1.
Chelmsford
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Chelmsford is the principal settlement of the City of Chelmsford and the county town of Essex, in the East of England. It is located in the London commuter belt, approximately 32 miles northeast of Charing Cross, London, the urban area of the city has a population of approximately 120,000, whilst the district has a population of 168,310. The communities of Chelmsford, Massachusetts, Chelmsford, Ontario, and Chelmsford, Chelmsfords population consists of a large number of City and Docklands commuters, attracted by the 30–35 minute journey from Central London via the Great Eastern Main Line. The same journey takes approximately 60 minutes by road via the A12, on 14 March 2012, Lord President of the Privy Council and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced that Chelmsford, along with Perth, Scotland and St Asaph, Wales, was to be granted city status. The Letters Patent officially granting city status to Chelmsford from The Queen were received on 6 June 2012, the demonym for a Chelmsford resident is Chelmsfordian. An under-cover market, operating Tuesday to Saturday, is still an important part of the city centre over 800 years later, the citys name is derived from Ceolmaers ford which was close to the site of the present High Street stone bridge. In the Domesday Book of 1086, the town was called Celmeresfort and its position on the Londinium – Camulodonum Roman road ensured the early prosperity of Chelmsford. Before 1199, there were nearby from ancient times. A Neolithic and a late Bronze Age settlement have been found in the Springfield suburb, a Roman fort was built in AD60, and a civilian town grew up around it. The remains of a mansio, a combination post office, civic centre and hotel, lie beneath the streets of modern Moulsham, the town disappeared for a while after the Romans left Britain. The town became the seat of the local assize during the early 13th century and by 1218 it was recognised as the county town of Essex, a position it has retained to the present day. Chelmsford was significantly involved in the Peasants Revolt of 1381, the Sleepers and The Shadows, written by Hilda Grieve in 1988 using original sources, states, For nearly a week, from Monday 1st July to Saturday 6th July, Chelmsford became the seat of government. The king probably lodged at his manor house at Writtle. He was attended by his council, headed by the temporary Chancellor, Richard II famously revoked the charters which he had made in concession to the peasants on 2 July 1381, while in Chelmsford. It could be said that given this movement of government power, the road Saxon Way now marks the site. In the 17th century many of the victims of Matthew Hopkins spent their last days imprisoned in Chelmsford, before being tried at the Assizes, Henry VIII purchased the Boleyn estate in 1516, and built Beaulieu Palace on the current site of New Hall School. This later became the residence of his mistress, and later wife Anne. Soon after it became the residence of Henrys daughter, by his first marriage, during World War II Chelmsford, an important centre of light engineering war production, was attacked from the air on several occasions, both by aircraft of the Luftwaffe and by missile
2.
Essex
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Essex /ˈɛsᵻks/ is a county in England immediately north-east of London. It borders the counties of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, the county town is Chelmsford, which is the only city in the county. Essex occupies the part of the old Kingdom of Essex, before this. As well as areas, the county also includes London Stansted Airport, the new towns of Basildon and Harlow, Lakeside Shopping Centre, the port of Tilbury. Originally recorded in AD527, Essex occupied territory to the north of the River Thames, incorporating all of what later became Middlesex and its territory was later restricted to lands east of the River Lea. In changes before the Norman conquest the East Saxons were subsumed into the Kingdom of England and, following the Norman conquest, Essex became a county. During the medieval period, much of the area was designated a Royal forest, including the county in a period to 1204. Gradually, the subject to forest law diminished, but at various times included the forests of Becontree, Chelmsford, Epping, Hatfield, Ongar. County-wide administration Essex County Council was formed in 1889, however County Boroughs of West Ham, Southend-on-Sea and East Ham formed part of the county but were unitary authorities. 12 boroughs and districts provide more localised services such as rubbish and recycling collections, leisure and planning, parish-level administration – changes A few Essex parishes have been transferred to other counties. Before 1889, small areas were transferred to Hertfordshire near Bishops Stortford, Essex became part of the East of England Government Office Region in 1994 and was statistically counted as part of that region from 1999, having previously been part of the South East England region. Two unitary authorities In 1998 the boroughs of Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock were granted autonomy from the county of Essex after successful requests to become unitary authorities. Essex Police covers the county and the two unitary authorities. The county council chamber and main headquarters is at the County Hall in Chelmsford, before 1938 the council regularly met in London near Moorgate, which with significant parts closer to that point and the dominance of railways had been more convenient than any place in the county. It currently has 75 elected councillors, before 1965, the number of councillors reached over 100. The highest point of the county of Essex is Chrishall Common near the village of Langley, close to the Hertfordshire border, the pattern of settlement in the county is diverse. Epping Forest also acts as a barrier to the further spread of London. Part of the southeast of the county, already containing the population centres of Basildon, Southend and Thurrock, is within the Thames Gateway
3.
Her Majesty's Prison Service
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Her Majestys Prison Service is a part of the National Offender Management Service of Her Majestys Government tasked with managing most of the prisons within England and Wales. The CEO of the National Offender Management Service, currently Michael Spurr, is the administrator of the prison service, the CEO reports to the Secretary of State for Justice and also works closely with the Prisons Minister, a junior ministerial post within the Ministry of Justice. It has its office in Clive House. It formerly had its office in Cleland House in the City of Westminster. The British Overseas Territory of Bermudas HM Prison Service was a separate organisation, in 2004, the Prison Service was responsible for 130 prisons and employed around 44,000 staff. As of 2009 the number of prisons had increased to 131, the Services statement of purpose states Her Majestys Prison Service serves the public by keeping in custody those committed by the courts. Our duty is to look after them with humanity and help them lead law-abiding and useful lives in custody, the Ministry of Justices objective for prisons seeks Effective execution of the sentences of the courts so as to reduce re-offending and protect the public. Population statistics for the Service are published weekly, statistics available for 24 June 2016 showed the service housed 85,130 prisoners,81,274 males and 3,856 females. The over 60s are the fastest growing age category and Professor David Wilson, early in 2004, it was announced that the Prison Service would be integrated into a new National Offender Management Service later in the year. As of 2008, rationalisation of the management system is underway with the advent of the Titan Prison concept. Six new reform prisons are to be built with prison governors in charge of operation, Penal charities claimed reforms would fail if prisoners were crammed into filthy institutions with no staff. In 2015 the Justice Select Committee, following a long prison inquiry, were critical of Justice ministers for apparent complacency about a 38% rise in prison deaths since 2012. The committee concluded that efficiency savings and staffing shortages had made a significant contribution to the deterioration in safety in prisons. Prison officer numbers had reduced from about 23,000 in 2012, already reduced from about 25,000 in 2010. The government had announced an intention of recruiting 2,500 extra prison officers by the end of 2018. Prisons are overcrowded and understaffed leading to riots, prison escapes and it is suggested that alternative punishments should be found for less serious offenders. Also mental health issues of prisoners are not addressed. Prison assaults have been increasing year on year reaching 22,195 from March 2015 to March 2016, assaults by prisoners on staff are rising with just under 700 causing serious injury
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Prison
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Besides their use for punishing crimes, jails and prisons are frequently used by authoritarian regimes against perceived opponents. Prisons often have facilities that are designed with long term confinement in mind in comparison to jails. In times of war, prisoners of war or detainees may be detained in prisons or prisoner of war camps. The use of prisons can be traced back to the rise of the state as a form of social organization, corresponding with the advent of the state was the development of written language, which enabled the creation of formalized legal codes as official guidelines for society. The best known of early legal codes is the Code of Hammurabi. Some Ancient Greek philosophers, such as Plato, began to develop ideas of using punishment to reform instead of simply using it as retribution. Imprisonment as a penalty was used initially for those who could not afford to pay their fines, eventually, since impoverished Athenians could not pay their fines, leading to indefinite periods of imprisonment, time limits were set instead. The prison in Ancient Athens was known as the desmoterion, the Romans were among the first to use prisons as a form of punishment, rather than simply for detention. A variety of existing structures were used to house prisoners, such as cages, basements of public buildings. One of the most notable Roman prisons was the Mamertine Prison, the Mamertine Prison was located within a sewer system beneath ancient Rome and contained a large network of dungeons where prisoners were held in squalid conditions, contaminated with human waste. Forced labor on public projects was also a common form of punishment. In many cases, citizens were sentenced to slavery, often in ergastula, during the Middle Ages in Europe, castles, fortresses, and the basements of public buildings were often used as makeshift prisons. Another common punishment was sentencing people to slavery, which involved chaining prisoners together in the bottoms of ships. However, the concept of the modern prison largely remained unknown until the early 19th-century, Punishment usually consisted of physical forms of punishment, including capital punishment, mutilation, flagellation, branding, and non-physical punishments, such as public shaming rituals. However, an important innovation at the time was the Bridewell House of Corrections, located at Bridewell Palace in London and these houses held mostly petty offenders, vagrants, and the disorderly local poor. In these facilities, inmates were given jobs, and through prison labor they were taught how to work for a living, by the end of the 17th century, houses of correction were absorbed into local prison facilities under the control of the local justice of the peace. From the late 17th century and during the 18th century, popular resistance to public execution, rulers began looking for means to punish and control their subjects in a way that did not cause people to associate them with spectacles of tyrannical and sadistic violence. They developed systems of mass incarceration, often with hard labor, the prison reform movement that arose at this time was heavily influenced by two somewhat contradictory philosophies
5.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
6.
Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons
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The current Chief Inspector is Peter Clarke, he took over from Nick Hardwick in 2016. HM Chief Inspector of Prisons is appointed by the British Justice Secretary from outside the service for a period of five years. The Chief Inspector provides independent scrutiny of detention in England and Wales through carrying out announced and unannounced inspections of detention facilities and their remit includes prisons, young offenders institutions, police cells and immigration service detention centres. They are also called upon to inspect facilities in Commonwealth dependencies. The Inspectorates independence has been interpreted differently by the different holders of the post, from the inspectorate of Stephen Tumim onwards, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons has been more willing to speak critically in public of Government penal policy. There is also a separate post of Her Majestys Chief Inspector of Prisons for Scotland, and a HM Inspectorate of Probation. gov. uk website
