The panel helping Dame Amber Rudd review prisons in England and Wales has no former prisoners and no one from a Black or minority ethnic background, campaigners say.
A man jailed under the automatic life sentence rule abolished in 2005 says his indefinite detention amounts to “mental torture”, ahead of a parole hearing this month.
Figures given to Parliament show 3,669 prison cells standing vacant, for reasons ranging from fire safety work and radon gas to arson, Legionella and bed bugs.
A deputy governor at HMP Berwyn told a Wrexham council committee that 28 per cent of men freed in the first tranche of early releases were back inside within seven days.
Official statistics for the year to June 2026 show custodial terms still lengthening in both the Crown Court and magistrates’ courts, with short sentences making up more than half of the total.
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