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Prisons - new material (70)

01 July 2008

Community Sentences: a soft option or vital part of the justice system? Douglas Thompson. SCOLAG Legal Journal no. 367 (May) 2008, pp 117-119. Thompson notes that “changes in the administration of bail and increases in the sentencing powers of the summary courts, which came into force at the end of last year, push[ed] the Scottish prison population past the figure of 7,600 for the first time.” Thompson concludes that “There is little doubt that our rate of imprisonment, particularly of young offenders, which remains one of the highest in Europe, has done nothing to reduce offending” and points out that “The vast majority of summary offenders are not dangerous people from whom “the public” needs to be “protected”.

Recent developments in prison law – Part 1, Hamish Arnott, Nancy Collins and Simon Creighton. Legal Action July 2008, pp 20-23 and pp 13-18. This latest update on the law relating to prisoners and their rights reviews changes to legislation and the Prison Rules and case–law relating to life sentenced prisoners. LAG email: legalaction@lag.org.uk

Legal professional privilege and covert surveillance, James Welch. Legal Action April 2008, pp. 9-10. Disclosures over the past few years have revealed the extent of the bugging of prisoners engaged in confidential conversations with their solicitors. Here the legal director of Liberty discusses “the adequacy of safeguards currently in place to protect the confidentiality of solicitor/client consultations in police stations and prisons.”