MoJ Obfuscation

Another interesting example of MoJ obfuscation and secrecy from Inside Time:- 

Prison alcohol course dropped

An offending behaviour course used in prisons to help men convicted of drunken aggression has been dropped.

The Alcohol Related Violence (ARV) course was offered in English and Welsh prisons for men seen as a high or medium risk of reoffending. Using cognitive-behavioural techniques it sought to explore previous and current alcohol use, teach skills to prevent relapse into drinking, and spot patterns of how drunkenness can escalate to violence.

However, earlier this year it was removed from the list of programmes approved for use in English and Welsh jails by the Correctional Services Accreditation and Advice Panel (CSAAP).

The Ministry of Justice said the decision was taken because “there was limited uptake for this programme and the demand for this type of intervention was being met through alternative health services and the wider Offending Behaviour Programme”.

The ARV course will be “absorbed” into alternative courses, so any prisoner who had been due to join it is likely to be offered a place on another course instead.

ARV was one of 22 programmes approved for use in jails by the CSAAP. The panel has attracted controversy in the past because its membership is secret and it does not disclose what was discussed at its meetings – and because it can approve courses for use with prisoners before there is firm evidence as to whether they work.

It previously approved the use of the Sex Offender Treatment Programme, which was suddenly dropped in 2017, five years after an unpublished internal research report had identified that men who had taken the course were more likely to reoffend than those who had not.

The MoJ made no announcement at the time it dropped ARV. The move only emerged when it was omitted from an updated list of CSAAP-approved prison courses published on the MoJ website this month. It is not known whether a research study has been carried out on the reoffending rates of people who have completed the ARV course – and, if so, what the results were.

Courses addressing alcohol use which remain approved for use in prisons include the Alcohol Dependence Treatment Programme, Breaking Free, Building Skills for Recovery, and Control of Violence for Angry Impulsive Drinkers.

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Another revealing article by Maya Oppenheim in the Independent:-

The rising levels of self-harm in women’s jails in the UK are “worryingly high” with some therapeutic services cancelled during the pandemic, a new report has warned. The study, carried out by the Prison Reform Trust, found the government has failed to meet almost half of the pledges it committed to in its 2018 Female Offender Strategy.

Researchers, who shared the report with The Independent exclusively, discovered the government has fully rolled out just 31 of 65 promises despite the strategy being published almost three years ago. The charity warned the recent announcement of 500 extra prison cells being built in women’s jails reverses one of the strategy’s fundamental aims to reduce the female prison population - saying they would not be required if they had managed to actually implement the failed action plan.

Peter Dawson, the Prison Reform Trust’s director, told The Independent: 

“There is little point having a good plan if you don’t deliver it. That requires a timetable, resources and measures of success. None of these are in place. Instead, the government seems to have abandoned the idea that its female offender strategy can deliver its explicit and most important outcome – a reduction in the imprisonment of women. It is prepared to find £150m for new prison places to meet the cost of policy failure, but only a pittance to secure its success. The large majority of women are sent to prison for non-violent offences to serve sentences of less than one year. It is time for the government to double down on its aim to send less women to prison by investing in community alternatives and limiting the use of pointless short prison sentences.”

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A previous report by the Prison Reform Trust found 80 per cent of women in jail were serving sentences for non-violent offences. Other studies have found high numbers of female prisoners have suffered domestic abuse, while many suffer from mental health issues - with campaigners frequently warning women in prison are often victims of much more serious offences than the ones they have been convicted of.

Dr Kate Paradine, chief executive of Women in Prison, told The Independent the government had “lost its way” since the Female Offenders Strategy was formulated.

She said: “Its proposal for 500 prison places flies in the face of all its own evidence that says the vast majority of women in prison do not need to be there. We know 95 per cent of children have to leave their home when their mother goes to prison and building more prison places will only shatter more lives and unnecessarily separate families. There is another way, one that we know works. The government can listen to the evidence, implement its own strategy and divert the £150m set aside for these new prison places into community-based services, like Women's Centres, that tackle the issues, like domestic abuse, that sweep women up into crime in the first place - keeping families together.”

The latest research, which is based on the most recent data available, shows out of the strategy’s 65 commitments, 31 have been fully achieved, 20 partially achieved, while there has been zilch progress or quantifiable implementation of 14 pledges. But researchers noted even in instances where commitments were met via publication of guidance or instructions, there is a dearth of information showing whether it is successful.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “We want to see fewer women going to prison and are investing millions in our female offenders strategy to achieve this through community sentences, addiction treatment and women’s centres. Custody will always be a last resort - the new prison places will improve conditions with more single cells and greater access to education and employment, helping women to get their lives back on track.”

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Blog Update

As regular readers are aware, comment moderation has been in place for some time and it looks likely to be permanent I'm afraid. It destroys much of an opportunity for discussion, but the paucity of probation-related comment as opposed to anti-Johnson and government stuff means I'm deleting much of it.

I have no problem calling out lying bastards wherever they may be in political life, or indeed examples of home grown cronyism, corruption, right wing political crap etc, etc, but I'm not letting it take over the blog at the expense of the core purpose - keeping the probation ideal alive.

I've completely given up with the union, politicians, journalists and now academics. The ever-smaller band of 'legacy' probation officers are inevitably moving on either literally or figuratively as the bright new recruits seemingly can't wait to embrace the MoJ/HMPPS command and control ethos and even if they are unhappy, are too shit-scared to say anything publicly, even anonymously.

Yes I'm angry and yes I'm fed up - but I've also got better things to spend my time on and therefore this platform will continue to wind down. However, I will reserve the option to kick it back into life from suspended animation at any time and when I feel there is something useful to say and in furtherance of the probation ethos so clearly disappearing from sight.

Addendum 

Interesting to note that only a few hours after publishing this post, a very lively discussion has started on Facebook with news that updating case notes within 24hrs is to become a 'target'. Quite understandable from a professional point of view and a longstanding National Standard, but noteworthy that rather than do something about high caseloads, HMPPS command and control ethos dictates other approaches. At time of writing, the topic has attracted 63 comments, including the status of a review of the Workload Management Tool, but all such supposedly hidden from public view.