young people aged 21 and under every day of the week. We manage to maintain that service by working from home on a rotor. And I've got to say in the 15 years that I have been doing this job, it has been one of the most depressing and miserable times. We speak every day to children who on the positive side of things have been getting some extra credit to call home. Of course, that's if they have a home to call home to. They are, of course, all in their own cells. They are calm. As Andrea said, they are not scared every day of their lives when they're going out to the exercise yard because there isn't the same levels of violence. But that's where the good news ends. They're getting no education, no therapy, no visits, no hugs. The children I'm speaking to are sleeping all day. Sometimes they call me up and say, Miss, I'm sorry. I nearly didn't get to call you. I've been awake all night. I've been sleeping all day. Time has ceased to have meaning. I spoke to a young person last week who I said, tell me what characterizes your experience of this COVID time? And he just said, I'm hungry because these are teenage growing boys. They actually rely on canteen over and above the usual food. And the canteen provisions have been restricted so they can't order 20 quart noodles anymore. They can only order four. He said that he was sleeping so he didn't have to think about his hunger. Of course, the whole point of the youth justice system is supposed to be welfare, education and training. So the whole point of the basis of detention has gone for children. And of course, the situation for adults is even worse because they don't have the same level of extra credit. And of course, 18,000 odd of them have been sharing cells. And so the harm that is currently caused by the mass solitary confinement of 80,000 men, women and children is immeasurable. And it has been a choice between prisons contracting the virus and it's spreading like wildfire, like a petri dish, or between this kind of inhumane level of isolation, which is set to continue for an indefinite period. And it is of course just not tenable. Experts world over have been really clear. The only way to manage this is to create more space so we can ease pressure. We don't want to go back actually to the old ways, the violence and what Andrea just described. And we can already see that starting to unravel. There's been an increase in deaths tragically recently. But of course, as we know, the government said that they were going to release 4000 people in response to COVID on the 4th of April. By mid April, they had released just four. And at that point, the Howard League jointly with the Prison Reform Trust actually sent in an unprecedented move sent a letter before claim to the Secretary of State, arguing it was irrational to say you're going to release 4000 people to save lives. And then to fail to do so. And of course, the response was was at that time when they first announced that they thought that one in 20 prisoners were at risk of death from COVID and that advice had changed. Now, of course, the advice had changed because the conditions that the prisoners were in meant it was contained and those conditions are untenable. As we know, as of the current latest data is around 81 people have been released, not a single child has been released under the temporary release scheme. And the only people who are getting out of jail at the moment are those who are going through the parole process around 500 people have been released by the parole board who've adapted very quickly to doing telephone and video hearings. Those who are getting out through ordinary early release schemes and those who are seeking bail and of course that relies on prisoners agitating and dedicated and persistent lawyers. Well, that's not enough. And that is not going to stop us heading for a crisis. Thank you very, very much indeed. Again, wonderfully timekeeping huge amount for us to discuss and the questions are indeed flowing in. Thank you very much. Let's turn to John Samuels. I'm very grateful to both Laura and to Andrea for setting the scene so clearly. But I want to go a little further than they have been speaking about today by looking at what may happen in my utopian belief once this pandemic is the thing of the past. Most right thinking people agree that it is the responsibility of the judge to achieve justice. My theme is that in the context of criminal proceedings, the achievement of justice does not end at the verdict and sentence. The judge who is ethically aware must retain some, albeit a supervisory interest in and concern for those who have been sentenced. What for many years I have described as judicial monitoring the statutory purposes of sentencing set out in section 142 of the Criminal Justice Act include the promotion of rehabilitation. The sentencer who has been instructed by Parliament that this is what must in part be achieved by the sentence cannot limply delegate that responsibility to others. Of course, HMPPS prison and probation staff must retain day to day responsibility for those who have been sentenced. However, an overarching supervisory role should remain in the sentencer or the sentencing court to include whether those who objectively present no risk to society need to stay in custody. The pandemic has clearly heightened the analogy for the prison population with treatment for a medical condition. Improvement or deterioration requires adjustment of the initial sentence in exactly the same way as a clinician modifies the prescription in the light of the patient's response. Sentence planning generally can most appropriately be overseen by a judicial officer who will step in when things go wrong or are being simply ignored or will encourage when they go well. Such planning requires oversight of proposed release arrangements to ensure that progress can be maintained. Now the experience we've all now had of lockdown has developed an empathy in the wider population, but I don't ignore what Nikki said in her opening remarks. The wider population now realises far more clearly than they once did what the experiences might well be for prisoners. Of course to this audience, it requires little elaboration. Locked in their cells for more than 23 hours each day. Totally deprived of family visits and much that makes life even tolerable. Such conditions leave little to the imagination. And we in the comfort of our own homes have much to be grateful for. The shocking news that so many prisoners are driven to take their own lives requires no elaboration. When the pandemic struck the immediate response as we've been reminded was to contemplate various substantial numbers of releases that did not happen. Strict containment was regarded as preferable in terms of maintaining public confidence. Those few who've been released receive a discharge grant which has long been regarded as inadequate. Go to accommodation which is objectively inappropriate for self isolation. Have no direct contact with a supervisor and are unlikely to have available employment. How will they cope. All these deficits could be corrected where the sentence or a representative of the sentencing court actively involved in planning for and then supervising that release. So paradoxically, the post COVID landscape may make the prospect of judicial monitoring, not only politically acceptable, but a glimpse of common sense, which the judiciary with parliamentary support will wish to embrace. Thank you very much indeed. And interesting to hear your plea for more judicial monitoring. One of the questions is a polite complaint that we haven't got a member of an IMB on the panel. And I'm sure that the questions you're raising about monitoring will have echoed with many people. Thank you very much. We're going to pass straight on to Jesse. Thank you, Nikki. Today I'll address the restrictions that apply to national security prisoners in a time of COVID-19 and the potential remedies that might be pursued on their behalf. First, I'll look at the UK prisons where transmission is low, but shielding extreme, giving rise to a risk of inhuman and degrading treatment. Then, by contrast, I'll turn to UK nationals detained in Syria, where prisoners are completely exposed and government refuses to take responsibility. UK prisons have introduced new rules said to protect the NHS and save lives. As we've heard, this includes social distancing, which includes a halt to social visits, education and severe lockdown. Two, protective isolation and cohorting, placing confirmed and possibly suspected cases in together. And three, shielding of those who are extremely vulnerable, which involves an even greater degree of isolation. These are supposedly matched by the release on temporary licence, and most prisoners are notionally eligible, although the Minister of State has confirmed that no terror offender has been released on special purpose licence in the past year. It's unlikely they will be eligible for these permits or release schemes that focus on the last two months of sentence. The government have said they'll give priority for release to those who are extremely vulnerable to the virus. However, the decision maker must take into account the extent to which their health can be protected by shielding on the inside. And giving shielding is extreme. This may account for the limited releases to date. The refusal to release the most vulnerable means the restrictions might remain for some time. While these measures have stopped explosive outbreaks, what does this mean for other rights, such as Article 3 of the European Convention, the prohibition on degrading and inhuman treatment? This right cannot be limited in a time of public emergency. The threshold for triggering Article 3 is high. Solitary confinement itself is usually not enough. Something more is generally required, such as a lack of education, family visits or legal visits, but we might be heading in that direction. Other countries with high rates of COVID-19 have released many more prisoners. habeas corpus, judicial review and injunctions have been sought where prisoners face death. The suppression of COVID in UK prisons has made similar claims unviable to date. However, this may change as the austere conditions continue. And moving now very briefly to the situation in Syria where we have a very different picture. In March last year, the Syrian Democratic Forces declared victory over Islamic State. The Al-Hol camp in North Asia contains some 68,000 people and there are several hundred UK citizens, including women and children. Overcrowding means that no social distancing can be imposed. Soap and PPE are in short supply. There are no testing kits and there are no respirators. The Kurds have asked the UK government to repatriate its nationals and the UK has to date refused. They say justice must be done in the region. However, we're concerned there is no competent courts that might deliver justice to human rights standard. And some especially children may not have committed offences. The Cambridge pro bono project, a team of graduate doctoral students, has been working on the potential of habeas to remove UK detainees from the camp and bring them home to prosecution or civil restriction if necessary. Habeas corpus is an ancient rite and a safeguard of liberty. If detention is unlawful, the person must be brought before the court. Habeas requires a two-step test, first proof of control over the body and second proof of unlawful detention. In terms of control, we say the UK has at least a factor of control over its nationals. In terms of detention, we say it's unlawful under the Geneva Conventions and under Syrian law and that it may also be unlawful because of the unmitigated risk posed by COVID-19 in that context. The continued stalemate will overwhelm the local health system. It leaves perpetrators amongst victims, creates a situation of impunity and unfairly burdens the Kurds who have already sacrificed some 11,000 of their own and are now fending off the pandemic completely unprepared. While the European Convention of Human Rights might not reach the camp being outside of UK territory or effective control, this older rite might break the protracted humanitarian impasse. The test for de facto control in the context of Habeas is of a different quality and perhaps easier to satisfy. Thanks. Thank you very much. You wisely take us beyond our parochial concerns in England and Wales to the wider world. Thank you for that. Richard, over to you. Thank you very much. And thank you for all the other speakers and really interesting discussion and I think keeping it short and sweet is a really good idea. So I'm just going to kind of really talk about two or three things really. First of all, just a quick reminder about, you know, the state of prisons going into this crisis. I mean, it was back in 2016 that the Justice Committee, the House of Commons remarked on the rapid deterioration of prisons since 2012. And since then, of course, we've had a number of urgent notifications from the prison's inspectorate. The chief inspector in 2018 described prisons as being well having seen quote some of the most disturbing prison conditions that he'd ever seen. So prisons going into this crisis were in a pretty desperate and poor state. And, you know, we're kind of very much not geared up for dealing with the situation that was kind of as we were visited on them. And as Andrea has indicated prisons have actually on their own terms have done a pretty good job at preventing what could have been a much worse epidemic than has been the case to date. And as Andrea pointed out, that's kind of been quite a high cost both to prisoners and indeed to staff as well in relation to effectively an enforcement of a form of solitary confinement that really could go on as she also indicated for for some months to go to come. And that concerns me greatly for the reasons Andrea set out. At the beginning of the crisis, the government, you know, announced that it was going to do an early release program, a complete failure. They've been fortunate that actually we've seen fewer people in prison but as Andrea and others have pointed out that's largely because the courts have slowed down. But of course now that courts are starting to gear up again for more business that there's a real risk that we're going to start seeing a surge of people going into prisons. And of course what the government has done is expanded prison capacity. And, you know, although you know that they're saying well these are just temporary arrangements to deal with the immediate situation. You know, I mean, I think many of us have been around long enough to know that in prison service a temporary arrangement has a tendency to become rather more permanent or at least to last for many years so whether they will be as temporary as the is implying I think is something to watch but we are there in a kind of a situation which is an extraordinary situation to be that actually rather than using this current situation as a means of reducing the prison population in a managed and sustainable way. The government have effectively used the the situation the coronavirus crisis as an opportunity to expand the prison system completely going in the wrong direction. You know there are examples in other countries where things have been done differently. About a month after the original lockdown France had managed to reduce its prison population by about 10,000 in England and Wales by comparison it gone down by about two and a half thousand by that stage. And that was largely again because courts just slowed down it wasn't because of any early release program. And you know there are examples again in other countries where we've had post moments of sentencing, you know, different kinds of sentencing options that have been used, getting people out of prison based on on welfare concerns rather than just purely in terms of the sentence length as we've tended to have here. What should be happening well you know I mean what's likely to happen it seems to me unless something changes is that we're just going to have another year of solitary confinement or compartmentalization as it's, as it's used. What I hope we should be doing is using this as an opportunity to kind of rethink prisons to kind of rethink you know how many are currently in prison and why they're there. And maybe post some kind of rather more fundamental questions, which are really social questions these are not fundamentally kind of sort of a pen illogical or criminal justice questions. They're social questions and require a kind of a social answer really which is, you know, what are the characteristics of societies, such as the UK that rely on an overuse of prison as a means of responding to harmful acts and sometimes certainly containing potentially dangerous people. And what are the characteristics of societies that don't actually rely on the overuse of prison and how might we meet that challenge and become more like those and I'm very sorry about the ring where I thought I turned that off. And that's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. Right. They've been amazing we have fitted in more or less in time. I'm going to start off with a question which is being coming in particularly in the chat which I said I wasn't going to be reading but I have been a lot of concern about what you said Andrea about self harm. I was saying our phone lines are buzzing with concerns about self harm. I think you said to us that you were pleased that there was less than expected. Can you say anything more about that. And I wonder whether Laura would want to respond to whatever you said, just a almost a point of clarification on self harm. Obviously we've had record high levels of self harm in recent years, and I can only go on the evidence that's presented to us from HMPPS so it's the evidence that they provided. And that is during the period of COVID and the level of self harm has reduced and they are doing some research as to why that is the case because the assumption was that when we lock people down that there would be an increase in self harm because that is clearly and you know a very challenging position for anybody to find themselves. And so it seems that self harm has reduced and you know you could think of lots of reasons I mean I can just think of the top of my head. Could that be because the level of criminality in our prisons is less. We have less drugs. We have less large numbers of prisoners congregating together and causing and you know making people feel unsafe and particularly vulnerable people unsafe. We'll have less taxing less bullying and so the drivers of violence aren't there day in day out and that might have impacted on people and not feeling so stressed and then not self harm and for all I can say is the evidence that's being presented to us by HMPPS seems to suggest that self harm has gone down. Is your evidence different Laura do you think. Well, I have to say of course I don't have evidence and I suppose that's one of the issues is that it feels like the data has gone down certainly there seem to be less acts and open sort of logs and things like that but it may also be a question of visibility certainly we are getting very distressed messages on our advice line day in day out and one wonders whether whether there is in fact less self harm or whether there is an issue about visibility and of course self harm manifests in many different ways. And so you know it may be that there's less visible self harm but there may be all sorts of other harm and I think we just don't know so we need to find out more which raises the question about the need for monitoring IMB involvement and so on one of the things which I took from the debate which of course we did shouldn't need reminding about but that this pandemic is not going to be going away soon as far as prisoners are concerned. Laura's point that detention and training orders if there's no training, rather lose their raison d'etre. I think there are really interesting questions and we've had some very interesting questions on parole for example. So perhaps I could take the question that we've had from Adrian grounds, which says it's his perspective as parole commissioner in Northern Ireland, where pre release testing in the community has stopped. In consequence it in consequence recommendations made for progression and rehabilitation will be not be put into effect. What can and should be done to remedy this. There's also a question about recalled prisoners and whether enough is being done to get them back out again. Would any of you feel equipped to comment on what should be done to help progress people eligible for parole consideration. Laura first. Yeah. To say I think the parole board has been doing pretty well as I said in my in my opening gambit they've released 500 people since COVID started and I've had some really interesting experiences of in particular I think one case or I had a child who was clearly just in need to be in custody who'd been recalled and and effectively was a race between the Secretary of State and the parole board to see who would direct their release first and the parole board one. But actually one of the big issues is that the parole board can be very good at making decisions but if people are coming back in again as quickly as they're coming out and I have certainly had young people who've been effectively recalled because they haven't understood the restrictions they've lost their accommodation as a result because community services have not been able to think about how to effectively come up with alternatives instead of recall because of the closing down of services in the community and people who've been directed for release by the parole board but because half the approved premises are closed are still stuck in prison waiting to get out so the problems functioning quite well but the system is not actually coagulating around it to facilitate active release decisions. Do you have a comment from the prison perspective and is parole challenging you. I've not had any concerns from our members around parole and being a challenge but I have to say that recalls have been a challenge and we've had evidence of people actually being recalled into prison. They've come in with actual symptoms of COVID and have immediately had to go into protective isolation and and you know come back for a matter of days so and you know I think that there is an issue around recall in the prisons but I can't really comment on parole. And another question for you I think and here and anyone else who wants to come in is while people are being compartmentalized or in solitary confinement. Are there any additional measures in place to protect mental health and well being what is being done. We hear a lot about people spending 23 hours a day in their cells presumably that's only a certain proportion of the prison population but could you give us a little insight into what's being done to counter what must be a dreadful situation. Well clearly that the compartmentalization strategy was about saving life that was its number one priority which it has achieved prisons and prisons are getting men and women out for short periods of time they are getting short periods out in open air. They are getting the ability the opportunity to associate in small numbers with social distancing but it is really challenging and when you have got an overcrowded prison population and particularly in our local prisons which are the prisons that hold a man prisoners and the busiest prisons. And you know if you have trying to give an equality right across that prison prisoner population and the period of time that people can be out is very very short so you can give it to everybody which is another reason why we have to reduce overcrowding. But we have been doing things like and you know people have had access to boxes of games and things like that in the cells have been doing in cell education and to try and motivate and keep people occupied and and. And all are said about and you know the visibility and I absolutely accept that probably we haven't been as visible but there has been a lot of stuff around and that a lot of stuff means that whilst people have been in their cells and stuff have been able to talk to people in the cells it's become quite difficult obviously with social distance and they've got to keep the distance but they have been able to to have contact maybe it's not fully visible contact but there has been much better staffers and relationships. During the period of COVID because staff are not as busy having to be in 10 places at once which is what has been like for a number of years. Thank you there are a number of questions coming in about community sentences one directed at you and which I'm not sure you necessarily will feel equipped to answer as to whether community sentences are being carried out and if they're not will it encourage judges and magistrates to send more people to prison because the community sentence option isn't there. James Prad does the panel think that COVID-19 will increase the appetite for a more rigorous community sentence regime more help with education employment. There are in Galstock mention of the need for more effective effective rather than rigorous community sentences. They are more effective but might more effective mean more political will and commitment from sentences. Maybe that's wishful thinking would any of you like to give any comments on community sentences. Could I come in in relation to the judicial monitoring which I believe many magistrates would love to apply within their own sentencing regime. If they lack the confidence that the probation service are effectively supervising the community sentence which they have directed then the best way of achieving what they intended by their sentence is repeatedly and conscientiously to review the operation of that community sentence and to call in the individual on whether it's a quarterly basis or even a fortnightly basis just to see how things are going. My contacts with sentences suggest that that is a power that they would actively in use about and I think it may be the answer to some of the questions that you've just posed. Anyone else want to comment on community sentences. I can say a few words about that. The thing about community sentences is that they're often kind of portrayed as alternatives to imprisonment and obviously they can certainly perform that function. They also have kind of historically had a potentially quite a net widening effect. So it does seem to me that if we are seeing community sentences as a solution to the problem of over imprisonment. We're kind of missing the point here because actually what tends to happen or can happen over time is you may have a kind of a short term drop. But then you just start rebuilding the kind of the kind of community sentence profile which then ultimately ends up with more people going into prison as well. So, you know, the kind of the real kind of long term challenge, you know, my view isn't about kind of prisons versus community sentences. Although, you know, most of us would probably prefer a community sentence to six months in, you know, worm with scrubs or style or similar. But actually how do we how do we prevent unnecessary criminalization? How do we kind of stop people being sucked into the system in the first place? There have been some kind of good examples particularly in the kind of in the youth estate where the youth population has dropped quite significantly partly because fewer young people have been criminalized since roughly 2010. But, you know, that's and we've also seen significant drops in numbers of people coming to courts. But of course what that hasn't done currently is really fed through into reductions in the prison population at most it's just resulted in effectively a flat lining of the system. So we need to kind of I think take a system wide approach on this rather than just thinking it's about moving people from prisons on to community penalties. Thank you. Let me move to an even more political question in a sense and I'll give you two versions of the question and you might all like to comment on this one. One from James Adams what to the panel think other causes often potential responses to apparent public apathy towards prison conditions during the coronavirus crisis. So apparent public apathy related to that and maybe a little bit different. Jonathan Rogers, why did the government report to be open to early release in the first place? It seemed uncharacteristic even at the time. So who would like to have a response to either the question of public apathy or why unearthed the government suggests they were going to do something that they most definitely didn't do. Laura has her hand up first. Hi, I'm happy to. In terms of the decision on the fourth of April to say they were going to release 4000 prisoners. I think the reason for that is perfectly clear. At least it became clear after they disclosed the advice that they had received following our threat of judicial review. And the reason for that was that they had had advice that if they did not create space one in 20 prisoners could die, which is an enormous thing. What is shocking is that it took several weeks after they received that advice. They got that advice on around the 24th of March and they didn't make the announcement about release until the fourth of April and then they didn't do it. So I think they were understandably scared that there would be an unprecedented loss of life. Thank goodness that didn't happen. In terms of the apparent apathy, I can only think that it's the same problem that we always suffer from in this field, which is that what happens in prison is literally behind closed doors. And I think so many people just don't know about what is happening. So I'm very happy to be here and thank you for organizing this. Anyone else on those political issues? Richard. Yeah, I mean a couple of thoughts on that. I mean, I think on the kind of the release, the early release program that kind of in a sense never happened. I think the other thing that happened was that the government themselves face quite a significant pushback from their own back benches on this issue. So it became quite highly politicized in that sense. And I mean, to be fair, the Labour opposition wasn't exactly going full guns on this and saying this was really needed. But I think, you know, it also tells us something and it relates to that question about public apathy that, you know, and on the one hand, you know, the end in the grand scheme of things, although we've got 80,000 plus people in prison in England. Well, actually we don't know. We have just under 80,000 as a result of the slowdown in courts, but around 80,000 in custody in England and Wales and, you know, about another seven or so thousand in Scotland and about 1200 in Northern Ireland. The majority of the population probably don't know prisoner. They probably don't. They may know someone who's been in prison, but they don't necessarily know them for that reason. So there is a kind of a sense where prisons are kind of slightly sort of hidden institutions, you know, compared to let's say care homes where there's been a lot of concern. And of course, you know, the ideologies prisons are full of bad people who are there for good reasons. So it's not a great surprise in one sense. But it does also I think relate to the kind of the wider politics of prisons that we actually we live in a society where prisons are felt to be socially necessary. You know, there is something there is a necessity for having prisons and for the continuations of prisons as institutions, but actually they're not prisons are historically contingent. You know, there was a period of time when societies didn't rely on prisons as a response to problems. OK, well, they strung people up and did all sorts of horrible things instead. So I'm not recommending we go back to that kind of arrangement. But it's also a kind of it seems to me we lacking in a certain historical imagination to assume that we would always require prisons. You know, they may well come a point where we live in societies where we might look on the here and now and think, my goodness, did people really lock fellow citizens up in in small rooms for 23 hours a day, rather than doing something rather more useful or productive or valuable or kind of restorative. So I think we're kind of we live in that kind of sort of society at the moment. The politics reflect that the wider public perceptions reflect that, but it doesn't need to be that way. John, thank you. John, your finger was up. I'm speeding us up a bit as I watch the clock. I only want to add to what Richard has said that we need to educate our sentences. If the sentences went into prison far more frequently than they do, they would realize that there are large numbers of prisoners who don't need to be there. And that would be a revelation to the sentences themselves. We have about 1000 give or take full time judiciary in this country who sentence people of whom only a tiny proportion ever go into a prison. The same is true of the magistracy. And although the magistracy has shrunk hugely in recent years, few routinely go inside a prison. Going into prison can be educational as well as socially acceptable. Thank you very much. I'm going to take the question now from Gilbert and worry in Kenya. And it's on remand, which must be another crucial issue at this time. In Kenya, many children come from unsafe homes or unsafe neighborhoods and maybe better off in custody pending time. What insights would panellists offer navigating release from remand where the threat of exposure to COVID is very high when considering the best interests of the prisoners are the special issues at the moment that you would want to raise about remand. Andrea, I'm really sorry that I misnamed you earlier. I will try very hard to call you Andrea. Did you want to say anything about remand prisons? Are these opposing particular problems at this moment? Because at the moment in prisons, there is no difference in the regime for convicted prisoners or for remand prisons. So we've got virtual courts going on where people need to attend court. The access to families, people on remand have far greater access to families. Well, nobody has access to families other than through telephone calls, through letters and through some kind of Skype type of thing. So I don't think at the moment remand prisons are causing just a purely logistical position in prisons causing an issue for us greater than anybody else. If I could add, Nikki, I think in terms of the safety and custody, the R number can be low in a custodial environment until it's not. And it seems that the medical evidence is that once it's in, the acceleration potential is huge. And so the difference between, I guess, safety for a remandee is that at least if you are on bail or on the outside, you have some self determination in how you can confront the virus. You've got a far greater capacity to look after your own personal hygiene, to restrict your access to others, to choose where you have your meals. And those options certainly aren't available to remand prisoners in some context. And so while there might be at the moment a very low R number in British prisons, that might change in other custodial environments as well. I'd just like to add on in relation to remand, I mean, this is an issue that I think is really critical and because the government's not doing anything to get people out of jail of their own accord. It's something where defence lawyers really can make a difference and we just, the Howard League have just produced a bail pack, sort of as a tool to help defence practitioners make applications for bail at least for children. But the problem of course is, is it's become indefinite detention. I mean, it's always, you know, that's always the problem with remand anyway, but with the custody time limits now being effectively open-ended and COVID being deemed by the government. The head of the Crown Prosecution, there's a valid reason, exceptional circumstances. It is a huge problem for people because they have no idea when their trials will get back on. And when this indefinite detention in the circumstance we've just talked about will come to an end. Could I push back in and make one more comment, sorry, Nikki. Following from what Laura said, the remand prisoners are preparing for matters in court. And at the moment I've heard that in some London prisons, video links with practitioners have been delayed by some seven weeks, waiting list. I mean, how are you to prepare a trial with your council with that kind of access to legal advice? So there are a whole host of other stresses on remand prisoners, which I guess underscores the need for that cohort in particular to be flushed out to receive bail or other release schemes. Thank you. Andrea, how soon do you think education and work will start up again? Is there a timescale in place? No, there is no timescale. The recovery plan that was published on the 2nd of June, we're following a similar type of five levels of COVID in a prison. So we're at level four, the same as society. And until we're able to move to level three, and we don't know when that is, it could be in the next few weeks. It'll just depend if the flattening of COVID remains. We will then start to look at increasing regime delivery to prisoners. So there is no timescale, but there are exceptional delivery models being written as we speak that we'll look at as soon as we are able to start opening the regime, then we'll be able to deliver some kind of education and whatever else it might be, but that will not be right. We closed down the entire prison system in one day. The open up of the regime will be in individual prisons because it will depend on what the R number is and the COVID outbreaks are within the environment that the prison or the community that the prison sits in. So it's very difficult to give timescales. It will all be dependent on what's happening with COVID in the society, in the area of the prison and what's happening with COVID within a prison as to when we will start the relax in the regime. But there are plans being developed to move as soon as we're able to. Thank you very much, which leads on, I think, to Hannah Graham's question with the prospect of solitary confinement and severely restricted regimes for a year. Do you have reflections on the prospect of the prison situation being challenged in court? What are the key human rights grounds for legal challenge? Now, Laura, you started a judicial review and then it disappeared, but Andrea had her hand right up on her buzzer so you get first, first answer and then we'll turn to Laura. I think what I need to say is when I spoke initially and I said that we would have to have a compartmentalisation strategy for 12 months, that doesn't mean to say it will be as strict and rigid as it is now, which has been described by people, panellists as a solitary confinement. That's not where we will be as we move out of this. But what we will have to continue to have is the isolation unit. So we will have to continue having the 14 day for the new reception, people or people who've been exposed, and then the protective isolation for people who have got confirmed COVID or have got the symptoms, and then obviously the more tricky shielding units, that's what we're going to have to have in place. But that doesn't mean to say that around having these in place that we won't have some kind of regime running, and hopefully we will have some kind of testing programme in place. So as new prisons, we can have them tested and rather than them spending 14 days in a reverse cohorting unit, as soon as the test comes back, if it comes back negative, we can get them into the general population and into a regime. Laura? Yes, so obviously very, very glad to hear Andrea saying that we're not anticipating a year of solitary confinement, but of course prolonged solitary confinement is defined as 15 days or more. It's now been two and a half months. Yes, you're right, Nikki, we issued a judicial review back in 2017 in respect of a 15 year old child who spent 55 days in the conditions that everyone is currently in, 23 and a half hours a day in a room the size of a car parking space. And that case hasn't gone away. It is going to be heard by the Supreme Court on the 20th and 21st of January next year. And that in that case the Supreme Court will consider exactly the issues that Jesse raised earlier, whether solitary confinement in this context is inhuman and degrading treatment. There's an article that we have permission on the article three points. Of course there's a really serious wider issue here that back in 2015 the Supreme Court ruled that it was essential that anyone who was removed from association had that procedure subject to external scrutiny and that was of course because of this serious irreversible psychological cause by solitary confinement. Now, with 80,000 people at any one time, effectively in that position, there's no way that all the paperwork and the external checks and balances that are envisaged in the usual process are happening. But it doesn't take away the basic premise that it can be irreversibly harmful and of course prisoners their loved ones and the prison service will be picking up the pieces of that for years to come. I do think that there is an issue there about human rights and safety and scrutiny, and making sure that there are sufficient checks and balances and we don't lose sight of that now we're over the initial response stage. Thank you very much. I'm sorry I'm going to stop the discussion at this point. I'm very conscious that there are 34 35 open questions. We will send the questions around the panel because many of the questions aren't so much questions as really interesting comments. I'm sorry that we haven't been able to pick the some of the questions from overseas. The answer is a very small proportion of prisoners have been released on it in addition to those who were due to be released anyhow. And I'm conscious that we haven't addressed the staff related questions. And of course it is hugely important to consider the support offered to those who are working in presence in relation to testing and so on. We knew in an hour we could only scratch the surface but I'm very, very grateful to all of you who came to listen today. I should be very interested if anyone wants to keep emailing my email is available to anyone or keep we must all keep discussing this topic. I am really, really grateful to the five panelists who gave their time. I didn't I didn't share this as I might have done and conscious that some of you may feel you didn't get as much time answering questions as others. It was our but you were all wonderful and I am really, really grateful for the opportunity to discuss these huge, hugely crucial questions of human dignity prisons and where we go next after the pandemic. Thank you very, very much everybody for taking part today. Thank you.