Many judges are well versed in the problems, including overcrowding, that are blighting prisons in England and Wales. Some have been moved to comment on the state of prisons or take it into account when imposing sentences. Here are some examples:
The most significant recent case, given that it was at the court of appeal, came in March and concerned an appellant who threw boiling water over a prison guard. Lord Justice Edis, the senior presiding judge for England and Wales, quashed the six-month immediate custodial sentence and replaced it with a suspended sentence order. He referred to the announcement in October last year of the emergency use of 400 police cells to hold inmates (known as Operation Safeguard) to ease the pressure on the Prison Service and a letter from the then justice secretary, Dominic Raab, which said: “Detention would be harsher than before on account of high occupancy levels, reduced access to rehabilitation programmes and the possibility of prisoners being detained further away from home.” Edis said such considerations “will principally apply to shorter sentences because a significant proportion of such sentences is likely to be served during the time when the prison population is very high”. He added: “It will only apply to sentences passed during this time. We have identified above the starting point for the relevance of this consideration for sentencing, which we take to be the implementation of Operation Safeguard 14 days after 6 February 2023. Sentencing courts will now have an awareness of the impact of the current prison population levels from the material quoted in this judgment and can properly rely on that.”
