5Tackling reoffending through a cross-departmental approach
217.There are significant challenges in reducing reoffending rates which are a driver of imprisonment. The proven reoffending rate for adult offenders released from custody is 48.3% for the period October to December 2016.481 As set out in chapter 3, the reoffending rate has remained broadly flat between 2005 and 2016, according to the latest statistics available. Half of those sentenced to prison in 2016 had more than 15 previous convictions; a tenth had more than 45 previous convictions.482 Revolving Doors Agency calculated that last year 60,000 cautions or convictions for minor offences were given to people with 11 or more previous offences, amounting to a total of over 1.8 million previous sentencing occasions.483 The Centre for Social Justice and Crest Advisory both regarded repeat convictions as representing a failed opportunity for effective intervention to tackle the root causes of offending.484 This can be said to be the case for both community and custodial sentences. For example, there is an argument that prison is ineffective at reducing reoffending and can increase the risk of further imprisonment. Women in Prison has found that “the more prison sentences a woman serves, the harder it is for her to desist.”485 Crest Advisory attributed the high levels of persistent offenders “being recycled through custody” to a lack of effective alternatives to incarceration for those committing low-harm but high-volume offences.486 Their director, Harvey Redgrave, recommended that to make a dent in the overall numbers going to prison, effort should be concentrated on repeat offenders committing theft and shoplifting, for example, which he told us judges often do not know what else to do with.487
The impact of reoffending on demand on prisons
218.On the potential to bring reoffending rates down as a means of reducing the prison population. Rory Stewart said:
There is absolutely no doubt that a significant reduction in reoffending rates—something in the region of 7%—would save many billions of pounds a year in economic costs. Therefore, any investment that we are putting into our prisons that has a proven impact on reoffending will be of huge benefit to the economy and society.488
Richard Garside was sceptical about this. He said:
Successive Governments have put quite a lot of weight on reducing reoffending as a means of reducing the prison population. My view is that, even if the programmes that Governments have sought to introduce work as well as they possibly can, the benefits will be relatively marginal. There seems to be a fairly stubborn reconviction rate for people who have been in prison, although it obviously depends partly on the sentence length and the nature of the presenting offence. There is a relatively stubborn level and it has not changed for many years. It is not obvious to me that it is likely to change in the future.489
The cross-departmental Reducing Reoffending Group
219.The creation of a cross-departmental group, known initially as the Reducing Reoffending Taskforce, now Group, comprising senior Ministers and backed by the Prime Minister, was announced by the Secretary of State for Justice in March 2018. In his announcement, he said “reoffending is not solely a justice problem for my department, but it is a wider issue about social justice and ensuring that offenders, many of whom have complex backgrounds, are not dismissed as part of society.” He later explained to us that “only by constructive cross-Government working” will Government “be able to help ex-offenders secure employment, appropriate accommodation, access to treatment for drug addictions and support for their mental health issues.”490 The Group, chaired by Rt Hon David Lidington MP, first met on 26 June 2018.491
220.We commenced our inquiry prior to the establishment of the Group and several of our witnesses had called for such an approach in their evidence, making suggestions for cross-Government activity that they wished to see. Nacro emphasised that many elements of resettlement and rehabilitation sit outside of the criminal justice system, including housing, employment and health, and proposed that a cross-departmental group should be responsible for the coordination and oversight of reducing reoffending and identifying where budgets can be pooled together to reduce costs to the public purse and improve outcomes.492 In Nacro’s view, reducing reoffending effectively requires a “relentless focus” on rehabilitation and seamless support post-release.493 Harvey Redgrave noted that prolific offenders with very chaotic lives and multiple, complex needs would benefit particularly from integrated and personalised services to “wrap around” them and address their distinct challenges, but such services are often delivered in silos i.e. by different statutory agencies, funded by different Government departments.494
221.Several Select Committee reports have illustrated the scale of cross-departmental activity required to reduce reoffending and address large, structural issues. In the previous Parliament, the Communities and Local Government Committee and the Work and Pensions Committee raised issues about such support and about the work that was being undertaken between Departments.495 In this Parliament, the Health and Social Care Committee examined prison healthcare and the is Welsh Affairs Committee conducting an inquiry on prisons.496 Our predecessor Justice Committees published several reports emphasising the need for well-funded, ambitious cross-departmental approaches for women, young adults and crime reduction more broadly.497 The funding of community-based provision for women is a good illustration of the challenges and potential benefits of adopting a more systematic cross-departmental approach, should Government provide the necessary resources.
Box 2: Case study: Community-based provision for women
Those witnesses we spoke to about the long-awaited Female Offender Strategy welcomed its “words” and “general thrust and ambition”.498 The Ministry dropped its plans for building new women’s prisons, which had concerned Clinks and the then acting Prison and Probation Ombudsman, for example.499 Nevertheless, we heard a strong case that the Government needed go further to overcome long-standing cross-departmental issues with funding for women’s centres and other community based initiatives if they were to improve outcomes for women.500
There had been speculation that the £50 million saved by not building new women’s prisons would be redirected to establishing a sustainable network of women’s day centres independent of probation, which women serving community sentences and after release from prison could access for as long as necessary. Existing centres, though proven to reduce reoffending and save costs to the public purse, are “struggling to survive”.501 We heard that the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms were “absolutely devastating” for funding of voluntary sector women’s services.502 The decision not to reinvest the money allocated to women’s prisons is despite analysis which we understand was conducted by HM Treasury demonstrating that moving from prison to community support would yield significant savings across a range of budgets. For example, investing £18m per year in women’s centres could save almost £1billion over 5 years.503 We heard that the average cost of one prison place, approximately £42,765, would support about 15 women on community orders or on diversion programmes.504
Although we heard about pockets of very good practice, notably in Greater Manchester—which has reduced women’s immediate imprisonment during the past four or five years by about 35%—Northamptonshire and Gloucester,505 these are funded from a range of different, largely local, sources and frequently experience a shortfall in funding as budgets shrink and priorities change.506 For example, women also need access to substance misuse support, mental health support and solutions to homelessness.507 Dr Paradine did not believe that local funding was feasible owing to the small volumes of women going through the system. She and Juliet Lyon proposed that Government should consider centrally how many women’s centres there are, when their funding ends, where it comes from, and how many people they can serve or could serve if they were funded properly, and the potential costs benefits. This is not solely a matter for the Ministry of Justice and is linked to cross-departmental priorities particularly for Department of Health and Social Care (DoHSC) in relation to suicide, self-harm, mental health and domestic abuse.508 This is recognised by the DoHSC which recently set out several joint approaches which they are testing and seeking to replicate, including liaison and diversion services, integrated healthcare in prisons and the development of gender and trauma-informed mental health services.509 Juliet Lyon pointed to the impact of multi-disciplinary work to reduce the number of children in the youth justice system which has fallen by 75% as a model to emulate.510
There was a consensus that a much stronger approach was required. Dr Paradine attributed the Ministry’s lack of ambition and drive on this agenda to “learned helplessness”.511 The funding allocated to the Female Offender Strategy was described to us as “peanuts” and we heard it was being distributed in “quite a random way”.512 Funding community-based programmes sustainably is likely to have a longer-term impact on reducing inter-generational consequences. Parental imprisonment and other adverse childhood experiences can affect the brain patterns of young children, the way they respond to different kinds of difficult experiences and have a detrimental impact on health and involvement in the criminal justice system later in life.513 The Centre for Social Justice calculated that, within five years, the adult female prison population could be reduced by between 25% and 50% if new approaches were adopted, equating to between 945 and 1890 prisoners.514
Community based treatment for mental health and substance misuse
222.Reoffending by those who have been supervised by probation services on community orders and breach of such orders also contributes to the prison population.515 Central to reducing this therefore is a properly organised and adequately resourced probation service, with the correct sorts of interventions available to both them and the courts to reduce offending.516 This is not solely a matter of better resourcing for probation itself. For example, the Prisoners Learning Alliance said that evidence indicates that support for prisoners post-release for education, training and employment is largely ineffective.517 Substance misuse and mental health treatment services are also under pressure. The Royal College of Psychiatrists said with regard to the latter:
Continuing reductions in acute psychiatric beds, increasing occupancy levels in secure psychiatric services, reductions in community mental health services, and patchy provision of services for neurodevelopmental disorders have led to an almost impossible environment in which to treat patients.518
Dr Anand identified a need to address what he described as “a continual battle between statutory services as to who should take responsibility for those who have a complex presentation and a forensic history”.519 NHS England has partially recognised this and has introduced the concept of a “no wrong door” policy for substance misuse and mental health services.520
223.The use of illegal drugs is estimated to cost society £10.7bn a year of which drug-related crime constitutes £6bn. Drug treatment is one means to reduce drug-related crime.521 Nevertheless, Collective Voice, which represents seven voluntary sector substance misuse treatment charities, documented what they describe as the dismantling over the last few years of a “world class” and “comprehensive” system of treatment and which was estimated to have reduced acquisitive crime by 30%.522 The NHS Substance Misuse Treatment Alliance observed that access to treatment been “greatly affected” by a reduction in community substance misuse treatment budgets.523 Real terms budgeted spending on treatment has fallen by 18% (£162m) since 2013–14 when local authorities became responsible for providing such services, despite only a 7% fall in the number of people accessing treatment.524 Under the 2017 Drug Strategy, the funding arrangements for drug treatment are due to change from April 2019, with local authorities being expected to provide services from the business rates following the end of grants from Public Health England.525
224.The British Medical Association and NHS Substance Misuse Treatment Providers Alliance emphasised the importance of continuity of care and managing the transfer between treatment services in prisons and the community, and vice versa. In 2017–18, less than one third (32.1%) of adult prisoners who needed ongoing treatment successfully engaged with community-based treatment within 21 days of release.526 There is also evidence that the effectiveness of drug treatment provided in prisons may be reversed on release. An evaluation of 10 drug recovery wing pilots designed to support drug users in prison to become abstinent found that prisoners experienced a ‘cliff-face’ on release from prison, receiving little or no professional support. They were commonly released to a hostel or B&B which the researchers described as “criminogenic”, because of the proximity to people still offending which was likely to impair the chances of those treated staying out of prison and/or drug free.527
225.Our critical examination of the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms illustrated that the introduction of post-release supervision for prisoners who have served short prison sentences has failed to impact on reoffending rates and has diminished the level of service provided to those who were already eligible.528 These concerns were repeated by several witnesses during this inquiry.529 The use of substance misuse and mental health treatment requirements for offenders, which can be attached to community orders, has fallen by 50%.530 A joint draft Community Sentence Treatment Requirement Protocol has been developed with NHS England and Public Health England outlining expectations of relevant agencies to improve access to mental health and substance misuse treatment for offenders.531 This is being piloted in five areas, through multi-disciplinary partnerships which provide appropriate clinical interventions and support. The Minister does not refer to additional funding having been made available to support this. The Secretary of State inferred during this February speech that the results of the pilots were imminent.
226.Our witnesses also raised practical barriers to prisoners accessing the services they require once they are released. This included having access to ID that can be used across the piece, which Helen Berresford said is a “massive barrier” to accessing basic services to employment, benefits and healthcare, including getting the right prescriptions, for example.532 Ms Berresford also raised the practice of Friday releases from prison, setting out that prisoners are often left with no support over the weekend which poses particular challenges in finding accommodation and risks reoffending within a short period of release.533 We consider later in our report the impact of post-release experiences on the effectiveness of drug treatment and sexual offender treatment provided in custody.
227.We asked Rory Stewart about whether we could expect to see a cross-departmental strategy arising from the Reducing Reoffending Group. He explained that David Lidington had committed to developing “deliverable and measurable proposals that will result in public announcements.”534 He did not wish to speak for Mr Lidington, but his expectation was that “at least in the short term it is largely about knocking heads together and overcoming gaps between the partners rather than producing some grand strategy.”535
228.The ability of former prisoners and those on community sentences to be able to access appropriate support in the community is vital to supporting their rehabilitation and reducing reoffending in the future, potentially reducing the repeated use of imprisonment. We welcome the Government’s recognition of the need for the new iteration of the Transforming Rehabilitation programme to address the shortcomings of the previous one in terms of funding for probation services. The challenges facing the Government in ensuring a sustainable prison population are not related solely to the balance between funding for prisons and probation. It is as important to ensure that other agencies are playing their part in providing services which are a necessary pre-cursor to reducing the use of short prison sentences. While the Justice Secretary has signalled his intention to move resources within the justice system, such an approach will not be possible unless other Ministers take responsibility for funding crime reduction measures. Action must be taken in the 2019 Spending Review to address cuts in funding for substance misuse and mental health treatment which places unnecessary demands on prisons and can reverse some of the positive work that prisons can do. The adequacy of funding for such provision is a matter for central Government despite the responsibility for provision being devolved to local Government.
229.The commitment in the Female Offender Strategy to reduce the use of short sentences for women by taking a more preventive, community-based approach represents an opportunity to do something radical in seeking to shrink the prison population. While imprisonment is necessary for some women, this would provide a model for adopting similar initiatives in future for others who do not represent a high risk of harm to the public. Nevertheless, the existing funding is unlikely to have sufficient impact. The Government should be more bold in investing in community alternatives for women cross-departmentally, not only via the justice system. Reallocating the £50m from building women’s community prisons had the potential to generate a step-change in the sustainability of community-based provision that is proven to reduce crime. While it is undoubtedly necessary for money to be found to stabilise the safety of prisons, this is a clear example of the exorbitant costs of imprisonment sucking up resources that would have a more beneficial impact on our society in the long-term if used in other ways. That the issue of mainstream cross-Government funding for women’s centres remains unresolved by consecutive Governments over the last 10 years is a grossly wasted opportunity to reduce the costly intergenerational impact of crime. This must be addressed in the 2019 Spending Review.
Accommodation
230.Housing is crucial for resettlement and a major issue to resolve.536 Those who are homeless or in temporary accommodation are significantly more likely to commit crime within a year of release from prison than those with somewhere stable to live. People often lose their accommodation when they go into prison, if they were stably housed beforehand.537
231.As an indication of the scale of the problem, the Ministry of Justice has calculated that around one in six former prisoners were classified as unsettled, likely to mean sleeping rough or another form of homelessness over the three years to March 2018. HM Inspectorate of Probation found in a recent review of probation cases that interventions to address accommodation were not available in around a quarter of them.538 Being homeless and living on the street can lead to drug and alcohol problems which, in turn, can contribute to large volumes of acquisitive crime.539 Lacking certainty about living arrangements on release can elevate the risk of self-harm and suicide when people are very close to release.540 Juliet Lyon said people released from prison can” experience, ironically, more support and more warmth in a prison than they would outside. That is a real indictment.”541
232.The Ministry recognises the barriers people in the criminal justice system face when looking to secure accommodation and refer in the Single Departmental Plan to an accommodation strategy in the Single Departmental Plan. While no specific such strategy has been published, the Rough Sleepers Strategy, published in August 2018, refers extensively to prisoners.542 A 2-year £6 million pilot scheme was launched by the Prison Minister under which people on very short sentences receive support to ensure that they are signed up to benefits, given employment support and have bank accounts before they leave prison. Pilots have commenced in HMPs Leeds, Pentonville and Bristol with the aim of finding those eligible suitable housing and helping them sustain their new accommodation.543 The Ministry also intends to introduce shared performance measures for accommodation outcomes (for prison governors and probation providers) and will work with the Department for Communities and Local Government to ensure that the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 supports offenders. Under this legislation, youth offending teams, prisons and probation providers will be subject to a new duty to refer to the local housing authority someone who they support who might be at risk of becoming homeless.544 The Ministry is also building 200 additional places in approved premises.545
233.Helen Berresford of Nacro highlighted that, while the pilots are a positive move, they are “one part of the jigsaw” and does not constitute the anticipated “national offender housing strategy”.546 She, and others including Agenda, an alliance for women and girls at risk, identified other issues that should be addressed and joined up, including local authority decision-making, access to the private rental sector, access to deposits, a lack of gender-specific provision, and the broader funding of the supported housing sector.547
234.The Ministry has identified and accepted that reducing homelessness and providing sufficient suitable accommodation are crucial to halt the unnecessary revolving door of prisons. This is welcome but a credible means of addressing this major structural problem is missing from the current approach. For genuine cross-departmental progress to be made in ensuring access to housing for those leaving prison, a basic requirement to generating stable and crime-free lives, Government must urgently publish an accommodation strategy and action plan.
235.We welcome the pilots of drug and alcohol treatment requirements attached to community orders and for supporting those likely to be facing homelessness on release. Nevertheless, these fundamental issues require a large-scale, nationwide, adequately funded response. Further cuts to local authorities are likely to further undermine this. Should the accommodation and treatment pilots be successful, the Ministry should consider as part of their case to the Treasury the implications of these pilots for resources to replicate them, which are likely to be significant. The pressures on the prison population are too great not to act soon. A key issue for the Government which must be addressed in the 2019 Spending Review and the Justice 2030 strategy must be funding drug and alcohol support services, mental health services, housing and community-based therapeutic centres to the extent which will have a medium- and longer-term impact on the size of the prison population.
Exploring options for, and building confidence in, non-custodial sentences
Reducing the use of short prison sentences
236.A key contributing factor to the size and composition of the prison population is the relative use of community sentences and custodial sentences. The Prisons Minister Rory Stewart told us that he wished to see a reduction in the use of short prison sentences i.e. of 12 months or less in recognition of research evidence that they make people more likely to commit crime.548 He said he saw “a very strong argument both on public protection and on the economic benefits … “.549 Community sentences are both more effective and cheaper. Many of our witnesses were supportive of such an approach, pointing to there being insufficient time to rehabilitate people on short-sentences.550 We heard that the average sentence length at one women’s prison was seven weeks and at one men’s prison was ten days.551 Nacro explained that family relationships, employment and accommodation may be put in jeopardy or lost, and the sentence is too short for the delivery of meaningful work to address the triggers to reoffending.552 The Secretary of State signalled that he wishes to go further and to consider abolishing sentences of less than six months, except in exceptional circumstances, through legislative means, if necessary.
237.The detrimental effect of short prison sentences is reflected in the particularly striking high rates of reoffending. When comparing similar offenders matched across multiple characteristics, immediate custodial sentences of under 12 months duration without supervision on release are associated with higher proven reoffending than court orders: 3 percentage points higher than for community orders and 7 percentage points higher than for suspended sentence orders. Several witnesses called for greater consideration to be given to the risk potential offenders may present to public safety when contemplating the use of imprisonment.553 For example, we heard that there are still examples of imprisonment for non-payment of council tax, fines, and children not attending school.554
238.Several of our witnesses were supportive of the introduction of a presumption against short custodial sentences akin to the approach in Scotland.555 In 2011, the Scottish Government legislated for there to be a presumption against jail terms of three months or less, and it now has plans to extend this period to 12 months. Harvey Redgrave supported a similar move but cautioned “the quid pro quo is that you have to invest properly in community sentences, and that will require them to be more intensive.”556 We met informally with Karyn McCluskey of Community Justice Scotland who agreed that investment in community provision would be necessary. She also indicated that there had been some up-tariffing effect of the presumption against three-month sentences. The Justice Secretary said in his recent speech he saw a strong case for switching resource away from ineffective prison sentences and into probation.557
239.Richard Garside of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies charity observed that shifting short sentenced prisoners to community sentences would only “slightly mitigate” the prison population problem, noting that this group represent a relatively small proportion of the prison population at any one time.558 Prisoners on sentences of less than 12 months made up 6.5% of the population as at 31 March 2018 but accounted for 35% of prison receptions in the three months to 31 March 2018.559 Justice Episteme has estimated that selectively diverting people identified as a low-risk of harm to the public from short custodial sentences to suspended custodial sentences could reduce the prison population by up to 3,000 places and receptions to prison following sentence by around 20,000.560
Confidence in community sentences
240.The shrinking use of community sentences noted in the chapter 3 may be driven, in part, by a lack of confidence in them on the part of sentencers.561 The credibility of community sentences relate to both perceptions of the toughness of community sentences relative to custody and the reality of the extent of community-based provision that could constitute effective alternatives to prison.562 Another issue is that, according to Inquest, Juliet Lyon and Dr Kate Paradine, some sentencers view prison as a “place of safety” for vulnerable people i.e. they opt for a custodial sentence because they believe vulnerable people will not be able to access the support they require in the community.563 Women in Prison called for “a clear message” that prison should not be used in this way.564
241.The Justice Secretary said in his recent speech that he wishes to create a sentencing regime that can impose greater restrictions on people’s movements and lifestyle and stricter requirements in terms of accessing treatment and support, which must be enforced. He indicated that there was a false choice implied in the narrow and often polarising discussion about ‘soft’ justice versus ‘hard’ justice, instead he saw the choice as between effective justice or ineffective justice. Prison was too often ineffective, especially for those prisoners on short sentences. We heard that there is good evidence that community sentences can be a robust alternative to custody. We were given the examples of the Intensive Community Order in Greater Manchester and deferred prosecution pilots.565 On the other hand, the choices may not be a clear as the Justice Secretary proposed. Richard Garside suggested that credibility would improve if courts imposed sentences that had a realistic prospect of being delivered and completed successfully.566 One aspect of this, he suggested, was to be mindful that there are not “so many hurdles and obstacles” placed on those serving community sentences that they are “destined to fail”.567 He further explained:
The tougher you make the community sentences, the more breaches you are going to have, all other things being equal. The tougher they are, the more likely it is that people are going to breach them. Then people will end up going back to prison.568
242.We had an interesting discussion with Rachel Tuffin, Richard Garside and Harvey Redgrave which reflects the range of public sentiment about the balances to be struck between various purposes of sentencing when considering the relative use of custodial and community sentences. Richard Garside felt that it is difficult to persuade the public of the effectiveness of community sentences, particularly when emphasis is placed on punishment. He proposed that to change sentencing trends, the Government should focus on effectiveness and impact rather than toughness.569 In his opinion, changing sentencing trends would require getting away from “tough-talking language and [towards asking] who should be on community sentences, what kind of risk they might pose and what kind of arrangements can be put in place in the community to ensure that those sentences are discharged effectively.”570
Harvey Redgrave felt that it was important for sentences to be seen as both tough and effective:
There is a social value to punishment and a social value to rehabilitation, and you need both combined. There is a political argument, which I would say is about democratic legitimacy and consent. People have to have confidence that wrongdoing has consequences. There is also an evidential argument, which is that swiftness and certainty act as a greater deterrent. Community sentences are not swift and they are not certain. Often, they do not even begin for months after the sentence is handed down.571
243.Rachel Tuffin of the College of Policy What Works Centre for Crime Reduction cited evidence that the public could be persuaded about the effectiveness of community sentences by presenting a “strong story” about them:
When individual members of the public are asked about specific case study examples, they are often more lenient in their decision making than a jury might necessarily be, or a judge. [ … ] I am not sure that message gets out strongly at all.572
244.Using less prison may be “a very hard sell”, as the former Chair of the Sentencing Council put it to us.573 He observed “[t]he very difficult part of that is the attitude of large sections of the media, which are very critical of sentencing and see most of it as over-lenient.”574 For example, an article in the Daily Mail following our discussion with the Prisons Minister about his proposals for reducing the use of short-prison sentences, carried the headline ‘A green light for criminals’: Anger as justice minister calls for most sentences of less than a year to be axed to cut jail population, despite the content of the article being more balanced.575 Rory Stewart agreed that the Ministry had a role in leading, shaping and making powerful arguments for why an ever-growing prison population is not in the interests of the public, including victims and wider society. Nevertheless, he believed that the public were likely to become more punitive over the next 15 years, making that argument more difficult.576 We discuss this further elsewhere in the report.
245.Rory Stewart saw the first step in achieving the Ministry’s aim to reduce short prison sentences as to “win over judges and magistrates” to understand the rationale, in order to minimise the risk that sentencers oppose changes. The former Chair of the Sentencing Council, Lord Justice Treacy, told us that he would have confidence in “something that shows me that the supervision and management of the community sentence is rigorous and that excuses will not be tolerated; and that there will be frequent contact between the offender and the supervising officer, not merely a phone call every few weeks.”577
246.Our evidence indicated the significant concerns to be overcome regarding the performance of probation. Lord Justice Treacy identified “real concern” in the judiciary about the way the current probation arrangements are working. He said there was a “strong feeling” that the enforcement and the rigour of supervisory arrangements have been “allowed to slip.”578 This meant that in his view “[t]here is a lot of work to be done on regaining confidence, not only on the part of the public but on the part of the judiciary, in the working of community orders, and the enforcement of them. The Sentencing Council itself took steps to encourage best practice in this area with the publication of its Imposition of Community and Custodial Sentences Definitive Guideline and on its forthcoming Breach Offences Guideline.579
247.Several other witnesses similarly believed that the decline in the use of community sentences may reflect well-founded concerns about the probation system’s performance..580 We document these in detail in our report Transforming Rehabilitation and the Ministry of Justice is in the process of reviewing the contracts used to deliver probation.
248.Another factor for the Government to consider is funding for the magistracy, following cutbacks to magistrates’ training and policy changes introduced under the programme on the depth of advice given to magistrates by probation services.581 Together these mean that sentencers may not have sufficient information about: the background circumstances of the individuals they sentence; what community sentences are and their potential benefits; and, options available locally to the courts, through probation services or other providers, including the voluntary sector.582 Harvey Redgrave saw presentations to magistrates from probation services—outlining what a community sentence involves, how it works, the requirements that can be attached, and what is available in the local area—as a ‘low-cost option’ that could rectify this.583 Richard Garside proposed that, nationally, consideration should be given to the organisation of the probation service, the kinds of programmes that should be available, and how to ensure that sentencers get the right kind of reports with the right form of detail to enable them make informed decisions.584
249.We also discussed this with representatives of the Magistrates’ Association as part of our ongoing work on the role of the magistracy. We heard that magistrates would like to ensure that, under the revised contracts for Transforming Rehabilitation, probation services report back on how an individual is performing on their community order.585 In our report on Transforming Rehabilitation we recommended that arrangements were put in place to ensure that sentencers are well informed about services offered by CRCs. We understand that action has been taken to facilitate this. For example, sentencers have recently been permitted to communicate directly with Community Rehabilitation Companies so that they can better understand the services they provide, although it is not clear whether there would be feedback at an individual level.586
Sentencer feedback and judicial monitoring
250.Another option for the Ministry to consider in strengthening confidence is for sentencers to receive feedback directly on individuals serving community sentences.587 John Bache, Chair of the Magistrates’ Association, explained the potential impact of such an approach on magistrates’ confidence:
If magistrates could monitor people post sentence, that would be incredibly beneficial because it would give us more confidence in community sentences; it would give the person being sentenced the idea that the magistrates were still keeping an eye on them; and it would be to everybody’s benefit. It is on the statute book, but it has not been enacted.588
Rory Stewart expressed to us an interest in exploring the role judges could play in monitoring people on community sentences.589 He was clear that the Ministry has not committed to it and had been cautious about it in the past, but in his view it has been an effective model in the United States and has previously been tested in England and Wales.590
251.We support the Government’s approach to the abolition of short, ineffective prison sentences. The scale of the prison population crisis is such that it requires af resh and decisive response. We note with interest the move in Scotland towards a statutory presumption against custodial sentences of under 12 months. We repeat the recommendation we made in our report on Transforming Rehabilitation that the Government should introduce a presumption against short custodial sentences and believe, in addition to their welcome move towards avoiding the use of sentences under 6 months, they should model the effects of abolishing sentences of fewer than 12 months. We welcome clarification by the Secretary of State as to what he means by a robust community sentence. We heard that it is possible to create sentences which provide a balance between robustness and effectiveness, but note that tough sentences are not the same as effective ones in terms of reducing reoffending. We wish to hear in response to this report how specifically he intends to improve sentencer confidence in community penalties, which is a significant issue and challenging to remedy. This should include an assessment of the adequacy of existing advice provided to courts by the National Probation Service about a defendant’s history to enable sentencers to base their decisions on a fuller understanding of offending behaviour and personal circumstances.
252.We praise the efforts of the Judiciary and the Ministry to ensure that sentencers have the information required about the interventions provided by CRCs. The Judiciary is entitled to expect that, in addition to being punished, those who are subject to probation supervision have good quality support, good quality interventions and an opportunity to move on with their lives. This should be more explicitly addressed in sentencing guidelines. We expect the Ministry to explain in its response to our report how it intends to deliver this under its revised Transforming Rehabilitation programme. The Government should as a medium-term priority consider the value of judicial monitoring in its effort to improve sentencer confidence, and as part of a wider strategy for reducing reoffending which integrates the role of the courts.
Electronic monitoring and Home Detention Curfew
253.The Prisons Minister and Justice Secretary emphasised the potential of electronic monitoring to make community sentences and post-release arrangements more stringent.591 For example, they plan to use sophisticated GPS technology—to identify where an individual is at any given time and strengthen arrangements around curfews and restrictions on location—as part of a community sentence or after people are released from prison under Home Detention Curfew or other forms of supervision by probation services.592 Serco plc suggested it could also be used as an alternative to recall.593 Alcohol monitoring technology is also being tested.
254.GPS technology will be widely available from April 2019 following major problems with the Ministry’s commissioning of such services, which the NAO concluded had failed to achieve value for money.594 The Ministry’s handling of the £130 million development of the programme resulted in five years of delays and losses of £60 million which cannot be recovered. The running of the service itself is expected to cost £470 million up to 2025.595 Nevertheless, relative to the costs of imprisonment electronic monitoring appears to be cheaper, costing £12 a day rather than £55.596
255.Empirical research relating to electronic monitoring is limited and the evidence of its impact on reducing crime is mixed. The College of Policing summarised the evidence as follows:
Electronic Monitoring (EM) has not been found to have a statistically significant effect on reducing crime, however when EM was used as an alternative to prison, instead of used after prison, there was a statistically significant lower rate of reoffending. In addition, studies focused on sex offenders also showed that EM significantly decreased reoffending for this group. EM can also be useful if trying to address issues such as overcrowding in prisons and reducing costs.597
In relation to prison population pressures, Justice Episteme calculated that reducing the time spent in custody of lower risk offenders, supported by electronically monitored community supervision, could reduce demand for prison places by up to 2,500 places.598 The Ministry has been piloting the use of GPS monitoring and in February 2019 announced that new GPS tags would be rolled out across the country.599
256.One example of the potentially greater application of electronic monitoring is Home Detention Curfew (HDC). The percentage of prisoners eligible for HDC who were granted such a release fell between 2002 and 2015.600 Recent simplification of the HDC application process has already had an impact on increasing releases under HDC which has in turn reduced the prison population—3,723 offenders were released on HDC during the latest quarter, an increase of 61% compared with the same quarter in 2017601—but the Minister acknowledged that this will tail off as only certain offenders can be monitored using HDCs under current legislation.602
257.The recent reduction in the prison population through administrative steps taken to increase the use of Home Detention Curfew is encouraging and has created necessary headroom. We agree that there is potential for further reductions using GPS electronic monitoring and welcome the evaluation published by the Government in February 2019. Nevertheless, these measures and reducing short prison sentences cannot alone solve the prisons crisis.
481 Ministry of Justice, Proven Reoffending Statistics Quarterly Bulletin, October 2016 to December 2016, October 2018
483 Revolving Doors Agency, 1,800,000 opportunities, October 2018
490 Letter from the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, to Chair, Justice Committee, Evidence session follow-up, March 2018
491 Letter from David Lidington, Minster for the Cabinet Office, to Chair, Justice Committee, August 2018.
495 Work and Pensions Committee, Fifth Report of Session 2016–17, Support for ex-offenders, HC 58, December 2016; Communities and Local Government Committee, Third Report of Session 2016–17, Homelessness, HC 40, July 2016
496 Health and Social Care Committee, Twelfth Report of Session 2017–19, Prison Health, HC963, November 2018; The inquiry into prison provision in Wales by the Welsh Affairs Committee is ongoing.
497 See for example Justice Committee, Ninth Report of Session 2017–19, Transforming Rehabilitation, June 2018, para 140.)
498 Qq343–344 [Dr Kate Paradine; Jessica Southgate; Juliet Lyon]; Q391[Anne Fox]; See also The Howard League for Penal Reform (ppp0025)
501 Women in Prison (ppp0022); Q366 [Dr Kate Paradine]. See also The Guardian, UK plan for female prisoners underfunded by £15 million, 27 June 2018.
507 Qq343–344; Q349;Women in Prison (ppp0022); Agenda (ppp0006); Agenda (ppp0064); Q364 A cost-benefit analysis of the programme in Greater Manchester found that £4.68 was saved from public spending for every pound spent.
509 The Women’s Mental Health Taskforce was formed to set out priorities for improving women’s mental health and their experiences of services. Department of Health and Social Care and Agenda, Women’s Mental Health Taskforce final report, 19 December 2018
524 BBC News, Drug and alcohol services cut by £162m as deaths increase, 11 May 2018
525 BBC News, Drug and alcohol services cut by £162m as deaths increase, 11 May 2018; British Medical Journal, Drug strategy will fail without new money, say critics, 17 July 2017
526 Public Health England, Substance misuse treatment in secure settings: statistics summary 2017 to 2018, 17 January 2019
527 University of York, The Evaluation of the Drug Recovery Wing Pilots, May 2017
528 Justice Committee, Ninth Report of Session 2017–19, Transforming Rehabilitation, June 2018, para 140. See also Q367 [Jessica Southgate; Dr Kate Paradine]
530 Centre for Justice Innovation, Renewing trust: How we can improve the relationship between probation and the courts, December 2018, page iii
531 Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice to the Chair, Justice Committee, 21 August 2018
538 HM Inspectorate of Probation, Probation Hostels’ (Approved Premises) Contribution to Public Protection, Rehabilitation and Resettlement, July 2017
542 Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, Rough Sleeper Strategy, August 2018
543 Ministry of Justice, Prisons to deliver trailblazing £6m rough sleeping initiative, 8 November 2018; Ministry of Justice, Rough Sleeping Strategy and prison leavers, 13 August 2018.
545 HC Hansard, Joint HMI Prison and Probation Report, volume 653, col.369–373, 24 January 2019
548 Q103; Ministry of Justice (ppp0008) stated that when comparing similar people who have committed crime matched across multiple characteristics, immediate custodial sentences of under 12 months duration without supervision on release are associated with higher proven reoffending than court orders (3 percentage points higher than community orders and 7 percentage points higher than suspended sentence orders).
557 David Gauke, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, Beyond prison, redefining punishment, 18 February 2019
559 Ministry of Justice, Offender Management Statistics April to June 2018, table 1.1, October 2018
560 Centre for Crime and Justice Studies and Justice Episteme (ppp0016). People who represent a low risk of harm are defined as those serving less than 12 months. Suspended custodial sentences are those carried out in the community, with conditions attached. If those conditions are broken the offender may have to go to prison.
575 Daily Mail, A green light for criminals, 27 June 2018
576 Q22; Letter from Rory Stewart, Minister of State for Justice, to Chair, Justice Committee, 18 January 2019.
580 Dr Michael Teague (ppp0012); Transform Justice (ppp0027); False Allegations Support Organisation (UK) (ppp0009); Q266 [Mr Fairhurst]; Q169 [Richard Garside]
581 The use by probation of the most comprehensive written reports to court (Standard Delivery Reports) has fallen by 89% in six years and now stands at only 3% of all reports, less than a third of the national target.
585 Justice Committee, Oral evidence: The role of the magistracy – follow up, HC1654, 27 November 2018, Q47
586 Justice Committee, Oral evidence: The role of the magistracy – follow up, HC1654, 27 November 2018, Q45
588 Justice Committee, Oral evidence: The role of the magistracy – follow up, HC1654, 27 November 2018, Q44. Section 178 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 provides a power for court review of community orders.
594 Comptroller and Auditor General, The new generation electronic monitoring programme, HC242, July 2017
598 Centre for Crime and Justice Studies and Justice Episteme (ppp0016). Applied to those sentenced to between 1 to 10 years using risk-based selection criteria.
599 Ministry of Justice, Justice Secretary unveils GPS tag rollout to better protect victims, 16 February 2019
601 Ministry of Justice, Offender Management Statistics Bulletin, England and Wales, July 2018, page 7
Published: 3 April 2019