Here you can find more than 600 posts tracking every major development in probation since 2011. You can trace the rise and fall of Transforming Rehabilitation, see the latest performance figures and explore new practice developments. If you’re looking for something in particular, try the search box below.
SPCR is a longitudinal cohort study of 3,849 adult prisoners in England and Wales sentenced to up to four years in prison. Interviews were conducted with offenders on reception to prison, in the weeks prior to release, and in the community approximately two months after release. Participants were matched to the Police National Computer (PNC), allowing reconviction rates to be calculated.
In the same way as all other staff, Probation Trust Chief Executives and senior managers will either be part of the new National Probation Service or their local Community Rehabilitation Companies from April 2014. Yesterday we learnt which posts have already been filled.
Christine applauds the fact that TR makes rehabilitation as important as punishment in the criminal justice system but is disappointed that the public sector was not allowed to compete. She is concerned that there will in effect be two probation services (the National Probation Service and the new Community Rehabilitation Company) in each every area, leading to a cumbersome system.
Black people aged 10 years and older were six times more likely than White people to be stopped and searched. Asian or Mixed race people were twice as likely to be stopped and searched compared to White people. The same inequalities can be seen in the arrest statistics where Black people are three times more likely and Mixed race people twice as likely as White or Asian people to be arrested.
he MoJ will write into the new contracts for CRCs exactly which statutory bodies they will be expected to work with and what duties they will be required to perform. The paper doesn’t cover non-statutory partnerships such as Integrated Offender Management although the TR strategy makes it clear that CRCs will be expected to maintain, and indeed take the lead, on IOM.
There has been a great deal of political and media activity around punishment recently. Not a month seems to go by without a new announcement about how prison regimes will be toughened up. So it was refreshing that last week was Restorative Justice week.
Last week the MoJ published the latest local adult re-offending rates for the year ending on 30 June 2013. These figures will be scrutinised more closely than ever given the upcoming privatisation of the probation service via the government’s Transforming Rehabilitation project.
Tom is concerned about the pace and scale of the TR reforms and the danger that new providers may “park” offenders who are assessed as difficult/expensive to help change, not providing them with the services they need. He advocates that the MoJ must be careful to protect its knowledge about what works in reducing reoffending; it will need to steward the market to prevent domination by a small number of players and ensure access to new providers.
The Transforming Rehabilitation programme has focused minds at the Ministry of Justice and the criminal justice sector generally on the key issue of what sorts of interventions do reduce reoffending. The MoJ has issued a number of new research studies including a Summary of Evidence on Reducing Reoffending and a series of rapid evidence assessments on different categories of intervention.
Marcus Roberts, Director of Policy for DrugScope, gives his views in the latest in a series of interviews about the MoJ’s probation reform programme: Transforming Rehabilitation. Marcus welcomes the ambition and potential of TR but expresses concerns about a number of key issues:
A focus on reoffending could mean we miss the “teachable moments” which enable change…
A4e’s Jen Byrne sees TR as an opportunity for co-designing a new probation service with both service users and probation staff. She calls for transparency in commissioning and acknowledges…
