More than 40,000 days of additional imprisonment imposed on prisoners in East of England prisons last year

Figures for each prison in the region are included in a new briefing by the penal reform charity, which explores how, it claims, the disciplinary system behind bars creates a pervasive sense of injustice, fuelling conflict and overcrowding in jails across England and Wales.

The briefing focuses on formal disciplinary hearings, known as adjudications, where prisoners can be given punishments including solitary confinement and additional days of imprisonment. The figures show that adjudications have been used increasingly and unnecessarily as an everyday behaviour management tool – leading to punitive and arbitrary outcomes.

In Peterborough men’s prison, 876 extra days were imposed in 2018, increasing to 4,25o days in 2019. The prison had a population of just 810 inmates as of June 28 this year.

Peterborough women’s prison had 339 inmates on the same date. In 2018 they incurred 560 extra days and that figure stayed roughly constant in 2019 at 557 additional days punishment.

The Howard League has seen a host of troubling cases through its own legal work across the country, including teenagers who were punished for attempting to harm themselves and a young adult with learning difficulties who was ordered to spend longer in prison at a hearing where he did not have legal representation.

Official statistics provided by the Ministry of Justice reveal that, across England and Wales, the number of adjudications rose to more than 210,000 in 2019 – an increase of 76 per cent in eight years, despite the prison population remaining relatively constant.

The briefing states that there is an overwhelming case for abolishing the imposition of additional days of imprisonment, which totalled more than 337,000 across England and Wales in 2019. Scrapping the practice would bring England and Wales in line with Scotland, where it was ended to positive effect almost 20 years ago.

Frances Crook, Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “If we must have prisons, they should meet the very highest standards of justice, with disciplinary processes that are fair, discerning and proportionate.

“Rather than solving problems, however, the current system creates new ones. Procedurally unjust and unduly punitive, it succeeds only in driving a pervasive sense of injustice that undermines trust and engagement and leads to more conflict.

“It is time to adopt a different approach. If we look beyond punishment and install procedurally fair processes built on communication, consent and respect, we can make prisons safer and guide more people away from crime.”

The briefing is the second to emerge from the Howard League’s Justice and Fairness programme, exploring how good order can be achieved in prisons in a just and fair way without resorting unnecessarily to punitive disciplinary processes.

It aims to show how the overuse of adjudications has placed excessive strain on the prison system’s already-stretched resources, leading to inadequate investigations and inconsistent application of the procedures. The number of adjudications that were dismissed or not proceeded with more than doubled between 2011 and 2018, and the proportion of all adjudications which were found proved fell from 73 per cent in 2011 to 64 per cent in 2019.

Thwe charity says the overuse of adjudications often results in procedural rights being threatened and can lead to significant delays and arbitrary outcomes. Even where an adjudication is dismissed, the weeks and months spent waiting can have a profound impact on the prisoner concerned.

As soon as a prisoner has been formally reported for having broken a rule, they will often have privileges removed, frequently by the officer who is making the allegation, without any independent review of the strength of the charge. The sense of injustice triggered by this summary punishment can be compounded when, as often occurs, lost privileges are not restored when charges are dismissed. The loss of privileges can also adversely affect the outcome of future parole hearings.

In 2019 black, Asian and minority ethnic prisoners accounted for almost a third of all adjudications, while comprising just a quarter of the prison population.

Children and young adults are also affected disproportionately. Between 2011 and 2018 the largest increase in the number of adjudications was for children aged 15 to 17. Young adults aged 18 to 20 received 14 per cent of all the additional days of imprisonment that were imposed in 2019, despite making up only just over one per cent of the prison population.