“… it is an inconvenient truth – which I swerved to an extent – that we send too many people to prison. And of those who deserve to be in custody, many, but certainly not all, are sent there for too long.” Michael Gove (Justice Secretary, 2015/16), 16 November 2016

"There are many people fighting their cases that may have thought the problems they were having were unique to them. However, coming together with others shows it's not just you, the problems are endemic" - Emma Morris bit.ly/4aFqNcm

"I didn't set out to spend 20 years doing this" says Alan Bates, "but the more defensive the Post Office has become, actually seeking the truth has been replaced by denial and a culture of blaming the applicant time after time" #postofficeinquiry bbc.in/4aLCiPC

Our flawed regime for compensating miscarriage of justice victims "was designed by people who simply could not believe our justice system could convict the completely innocent" laments Andy Malkinson bit.ly/4bWlbvm

"Politicians must be brave enough to consider making fundamental changes to the way we use prisons and what things prison is suitable for" says PGA, given "the reality and cost of long-term imprisonment": bit.ly/45dFiTH

"The official proceedings which went on in [the Court of Appeal] were like the mysterious revolutions of some great machine, and just occasionally, by a sheer miracle, this machine might, like a lottery, throw out a winning ticket" - Solzhenitsyn, 'The First Circle'

"I'm an ordinary citizen, and ordinary people should be aware that they can be taken. It could happen to anybody, and once they've got you, they don't want to let you go. You can't prepare yourself, you don't see it coming" - Andy Malkinson, 'The Wrong Man'

"It is not justice itself that is the delusion, the delusion lies in the common belief that the system lives up to its principles. It is failing to do so, and we can no longer pretend otherwise" says Dennis Eady bit.ly/3wOWq5n

"When you've lost everything, you have to rely on the concern and vision of people who have the imagination to picture your plight, and the outrage at your predicament, and the commitment to try to do something about it" says DAVID JESSEL bit.ly/3ViVhMT

"Difficulties must be seen as buried treasure. The greater they are, the more valuable. The more effort has been put in, the more joy there is in meeting obstruction. It means that the pick has struck the iron casket which contains the treasure" - Solzhenitsyn, 'The First Circle'

"I spent 17 years trying to find out what happened, and unpicking it all is very difficult. You're fighting all the way because they don't want the truth to emerge" - Andy Malkinson, 'The Wrong Man' bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod…

"Prisons and the extent of our prison population are a national shame. Their failure will only be stopped by a radical change in sentencing policy, a halt to prison-building, and a dramatic reduction in the prison population" say academics Deborah Coles: bit.ly/45wlb35

"A political system that values 'toughness' over governing competence has become tone deaf to the warnings of hard-working prison staff. A failure to think strategically about the aims & techniques of imprisonment has normalised a dysfunctional system" bit.ly/3VXbtmb

The unhappy realisation, after more than 14 years in the heart of the criminal justice system, is that nothing works in the way it should or on the timescale that it should. Will a new government listen to the experts to fix the frustrations of practitioners & stakeholders alike?

In the same week that The Law Society decries a "criminal justice system in crisis with huge backlogs of cases & overcrowded prisons" bit.ly/3zxSuXs POA warns “the entire system is in meltdown" after "successive Governments have allowed the situation to deteriorate"

"If your house is falling off a cliff, you don't build a conservatory on it. The Tory policy of building their way out of crisis is doomed to failure. Staff need leadership, not Titanic deckchairs" laments John Podmore

Fantastic to see that the new government has appointed James Timpson, CEO of the Timpson Group and an advocate for prison reform, as the new Prisons Minister - a promising first step towards tackling the prison crisis. Learn more at the following link: bbc.in/4cVjbDR

"It would be worryingly complacent simply to pass this off as an isolated case. It demonstrates a deep-seated, system-wide, cultural reluctance, which starts rights at the top in the Court of Appeal, to acknowledge that entirely innocent defendants will sometimes be convicted"

As James Burley APPEAL reflects, "Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) must be completely overhauled. No one can doubt now that it is a broken safety net which sets the bar unreasonably high for innocent prisoners trying to clear their names"