Two officers sacked over youth jail

brutality (reported 27 June)

The Prison Service confirmed on 26 June

that two prison officers at Portland YOI had been sacked for assaulting

the young people in their care.  Fran Russell of the Howard League

was quoted in the Guardian, saying "We believe that abuse was

happening within the knowledge of the management of the prison and that it

was tacitly supported by them, in so far as they failed to stop

it".  Martin Narey, Director General of the Prison Service added

"I think bad practices were prevalent at Portland.  When I

visited in 1999 I was pretty horrified by the culture.  The

segregation unit was very militaristic in its approach and conditions were

pretty primitive". Click

here to see the Guardian's coverage.

At the Modernising Criminal Justice

Conference, the Lord Chief Justice said conditions in some prisons were

"no longer tolerable" and that overcrowding could lead to riots

on a scale not seen since Strangeways. "We would be foolish if we did

not recognise the danger of repetition now that some of the causes of

those disturbances have reappeared.  It is my firm belief that we

should send to prison fewer offenders than we do currently.  For

those offenders who are sentenced to less than 12 months imprisonment,

prison can make little or no contribution to the depressing statistics

about reoffending", he said.