Here you can find more than 750 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.
Another consequence of these lengthy monolithic contracts is that it is very difficult for governments to change policy direction. Reform makes the point that to implement change a new government will often have to compensate existing providers and institute new, lengthy and expensive procurement processes. Although old providers may get some compensation, all potential
This is just the latest piece of research that reinforces the need to develop a more integrated system of social care. Although few argue against a more co-ordinated approach, we seem to have made very little progress towards constructing it with joined-up commissioning apparently as difficult to achieve as ever.
The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) found that crime in the year ending September 2014 was 11% down on the previous year and the lowest estimate since the CSEW began in 1981. There was an estimated 7 million incidents of crime against households and resident adults in England and Wales.
“time and resources are frequently being wasted as a consequence of the practice of adjourning the sentencing hearing so that the Probation Service can prepare a presentence report (PSR) for cases that either do not require a PSR or when an oral report would suffice.”
This then creates the problem of a provider who is ‘too big to fail’. If a provider under-performs, the government may not be able to remove them due to the difficulty of replacing lost capacity, undermining the threat of sanctions written into contracts.
A prime example of this is the government’s radical overhaul of the probation service – “Transforming Rehabilitation” – where new (mainly private) providers will require the active cooperation of a wide range of other agencies such as drug treatment providers etc. to reduce reoffending. Some of the new providers have already stated that they do not wish to spend any of their contract revenue on this provision but expect other agencies to provide high quality services to offenders without any additional incentives.
In my view, implementing rapid sanctions alone is unlikely to promote reduced drug use or offending. Desistance and recovery rarely involve a simple, linear path to success. If every relapse is met with 5 days in custody, it is hard to envisage how offenders will achieve the long term stability and abstinence required to build a personally fulfilling and law-abiding lifestyle.
The central conclusion of the report is that the Criminal Justice System’s approach to young black men of African Caribbean descent is based on the supposition that they belong to a gang, and that young Muslim men are, or soon will be, engaged in terrorist activity.
The inspectors made a total of 67 recommendations to address the concerns they identified. It is too early to say whether these issues are teething problems inevitable given the massive change that TR involves or fundamental flaws that will get worse over time. It will be intriguing to see whether performance improves or deteriorates when new providers take over CRCs in early 2015.
This latest set of MoJ statistics adds power to the recent argument made by Professor Sean McConville (With Lois Blom-Cooper) that if we really want prison reform, we have to sideline politicians and have a Royal Commission.
The overall proven re-offending rate is 26.0%, the lowest level in over 10 years. This represents a small drop of 0.7 percentage points compared to the previous 12 months and a fall of 2.9 percentage points since 2002. Since 2002, the overall proven re-offending rate for adult and juvenile offenders has remained fairly stable, fluctuating between around 26% and 29%.
This information cannot provide much insight about the quality of service being delivered under the new system. The best measure of this is, of course, reoffending rates but they will not be available until Autumn 2016.
