Janey Starling

Thank you

It is so refreshing to see @zackpolanski.bsky.social correctly frame drug policy as a public health issue, rather than through the criminal lens that has seen so much public money wasted on policing.

Last week I was invited onto @overunderpod.bsky.social to discuss the Epstein files & this is my main take. I hope these harrowing revelations instigate the bigger conversations we need to be having about the prevalence of child sexual abuse across all sections of society.

If the British left has a future, it’s in Faiza Shaheen

Why Protests Should Be Promises Modern movements that aim to advance racial equity should withhold and promise, rather than perform, writes Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò

“‘Demonstrations’ in the fullest sense of the word—proof of how many people these organizations could mobilize, and how militantly they could be mobilized”

@olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social author of Elite Capture, in @time.com

Palestine Action knew that appeals to morality were pointless, that blocking the killing machine was the only way.

The government’s decision to ban them is an acknowledgement of how effective that strategy is.

Reality has a well known anti-Israel bias.

Rigged Justice: Laila Soueif’s hunger strike is a feminist call to arms Janey Starling explains why Laila Soueif’s hunger strike to release her son imprisoned in Egypt raises broader questions about dehumanising incarceration, including in Britain. Dr Laila Soueif’s hu…

I wrote about Dr Laila Soueif’s hunger strike to #FreeAlaa & why it’s always mothers on the frontline of the fight against prisons

@labour-hub.bsky.social

labourhub.org.uk/2025/06/12/r...

How on earth can the UK sanction two Israeli ministers yet — at the very same time — continue supplying weapons to the very government they serve?

The UK’s position is becoming more absurd by the day. End all arms sales to Israel, now.

Prisons are institutions of power and control, they will never ever be caring places.

They really are saying the quiet bit out loud now, fucking hell

One horrific headline after another revealing the tip of the iceberg of ongoing genocidal violence. All while the international community lets this continue despite the fact that the 1948 UN convention which outlaws genocide *obligates* states to prevent and punish genocide.

An ex-police officer built a mobile prison cell that tours primary schools so children can experience “prison life” and it’s called HMP Not-4-Me and this is the website and it’s not satire:

hmpnot4me.co.uk/our-programmes

Wellness fascism has reached its horrifying apex

Some hope from the Independent Sentencing Review. If the government are serious, they will divert funding away from prisons into communities.

Midlands police officer accused of banging teen's head on car sacked Kevin Markowski, 47, has been dismissed from the police force

A Nottinghamshire police officer accused of banging a teenage girl's head on a vehicle and putting his hands on her throat has been sacked following a two-day misconduct hearing www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midland...

Prisoners who gave birth in handcuffs sue Ministry of Justice One of five women who went into labour while an inmate at HMP Bronzefield says she begged officers to remove her restraints in the hospital

More harrowing accounts of women being cuffed to officers during childbirth. Every day there’s more evidence of why we need to end the imprisonment of pregnant women.

www.thetimes.com/article/8502...

Police could search homes and phones after pregnancy loss | The Observer New national guidance suggests officers look for menstrual tracking apps or abortion drugs

Completely normal and not in any way fascist police state

observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

It’s now confirmed that pregnant women fall into the scope of The Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill.

This means it is going to remove one of the very few, hard-won protections we have for pregnant women and mothers: the direction for courts not to sentence them without a PSR.

Fiona Apple Returns With First New Song in 5 Years, “Pretrial (Let Her Go Home)” Apple’s first original since Fetch the Bolt Cutters is a protest anthem advocating for jailed mothers who can’t afford bail

So moved by this song about mums in pre-trial detention that Fiona Apple released yesterday!

While the US & UK bail systems are different, the devastating impacts of holding mothers in prison are the same: losing housing, healthcare and children.

pitchfork.com/news/fiona-a...

‘The pain was worse than giving birth’: why are so many women separated from their babies in prison? First they had to give birth in custody, then their babies were taken away. Sometimes they never got them back. Here’s what 29 women told the Lost Mothers Project

‘The pain was worse than giving birth’: why are so many women separated from their babies in prison?

I want to talk about trans suicides and 'distress'.

Specifically in the context of this thread and the climate of sheer hostility that has been fostered by government policy and societal apathy towards, if not outright endorsement of, trans suffering.

Many folks chalk this up to "gender distress".

This is great. 💯 agree

A moving letter from a criminal defence solicitor representing a young mother of an infant, who explains the human cost of losing the new sentencing guideline.

“The justice secretary’s political point-scoring has devastating consequences”

@hodgejonesallen.bsky.social

This *finally* acknowledged the medical and psychological consensus on the harm prison causes to pregnant women, mothers and children.

The government knew this. It’s a little too on the nose to say they’ve thrown the babies out with the bathwater but they really have and it is despicable.

Very frustrating that, in a sentencing guideline that features 11 sections, Jenrick’s baseless intervention on *1* of them has dominated all public perception.

This guideline explicitly, and for the first time, directed courts to avoid imprisoning pregnant women & mothers due to the risks.

The Guardian view on sentencing guidelines: rightwing politicians must not call the tune | Editorial Editorial: The justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, should reject false, inflammatory rhetoric and focus on the real issues

A clear-sighted editorial on the government’s posturing around pre-sentence report requirements in the new sentencing guideline.

It appears to be the first time anyone has acknowledged we have no probation staff to even write these reports anyway.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The Guardian view on sentencing guidelines: rightwing politicians must not call the tune | Editorial Editorial: The justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, should reject false, inflammatory rhetoric and focus on the real issues

A clear-sighted editorial on the government’s posturing around pre-sentence report requirements in the new sentencing guideline.

It appears to be the first time anyone has acknowledged we have no probation staff to even write these reports anyway.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Thank you. It’s enraging to witness.

Labour's populist pantomime over sentencing rules plays into the hands of the right | Janey Starling Forcing the abandonment of new commonsense, evidence-based guidelines is a new low for a party that once prided itself on justice reform, says Janey Starling of campaign group Level Up

I have written about the sentencing guidelines shitshow.

Infuriating to see yet another Labour government seek to appease a rightwing voter base by reinforcing the “tough on crime” doom loop that has gridlocked our justice system for the past 30 years.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...