Napo in the News

As Chris Grayling gets ready to go before the Justice Affairs Committee later this morning, Napo manages to grab the headlines on the BBC with news of an 18 page letter sent to him by Ian Lawrence. 

It seems the MoJ only have one tired and hackneyed response nowadays to anything said about TR - "Reoffending rates have been too high for too long, and we must act now to turn the tide on this unacceptable problem".

This on the BBC website:-

Changes to the way offenders are supervised in England and Wales may have contributed to two murders, says the probation officers' union. Napo said that in one case a man who killed his partner then himself had been under the supervision of an "overworked" trainee officer.

The union urged the government to halt the changes, which involve contracting out the monitoring of some offenders. The Ministry of Justice said it would "robustly" contest the allegations.

By early next year, private firms and voluntary groups will be responsible for the supervision of 200,000 low- and medium-risk offenders. As part of the changes, offender management was split between different agencies six months ago. But Napo says that move as well as staff shortages are putting public safety at risk.

In an 18-page letter to Justice Secretary Chris Grayling, the union highlights a recent case of one offender "with a history of domestic violence" who went on to murder his partner before taking his own life. It claims the trainee allocated to undertake home visits to the man was "too overworked" to visit every four months as required.

Another probation officer was "unable to spend sufficient time working with an offender", the letter alleges, because of an "excessive caseload". "Left without suitable supervision, the offender committed a murder while under supervision of the CRC," it added.

Community Rehabilitation Companies - or CRCs - will supervise low- and medium-risk offenders under Mr Grayling's plans. The contracts are worth about £450m a year over seven years.

The union is concerned staff working for the CRCs do not have full access to offenders' records to assess the risk they pose. The union pointed to a case in which a probation officer was sexually assaulted on a visit, and said that "defects in the ICT system" prevented her seeing a "risk flag that the offender should not be seen alone by female officers".

In his letter, Napo general secretary Ian Lawrence said the union did not believe the MoJ had enough evidence "to show that it is safe to proceed" with the transfer of shares in the CRCs to the winning bidders. 

But a Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said the department had tested its changes to the system at "every stage". We will be robustly defending the allegations made by Napo and expect new providers to be in place and delivering services by early 2015," the spokeswoman added. "Reoffending rates have been too high for too long, and we must act now to turn the tide on this unacceptable problem. "It would be inappropriate to comment further while legal proceedings are ongoing."