In the flurry of activity around the Justice Secretary's announcements on rehabilitation and the speedy roll out of payment-by-results in justice, some other potentially more interesting financing schemes are being overlooked despite very promising results. Justice Reinvestment, the shifting of resources from unnecessary use of prosecution and prisons to community...

They say a week is a long time in politics. Last week we learnt some important things about the crime committed in England and Wales over the last year and the way in which it was punished. This week we heard the prime minister's new law and order vision for...

A new report by Rob Allen, published by the Criminal Justice Alliance, not only reminds us that England and Wales has the dubious accolade of locking up more people per head of population than any other country in Western Europe, but that we are now falling even further...

Two important prison inspection reports were published last week. One received widespread media attention due to the astonishing nine-fold increase in use of force to restrain teenagers. The other, largely positive, report of adult male prison, HMP The Mount, slipped under the radar somewhat.

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On Friday the prison population in England and Wales broke through the 88,000 barrier for the first time.

When Ken Clarke was last in charge of prisons in the early '90s the, average prison population was just over 44,000. Since that time commentators have argued that the UK is...