Posted: Friday 4th July 2014
As we go about our daily lives, we see headlines, hear reports and read stories in the media about crime and offenders and base our opinions on the headlines and stories available to us. You would be forgiven then, for not knowing about the vast amount of work that happens nationally and locally to protect us all. We’ve all heard of the Probation Service, but unless you work in the Service or have experienced it yourself, you cannot appreciate just how much hard work is going on to protect us by rehabilitating offenders once they have been released from prison or those serving community sentences.
It was a national scandal that until recently, most offenders serving less than a year in prison had been released with no support structure whatsoever and in too many cases had reoffended within hours. It is also a fact that offenders on short prison sentences are almost three times more likely to commit another crime when they are released, and one of the reasons for this is the lack of time to deliver effective rehabilitation while they are in prison.
The Government recognised something had to be done, and from last month Probation has been split into two organisations to better serve the public and reduce reoffending. The National Probation Service will concentrate on managing high risk offenders who pose the greatest risk of harm, including those on life sentences who have been released on licence. They will continue the vital work they have always done to monitor and work with ex-offenders, all of whom will have undergone extensive rehabilitation in prison before they are considered for release. One major change begins in October, when sex offenders released into the community will be subject to regular lie detector tests to check they are sticking to their licence conditions, as well as GPS tagging to track their movements.
For lower risk offenders who are sentenced to less than a year in prison, or a community sentence, a new Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) has been created serving local regions, in our case Humberside, Lincolnshire and North Yorkshire. The CRC will take on this work, providing courses designed to tackle the root causes of offending. These courses will be included as conditions of an offenders’ release, meaning they have to be completed or they will be taken back to court to receive a more serious sentence or returned to prison. They will measure an offender’s motivation and progress, and help decide what further work is needed to aid their rehabilitation. It may be about building better relationships, managing alcohol or drug dependency or improving their education and skills.
No offender should ever be released from prison and left to their own devices. If they have only served a short sentence there is every chance they will offend again and create more victims and more misery. The Probation Service and CRC will continue to do what they have always done; change offenders’ behaviour and move them away from crime. Their service often goes under the radar, but they are there, making life better for all of us and rightly deserve our recognition. I will continue to both support and challenge the Probation Service on your behalf to ensure offenders are properly managed in our communities.
Matthew