Written evidence from the Probation Board
for Northern Ireland
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Probation Board for Northern Ireland (PBNI)
believes that the prison estate should reflect the rapidly changing
circumstances in Northern Ireland, including:
(1) the need to protect society from the
most dangerous offenders;
(2) the benefits of the management of more
offenders in the community;
(3) the need for a half-way house provision
for offenders posing significant but manageable risk to the community;
(4) the requirement to address the needs
of women prisoners in a more appropriate way; and
(5) reducing the number of remand prisoners
through greater bail provision coupled with the management of
those individuals whilst on bail in the community.
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Probation Board for Northern Ireland
(PBNI) was established in 1982 and is a non-departmental public
body whose aim is to help reduce crime and the harm it does. The
Board is responsible for the assessment and management of the
risk posed by offenders with the objective of protecting the public
by reducing re-offending.
1.2 The Board employs in excess of 300 staff
who write 6,500 reports a year for sentencing courts and supervise
4,000 offenders in the community. The Board's budget is £15.18
million.
1.3 The Probation Board (Northern Ireland)
1982 Order allows PBNI to "provide such probation officers
and other staff, as the Secretary of State considers necessary,
to perform social welfare duties in prisons and young offender
centres." Article 4(1)(c).
1.4 PBNI has service level agreements with
the Northern Ireland Prison Service (NIPS) for PBNI staff to provide
services to prisoners in all prison establishments in Northern
Ireland. Staff from both organisations work jointly to provide
programmes for prisoners to address offending behaviour.
1.5 In addition PBNI is a signatory to the
NIPS Resettlement Strategy and a lead agency in the implementation
plan for 2005-07, which was developed out of a recommendation
in the Criminal Justice Review.
2. USE OF
PRISONS IN
NORTHERN IRELAND
2.1 The Northern Ireland prison population,
at 84 per 100,000 population, is the lowest in the UK. The comparative
figure for England and Wales is 148 per 100,000, and for Scotland
139 per 100,000. In the Republic of Ireland, the rate is 72 per
100,000 (International Centre for Prison Studies October 2006
). The prison population in Northern Ireland is distinctive in
that there is a high level of remand prisoners—38%- and
low numbers of female prisoners —currently around 40, of
which half or more may be on remand. Life licence numbers as a
proportion of sentences are high. Of the current prison population
of 1450, approximately 60% will be compulsorily supervised on
release by the Probation Board, being subject to Custody Probation
Orders or various licences. All of these offenders will have been
sentenced to twelve months or more, and will be regarded as serious
offenders. A smaller proportion of them will be assessed as dangerous
and at risk of causing serious harm to the public.
2.2 Of the remaining 40%, most will have
been sentenced to shorter sentences of under 12 months, and will
not be supervised on release. 2005 figures indicate that of those
serving sentences in this category, 75% had been convicted of
non-violent offences (by definition less serious offences) and
of those, over 60%, although sentenced to six months or less,
actually served three months or less in prison.
2.3 The Lord Chief Justice of England and
Wales, Lord Phillips, has said that it is his professional duty
to see that offenders are not sent to prison unless their offending
is so serious that no alternative sentence is appropriate (speech
to the Centre of Criminology, Oxford University, 10 May 2006).
It is PBNI's belief that there are alternative sentences for less
serious offenders that can be more productive in outcome, not
least in relation to reconviction rates. Reconviction rates are
already significantly lower in Northern Ireland than in other
UK jurisdictions. For a prison sentence, the reconviction rate
is 51% within two years, compared to an alternative sentence such
as community service, where the reconviction rate within two years
is 35%. Greater use of such alternative sentences, combined with
the lower reconviction rates associated with supervision in the
community, could mean both a reduction in required prison places
in the future and significantly reduced costs.
2.4 Within the Northern Ireland context,
crime rates have fallen—a net 14% fall since 2002/03. If
this continues, it would be expected to contribute to a reduced
requirement for prison places. . A main proposal of the sentencing
framework review is that practically all offenders will be compulsorily
supervised on release from prison. The reconviction rates of the
current sentencing framework equivalent (the custody probation
order) of 36% is a positive outcome of what has been a unique
and successful disposal in Northern Ireland, and has influenced
the development of proposals to extend compulsory post release
supervision proposed in the new sentencing framework. While under
a new sentencing framework there are likely to be some prisoners
in prison for longer, the reduction in required prison places
by virtue of increased community supervision, the possibility
of early release with electronic monitoring, and planned measures
to reduce numbers held on remand by increasing bail provision
in the community should be tangible. The growth in the prison
population in recent years in Northern Ireland is mainly attributable
to the growth in remands, rather than growth in numbers of sentenced
prisoners.
3. PRISON ESTATE
3.1 Prisons are used to protect the public
and to reduce re-offending. Clearly the removal of an offender
from the community achieves this in the short term. However, the
productive use of the time in prison is crucial for the ongoing
resettlement and post-custody supervision designed to achieve
longer term public protection through reducing the risk of re-offending
when the offender returns to the community.
3.2 The prison estate must be able to support
this resettlement process and the existing estate appears limited.
The very fact that increasingly two prisoners are having to share
a single cell is very damaging.
3.3 Northern Ireland needs a high security
prison and Maghaberry meets this. However, there are too many
prisoners held there who are not high security for lack of places
in the training prison.
3.4 It is inappropriate for women prisoners
to share the same site with young male prisoners. The Hydebank
estates does, however, seem appropriate and adequate for young
male prisoners.
3.5 A low security training prison is required
for the successful resettlement of offenders. Magilligan prison's
location is not ideal and many buildings on the site are not fit
for purpose. However, the workshops, the Programme Delivery Unit
and the progressive regime of Foyle View provide good models for
future development.
4. RESETTLEMENT
4.1 The Resettlement Strategy implementation
plan agreed by NIPS and PBNI seeks to address the needs of offenders
post release (eg accommodation/employment) as well as activities
to address prisoners' needs whilst in custody. It is in addressing
the needs of prisoners, whilst in custody, that PBNI would support
the continued work of NIPS towards each prisoner having a personal
officer, a personal resettlement plan and to establish a prison
structure, which reflects the working day outside. It is important
that the new structure and regime these changes will bring, supports
individual prisoner resettlement plans around health, education
and training but also for prisoners to engage with different types
of programmes, including sex offender programmes, programmes to
address anger management, cognitive behaviour and thinking skills,
victim awareness and management of violent behaviour.
4.2 As a consequence of the new proposals
for sentencing, the highest risk offenders are likely, in future,
to be subject to indeterminate sentences, with release being conditional
upon evidence of reduction in risk. Prisons will be required to
have available and accessible a range of programmes to address
offending behaviour, so that prisoners can, through participation
and positive and meaningful engagement in relevant programmes,
demonstrate suitability for release. It is therefore crucial that
operational aspects such as resettlement are not subject to curtailment
as a consequence of resource constraints, particularly in the
much improved security situation in Northern Ireland.
4.3 From a resettlement perspective, the
importance of social contacts and retention of family links is
also important to prisoners. NIPS and PBNI have formed a partnership
with a voluntary provider, whom PBNI funds to deliver this service.
5. MENTAL HEALTH
AND OFFENDING
5.1 We feel that the recent passing of
lead responsibility for health services in prisons in Northern
Ireland to the health service is a positive step. However, this
does not address the fact that there are significant numbers of
prisoners in Northern Ireland with mental health problems, some
of whom may be imprisoned because of lack of availability of acceptable,
alternative means of managing such individuals.
5.2 We are particularly concerned about
those at the top end of the seriousness scale, who have not been
diagnosed as having a defined "treatable" mental illness,
but whose behaviour represents a danger to themselves or to others.
For those who are being released under the current sentencing
framework and who are subject to orders or licences requiring
supervision, residence in approved accommodation is, more often
than not, an essential aspect of ensuring public protection in
the management of the most serious offenders post release.
5.3 We do not underestimate the skills required
in managing such offenders in the community, and recognise the
need both for highly skilled staff and appropriate accommodation.
PBNI and NIPS are currently considering the idea of a half way
house, which would represent release from prison to a more open,
but still secure, environment, possibly sited in the prison estate,
to accommodate the small number of the most serious offenders
on release as a means of ensuring both public protection and appropriate
resettlement of the prisoner.
5.4 It is planned that the management of
high risk sexual and violent offenders through an existing multi-agency
approach (MASRAM, similar to MAPPA in England and Wales) will
be placed on a statutory footing within the next one to two years,
and a public protection team structure will manage those offenders
posing the highest risk. PBNI, along with NIPS, the police and
social services are partners in this structure.
6. WOMEN OFFENDERS
6.1 The recent Home Office report by Baroness
Corston on women in the criminal justice system recognises the
need for a distinct approach to women offenders, rather than treating
them the same as men. We agree with her view that "we must
find better ways to keep out of prison those women who pose no
threat to society and to improve the prison experience for those
who do". While the numbers of women in custody in Northern
Ireland is very small in comparison to other jurisdictions, it
is clear that current accommodation of women in the prison estate
is far from ideal, and we would support the resourcing of NIPS
to make "fit for purpose" provision for women prisoners.
6.2 An initiative to improve the provision
of post release services for women offenders (including accommodation
and supervision in the community), through the development of
a centre for women offenders, is being taken forward by PBNI and
NIPS.
7. COSTS
7.1 For those offenders who could be effectively
dealt with by an alternative sentence, prison is a high cost option
in the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland. The cost of
approximately £86,000 per prisoner place is significantly
higher than in GB. Reduction in the remand population is essential
to ensure that fewer rather than more prison places are to be
required in the future, as well as an ethos that imprisonment
is reserved for those for whom there is no community alternative.
Ronnie Spence
Probation Board for Northern Irealand
27 April 2007
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