Lib Dem Apology Required

I see that the Liberal Democrats are consulting on probation and prison reforms. I don't know about anyone else, but given their wholehearted support for destroying the probation service with TR whilst part of the coalition government, I'd expect an acknowledgement and apology first. 

Background 

This consultation paper is presented as the first stage in the development of new Liberal Democrat policy in relation to the rehabilitation of offenders. It does not represent agreed party policy. It is designed to stimulate debate and discussion within the party and outside. Based on the response generated and the deliberations of the spokespeople, a full policy paper will be drawn up and presented to Conference for debate. 

The paper has been drawn up by Jonathan Marks, Liberal Democrat Lords Spokesperson for Justice, and Mike German, Spokesperson for Rehabilitation and Probation. They are both prepared to speak on the paper to outside bodies and to discussion meetings organised within the party. 

Comments on the paper, and requests for speakers, should be addressed to: Lord German, Liberal Democrats, 8-10 Great George St, London, SW1P 3AE Email: mike.german@libdems.org.uk 

Comments should reach us as soon as possible and no later than Friday 3rd May 2019. Further copies of this paper can be found online at www.libdems.org.uk/policy_papers

1. Introduction 

1.1 The primary purpose of the penal system should be to prevent crime by successfully rehabilitating offenders, so they do not go on to commit further crimes in the future. Prisons are necessary to protect the public from serious and dangerous offenders, but the main focus of the criminal justice system must be on stopping re-offending. 

1.2 That objective requires offenders to be given appropriate sentences; prisons to provide for rehabilitation, recovery, learning and work, with suitable treatment, education and work available to all prisoners; and services in both prison and the community to help turn people away from crime, including housing, education and training, healthcare and treatment for addiction. 

1.3 Britain’s current penal system falls far short of that standard. Prisons are overcrowded and understaffed; prisoners spend too much time locked in their cells, unable to engage in productive activity or receive rehabilitative services; and rates of violence, drug use, self-harm and suicide are far too high and rising. 

1.4 ‘Through the Gate’ resettlement services and supervision of offenders are failing badly. In particular, the Community Rehabilitation Companies responsible for low- and medium-risk offenders have failed to achieve reductions in re-offending rates, largely because the Government has underfunded and mismanaged the ‘payment-byresults’ contracts. The Ministry of Justice has been forced to end these contracts early. 

1.5 The provision of services in the community is also inadequate. Many former offenders are not able to find work, and the financial support they receive is often not enough to cover even basic necessities. Far too many prisoners become homeless upon release from prison. Physical and mental health care and addiction treatment are often inconsistent and insufficient. 

1.6 As a result, re-offending rates remain far too high. 30% of offenders are convicted of committing at least one new offence within a year of leaving custody or receiving a non-custodial sentence, a Spring Conference 2019 reprimand or a warning. For under-18s, the rate is even higher, at 40%. These rates have remained essentially unchanged for more than a decade. 

1.7 The Liberal Democrats believe that we must significantly reduce the prison population, which is the largest in Western Europe, including by making greater use of tough, effective community sentences – especially in place of short prison sentences, which have proved particularly ineffective – and ending the imprisonment of people for drug possession for personal use. 

1.8 We must also radically transform prisons themselves: building rehabilitation and recovery into their design, dramatically improving conditions and ensuring more time is spent in purposeful activity. That includes meaningful work, education and training, and access to good leisure and sports facilities. Prisoners should have access to IT and digital skills training. 

1.9 However, tackling re-offending requires a more radical approach to penal reform. At the heart of the problem is a lack of coordination and continuity of services. We therefore propose a radically new, holistic approach to rehabilitation, spanning sentencing, prisons and community supervision and including a full range of rehabilitative services. 

1.10 We would give responsibility to local co-ordinating bodies to ensure the proper supervision of each offender and ex-offender in their area. These bodies would commission the services they need for rehabilitation, both in prison and in the community. 

1.11 The Government must also think differently about the costs and benefits of rehabilitation. Improving staffing and conditions in prisons, the quality of supervision in the community and the provision of services will all require significant investment. However, against this must be set against the huge societal and financial benefits of reducing reoffending – including less crime and therefore fewer victims of crime, fewer people in prison, and more people in work. The current budgetary process does not account for these savings to the public purse. 

1.12 In this paper, we set out our proposal for a new system of coordinating the work of all bodies in the public, private and voluntary sectors which have either a responsibility for rehabilitating offenders or simply a willingness to help former offenders turn their lives around. We also detail the myriad of problems that blight our prison and probation services and set out a number of further proposals to address them. We will consult on these proposals with both party members and external stakeholders before presenting a final policy paper to Conference.

2. A new holistic approach 

2.1 The core of our proposal is a new model centred on individual offenders and their rehabilitative needs. 

2.2 Local public bodies would be given responsibility for coordinating all services for an offender, from the point of sentencing all the way through prison or any community sentence and post-sentence supervision. 

2.3 These new co-ordinating bodies would be funded directly by the Ministry of Justice and charged with commissioning services from a range of providers depending on the needs of the offender. 

2.4 But central direction from the Ministry of Justice cannot possibly deal with the many different essential services needed for individual offenders. Services have to be provided locally and they should therefore be co-ordinated by a local body which can build strong relationships with providers in their area. 

2.5 In order to prevent a postcode lottery from developing, the Ministry of Justice would set a national policy framework and local bodies would be accountable to it. 

2.6 Each co-ordinating body would have a mandate to ensure that courts, prison governors, probation services, police forces, local authorities, housing associations, the Department for Work & Pensions, the National Health Service, providers of treatment for addiction and third-sector providers all work closely together to co-ordinate and provide all the services an individual offender might need to rebuild a life free from crime. 

2.7 This would enable the third sector to strengthen its role in supporting the work of rehabilitation – one of the aims of Transforming Rehabilitation, the Coalition Government’s 2013 white paper. There are many good examples of successful third-sector organisations who are making a real difference in offenders’ lives. Our proposal would provide sufficient funding for these organisations to scale up their services.

2.8 We would also want to see private sector employers willing to provide training and employment to former offenders in close contact with the co-ordinating bodies. There are increasing numbers of employers who are dedicated to giving former offenders training and employment and their role in rehabilitation is extremely important. 

2.9 These co-ordinating bodies should be low-cost operations, based in the offices of other services with relatively small staffs, diverted from other parts of the justice system if possible. 

2.10 There are a number of forms that these new bodies could take. They could be run directly by the Ministry of Justice, by local authorities or as independent organisations. They could include representatives of local service providers or be completely independent. 

2.11 There is also the related question of what geographical area each body should serve. One option would be for each upper- or single tier local authority to have one, but 174 of these bodies seems excessive. Other options include one for each of the 43 police force areas; one for each of the 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies; or one for each of the 11 proposed probation regions.

5. Probation 

5.1 Under Section 2 of the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014, anyone leaving prison after a sentence of more than a day but less than two years is subject to a mandatory supervision period of at least 12 months. The Act specifies that “The purpose of the supervision period is the rehabilitation of the offender.” 

5.2 We support the mandatory supervision of offenders after their release from prison. As set out in Section 3, we also believe that greater use should be made of tough community-based sentences involving supervision, as an alternative to prison. But they must be made to work effectively – and that means the deployment of additional resources. 

5.3 Since 2015, probation provision has been split between the National Probation Service (NPS), which is responsible for supervising ‘high-risk’ offenders, and 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs), which have responsibility for ‘low- and medium-risk’ offenders. 

5.4 The NPS is generally performing reasonably well, although staff shortages mean that probation officers often have to contend with very high workloads and are therefore not able to give offenders the attention they need. Officers are subjected to considerable stress, which has markedly sapped morale in the service. 

5.5 The CRCs, on the other hand, are failing badly and have come nowhere near meeting their objectives. Inspections have revealed a range of problems, including: 

• “Insufficient contact, a lack of meaningful contact and poor continuity of contact with those under probation supervision”, with many CRCs supervising individuals by telephone only. This can make it impossible for CRCs to enforce probation requirements properly.
• “Insufficient purposeful activity”, with more than one in ten offenders receiving no purposeful activity at all.
• “Very poor Through the Gate services,” with one in ten people released from prison without a roof over their heads. 
• A lack of services to meet individuals’ needs, with people sometimes left waiting many months for services or not receiving them at all. 

5.6 Based on these inspections, HM Inspectorate of Probation has concluded that: “there has been little innovative work to reduce reoffending, voluntary sector involvement in probation services is ever diminishing and resettlement services provided to prisoners before release are poor.” 

5.7 Trade unions warn that morale of probation officers, in both the NPS and CRCs, is at an “all-time low”. We believe that probation officers perform an important public duty and must be properly recognised and supported in their work. We are concerned that low morale will make it harder both to retain experienced officers and to recruit new ones. 

5.8 In 2018, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee found that “the extent of involvement of the third sector in delivering probations services has been woeful” – partly because of the underfunding of CRC contracts, and partly because “many third-sector organisations are withdrawing from probation services because the support they provided is now part of government probation supervision”.  

5.9 The Justice Select Committee found that “CRC performance in reducing reoffending, particularly the number of times an offender reoffends, has been disappointing” and concluded that “we do not think that the payment by results mechanism provides sufficient incentives to providers to reduce reoffending”. 

5.10 The Committee also highlighted problems resulting from the split of probationers between the NPS and CRCs based on risk, including “co-ordination challenges” and the fact that “the risk of harm an individual poses can change over time”. The Howard League for Penal Reform argues that the “two-tier system” created by this split “is the central flaw corrupting the whole edifice” and that it should be reintegrated into a single service. 

5.11 In July to September 2018, the Ministry of Justice consulted on proposals to end the current CRC contracts early (in 2020 rather than 2022); replace the current system of 21 CRCs and seven NPS districts with 11 probation regions; and introduce a requirement that offenders are seen face-to-face at least once a month during the first year of supervision. The Government has not yet announced the outcome of this consultation. 

5.12 Reforms to the current system of CRCs – including ending the existing contracts early and putting new contracts in place on better terms – are clearly necessary. However, we do not believe these will go nearly far enough to address the major problems in probation. 

5.13 Our proposal of local bodies with responsibility for all of an offender’s probation and rehabilitative services would solve the “coordination challenges” identified by the Justice Select Committee. Local commissioning would enable a proper multi-agency approach, including public, private and third-sector providers. 

5.14 The imposition and enforcement of supervision requirements plays an important role in rehabilitation. However, relatively minor breaches of licence requirements too often result in offenders being returned to prison, damaging their prospects for rehabilitation and contributing to the problems of prison overcrowding. 

5.15 The number of people recalled to custody has increased in recent years. 22,542 people were returned to custody after licence recall in 2018, compared to 19,662 in 2015.53 At the end of 2018, there were 6,965 people in prison on recall – an 18% increase since May 2015.  The majority of these are recalled for licence breaches alone, not for having committed new offences. 

5.16 The improvements to rehabilitation services we are proposing will help to reduce the number of people facing recall. However, we also believe that probation services and the courts should be encouraged or required to take a more graduated approach to sanctioning people for breaching their licence conditions, returning them to prison only as a last resort.