Prisons and Courts Bill

The Government today announced its proposals to 'transform the lives of offenders and put victims at the heart of the justice system'. Key elements include:

Prisons

• Enshrining in law that the purpose of prisons is to reform offenders, as well as punish them.
• Giving prison governors control of education, employment and health budgets.
• Holding governors accountable for reducing drug use in prisons, improving offenders' literacy and numeracy and getting them into work.
• The creation of league tables, publicly available from August 2017, to compare performance across the prison estate in these areas.
• Two thousand new positions for current officers to be promoted into, with higher salaries and specialist mental health training.
• Enhancing the powers of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons to include scrutiny of prison leadership.
• Authorising public communication providers to disrupt unlawful mobile phone use. 

Courts

• Giving courts the power to prevent perpetrators questioning victims of domestic violence.
• Expanding the use of virtual hearings through telephone and video conferencing.
• Introducing an online convictions scheme where offenders charged with less serious crimes (e.g. failure to produce a train ticket) can plead guilty, accept a conviction and be issued with and pay a fine.