Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80
- 99)
TUESDAY 20 JANUARY 1998
MR JOHN
HICKS, MR
HOWARD LOCKWOOD
AND MR
GEOFF DOBSON
80. We understand that but there is a feeling
that the pendulum has swung perhaps too far and that, in the recent
past—and I think this may have changed—some of the
penalties handed out may look to the offenders more like rewards
than punishments. That will certainly confuse someone whom one
is trying to help see the difference between right and wrong.
(Mr Hicks) It never swung quite as far as the public
believed. For the probation service, the stories about safari
holidays and so on did not apply. They were not probation service
measures that were referred to. If the pendulum swung some way
in that direction, it has swung quite vigorously back so that
the balance between punishing, disciplines, expectations and building
into that procedures that are going to deliver some change, it
seems to me, is a much more acceptable balance to the public mind,
if the public understood more accurately what goes on.
Mr Allan
81. The problem seems to lie in the area of
where the balance lies between your role in protecting the public
and where it lies in rehabilitating the offender. A classic newspaper
instance is, "So and so walked free from court with a probation
order", with the suggestion that the probation service are
then going to look after the offender and this person is potentially
now free to commit more offences. In your professional role, presumably
your primary responsibility is to provide protection to the people
of South Yorkshire in your case. Would you agree?
(Mr Hicks) Yes.
82. Going on from there, is there not a dilemma
that, if somebody fails under one of your sentences, that is a
failure for the service effectively? What is the point at which
you can move from understanding an offender and trying to help
them, towards blowing the whistle and reporting that you believe
they are still offending and whatever? How does that process work?
At what point does the risk to the public take over and do you
say, "We have failed for this one" and get them back
into the criminal justice system?
(Mr Hicks) The risk to the public is always the primary
concern. The overriding consideration in making balanced judgments
in individual cases will be about the risk to the public, particularly
any risk of physical damage, violent offences, but the risk of
reoffending is a part of that process as well. The reality, as
your question explored, is that we know that you are only going
to make impact on a person's life if you get a balance between
imposing or getting accepted new patterns of behaviour, new disciplines.
That process does require, with people who to start with may not
be very strongly motivated, actually working with key areas of
change in their behaviour, in their understandings and in their
approach to life.
83. If, for example, your probation officer,
in dealing with someone, suspected that they were continuing with
a pattern of domestic burglary, for example, would you expect
that officer, having gained the confidence of the individual,
to go to the police and say, "Pursue this person because
I believe they are still offending"? That is what the public
would expect from you.
(Mr Hicks) We have a growing strong contact with the
police. Domestic burglary may not be the best example. The best
example is sexual offending where there is a growing pattern across
the country of an agreed protocol between police and probation
about the exchange of information for precisely that reason. If
there is any suspicion of any further offending behaviour on either
part, then there will be communication about it. There is no question
of one part of the system knowing things that the other part of
the system does not know. In terms of public protection, it is
very stark in relation to sexual offending. There is a clear expectation
between probation and police services that we are in the same
business. We are there to do the same job but different parts
of it. In that context, the police look to the probation service
for the assessment of risk. They say you know best how to assess
the likelihood of any further offending of this kind taking place.
You have the risk procedures; you have evidenced to us that you
can actually assess that better than we can. The partnership between
the two services is a very open partnership.
Mr Winnick
84. Relating to confidence in non-custodial
sentences, if half of those on probation were serving prison sentences,
could you give us the estimated number of the prison population?
(Mr Hicks) The estimated increase in the prison population?
85. No; if you took half of those who are currently
on probation and worked on the assumption that they were in prison,
what would be the likely total prison number? About 65,000 now
are in prison.
(Mr Hicks) If you took half of the population under
community sentences of various kinds, you would probably double
the prison population at least.
86. Just by halving those on probation currently?
(Mr Hicks) Yes. In a full year, we are supervising
something in the region of 185,000 to 200,000 people.
Chairman
87. Some of whom have been released from prison
anyway?
(Mr Hicks) Yes. I am taking that proportion off in
saying that, for those on community penalties, they would probably
be in the region of doubling the prison population.
Mr Winnick: No doubt the critics who come along
next week will bear that in mind.
Mr Linton
88. You have given the figure for the flow over
a year. What is the figure for any one point?
(Mr Hicks) It is a different equation for Probation
and Community Service Orders than it is for prison sentences because
most community orders run for a full year or more, so that I think
the 185,000 is a fair estimate of the total number in a year and
of the picture at any one point in time, whereas for the prison
population, the population stands at about 65,000, but I think
their estimate is that about 85,000 people pass through prison
during the course of a year. I can clarify that afterwards and
submit a note.[3]
89. That would be helpful. I just want to move
on to the next line of questioning which is about young offenders.
You are no doubt familiar with the Government's recent consultation
papers on young offenders. I just wanted to ask you in general
terms whether you agree with their basic argument that there is
a lack of clear focus on tackling youth crime.
(Mr Hicks) Broadly speaking, yes, we, I think, are
concerned that there should be consistency of provision across
the country and our examination of it in connection with the Government
consultations suggests that there are some very good examples
of collaborative work between the services related to how the
court handles young offenders in a minority of areas, but that
for a significant number of areas the pattern is not nearly so
encouraging so that one of the important developments that we
feel should flow from the Government proposals should be a much
increased level of consistency. Broadly, I think we recognise
that the focus on a different kind of balance between what is
done in court and what is done by the services in the community
is a move in the direction which we feel will produce improved
results.
90. And this inter-agency collaboration would
then be the key to its success?
(Mr Hicks) Very much so because the proposals for
youth offender teams, which do exist in a minority of areas and
are very successful, involving people from social services, from
the education service, from health, from the police and from the
Probation Service, is a collaborative model which is essential,
in our view, in getting to grips with young people committing
offences for many of the reasons I have explored earlier, that
offending behaviour is only one part of their total life experience
and if you do stop them in their tracks, as these proposals are
intended to, then you have got, I think, to invest a range of
public services and locating it as a local matter for local services
primarily it seems to us is right.
91. So if this approach is really taking the
approach which is already adopted locally in some areas on a national
scale, what is at the moment holding back the other areas from
adopting it locally? Is it not seen universally as successful?
(Mr Hicks) It is not seen universally as a priority.
I think that is one of the concerns that I think the Government
is trying to address to ensure that all the services that have
a part to play in this recognise that dealing with young offenders
and having a concern for crime has to be part of the remit of
many of the public services, not just those that are explicitly
identified with the criminal justice system. Their consultation
document suggests that it is their intention to lay a specific
responsibility on the local authorities, through the chief executive,
on the health authorities and on the education authorities to
play their part in that process. It is a critical point because
for us it has to be a priority, it is our job, but for the education
service perhaps it has not been seen to be an identified priority.
92. You do not think that this will lead to
any buck-passing at all?
(Mr Hicks) I think that is one of our fears. I think
one of our fears is that the new arrangements, if they are enacted
in the form proposed, do require to have consistent management
arrangements behind them and to have resources earmarked because,
otherwise, there is always the risk that conflicting priorities
will actually detract from the good intentions that these policy
proposals constitute.
93. What about the proposals for Parenting Orders,
Child Safety Orders, Reparation Orders? Do you regard those as
the right direction to be moving in?
(Mr Hicks) Broadly, yes. We see the Supervision Order
as the central plank. The Action Plan Order has a significant
emphasis on getting a good start, getting in early and concentrating
resources at the early stage with projects and programmes that
are geared to the individual, their offending and their needs.
I think our view with most of these proposals is that it is important
to pilot them, to try them out in their combination because, number
one, I think we are concerned not to get over-complicated and,
number two, the complexity of demands that you might be talking
about placing on young people and their families, given the chaotic
families we are talking about, could in some instances be counterproductive
and I think we just want to be careful that the new concerted,
collaborative work is delivered in a way that makes sense simply
to the people who are receiving it.
94. One of the points you make in your evidence
is that more intensive use of existing measures, such as community
service, early on in the sentence would be effective. Do you feel
that Action Plan Orders and these kind of orders will achieve
this in making a very noticeable difference early on anyway?
(Mr Hicks) I think the evidence is that what happens
in the earlier part of any contact, whether it is under a caution
plus, under an Action Plan Order, or a Supervision Order, concentrates
the mind and sets the pattern for what is to happen beyond that.
Now, with young people, especially very young people, it is quite
important that the whole thing is tuned in a way that the individual
stops short, recognises that things are going to be different,
recognises that there are a number of people they are going to
be working with and has the opportunity to look at their life
in a different way, so yes, that is our view. That is not just
about imposing punishments and penalties and disciplines, which
is a theme from earlier this morning; it is about ensuring that
that individual is given better chances than most of them will
have had in their progress to date, given that most of them will
be out of school, and many of them, if they are older young people,
will not have very high expectations of their employability prospects
and so on and so forth.
Mr Malins
95. Mr Hicks, given that the propensity to crime
is often evident in quite young children at school, 10, 11, 12,
truanting or whatever, is there any merit at all in the Probation
Service having formal and close links with the schools in its
locality so that when a headteacher, rather than the amorphous
education authority, thinks that there are children with potential
problems ahead, the Probation Service could come in and talk and
help?
(Mr Hicks) The Probation Service is not the only service
that has the kind of skills you are talking about. Many social
services departments have highly-skilled people who would actually
have the same kind of contribution to make.
96. With respect, they are not linked quite
to the criminal justice system as you are.
(Mr Hicks) Those who are working in the young offender
teams will be, although they might not be perceived as such. For
the future, if we are talking about the work of youth offender
teams which will contain probation officers, social workers—
97. Sorry, but let us get down to the nuts and
bolts. Take a town like Guildford. Is there a Probation Service
there? Yes. When the school headteachers identify problem children,
is there any merit at all in having links with an organisation
like yourself whereby people like you go into the schools to talk
to the individual children and nip it in the bud early?
(Mr Hicks) The simple answer to your question is yes.
I was quibbling over precisely where the expertise might lie because
there will be various people which obviously you understand. No,
the need for the links between teachers and those of us working
on the criminal justice system is, to my mind, obvious and it
has always been the case.
98. Might you think of developing that or is
it a matter of resources?
(Mr Hicks) Well, it is a resource question at root
because our focus has to be on those who are significantly further
down the track in offending behaviour patterns. You are talking
about picking up people who are showing signs at an early stage
and part of the response might be to establish the right kind
of consultation environment between the two services and I think
the establishment of youth offender teams will actually help contribute
to that.
Mr Hogg
99. That is not to conviction, is it, the youth
offender teams?
(Mr Hicks) No, the proposal for youth offender teams
actually offers a range of services, some of which are post-conviction,
some of which are pre-conviction under the various proposals to
develop—
Mr Hogg: I think what Mr Malins talks about
is a very interesting concept, that you should be identifying
those who have the potentiality or the propensity to crime, but
have not yet necessarily committed a crime.
Chairman: Diversion.
3 See Appendix 3 Back
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