All So Very Predictable

Preparing and writing pre sentence reports for court used to be an absolutely key part of a probation officers job, but it's been steadily down-graded. Here we have an article from the Probation Institute magazine on the subject and to be frank it makes for depressing reading because it was all so very predictable:-

How are pre-sentence reports working today?

The relationship between courts and probation holds the key to tackling the over-use of harmful short-term custody and reducing reoffending. In June 2018, Justice Secretary David Gauke MP called for short-term custody to be used only as “last resort.” But if we are to make this aspiration a reality, we need to ensure that judges and magistrates have confidence in probation’s delivery of community sentences as they represent the only realistic alternative in many cases. 

The Centre for Justice Innovation works to promote community sentences as an alternative to custody, and to understand the reason why their use has fallen by 24% since the start of the decade, exploring the way that presentence reports inform sentencers’ perceptions of probation. Pre-sentence reports (PSRs) are a key point of contact between sentencers and probation. They provide judges and magistrates with expert assessments of the risks posed by an offender and the needs driving their offending, and recommend a sentence option which protects the public and supports rehabilitation.

By reviewing the available data and conducting interviews and workshops with practitioners, we have built up a complex picture: one of a system that has been buffeted by a range of policy decisions, but also one where creative and innovative thinking on the ground is finding workarounds to some of the structural challenges. 

In policy terms, clearly the headline issue is the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms which erected a divide between courts and the organisations responsible for delivering the majority of the community sentences they impose. But alongside this radical shift, we have seen an increased emphasis on timeliness in the management of courts. While this is, in many ways, a laudable goal it has had its own impact on the work of probation in courts. And all of this change is occurring at a time when austerity is forcing every part of the justice system to struggle to maintain basic services with limited resources. Taken together, these factors have formed the backdrop for a substantial shift in how pre-sentence reports are delivered. 

The changing delivery of presentence reports 

In our analysis of data on pre-sentence reports, we found two key trends: a significant reduction in the use of pre-sentence reports, and a change in the way they are delivered. The fall in the number of pre-sentence reports is stark. We have gone from 185,000 in 2012/13 to only 124,000 last year: a fall of almost a third over a period when the number of convictions has remained relatively stable. This fall has been seen in both magistrates and crown courts (though the drop in the former is a little steeper). It’s worth noting, however, that these statistics don’t count cases where previous PSRs are re-used, which may exaggerate the size of the change, but nonetheless it seems significant.

Perhaps more striking, though, is the change in the way that reports are delivered. The National Probation Service’s E3 model set ambitious targets for increasing the proportion of PSRs delivered orally, reducing the use of written fast delivery reports (FDRs) and, in particular, the most comprehensive Standard Delivery Reports (SDRs). In the three years since the targets were introduced the use of oral reports has doubled – going from 27% of all reports to 59%, while SDRs have fallen dramatically from 22% to only 3%. In magistrates’ courts, in particular, the SDR is almost unheard of, representing less than 1% of all PSRs.

In investigating the impact of these changes with probation officers, we found some interesting messages. Firstly, and perhaps most surprisingly, the majority of practitioners we spoke to felt that the oral format was working well for the majority of cases. New arrangements with partner agencies such as police and social work departments to obtain background information and the “safer sentencing” focus on the issues pertinent to sentencing decisions were seen as working well, and both officers and sentencers valued the opportunity to discuss the report in the courtroom. However some long-standing officers did note that the limited recording of oral advice was undermining the traditional value of the PSR as a starting point for sentence planning.

Probation officers were more concerned about the reduction in SDRs and, in particular, whether FDRs were being used inappropriately in some complex or traumatic cases. They noted that the guidance around when to use an SDR was restrictive and reported that they felt discouraged from using their professional discretion to go against that guidance. The key challenge was seen as workload: while FDRs and SDRs were often delivered in a similar number of calendar days, courts staff were expected to complete an SDR with only a half day of work. Probation officers told us that working on this volume of difficult cases was leading to burnout in members of court teams and potentially undermining the quality of advice.

The content of pre-sentence reports 

The probation officers we spoke to offered a mixed set of views on the content of PSRs since the reforms. In terms of offender assessments, the consensus was that the system was working well – or at least as well as it ever had, given long-standing complaints around the suite of assessment tools in use. However, some did stress the difficulties of establishing a rapport with an offender in the short interval allowed for an oral report. 

There was more concern about the quality of recommendations of community sentences. Many of the officers we spoke to expressed real concern that they lacked the information about CRC services that they needed to be able to make detailed and robust proposals which can command the confidence of sentencers. This picture varied significantly across different CRCs however: some CRCs had provided expanded rate cards that offered detailed service specifications, while in other areas courts staff had never seen any rate card at all. Some officers also noted that the design of the Rehabilitative Activity Requirement (RAR) placed further limits on how far they could be specific about the way that an offender would be supported on a community sentence – a concern shared by many sentencers. 

Sentencers, in particular, also noted a fall in the use of treatment requirements in community orders. This is backed up by the statistics: the proportion of orders containing drug rehabilitation requirements and mental health treatment requirements has fallen by half since their peaks earlier this decade. In part, this is likely to be caused by the well-documented cuts to treatment budgets6. However, some practitioners also suggested that treatment requirements were being displaced by the RAR, either because it requires less pre-sentence assessment, or (less cynically) because it allows a better integration between treatment and other forms of support.

How can we improve pre-sentence reports? 

Our research suggests that while some areas are working well, recent policy changes have had some negative impacts on the delivery of pre-sentence reports which may be undermining sentencers’ trust in community sentences. Probation officers and sentencers who took part in our research have highlighted particular issues around the assessments of complex cases, the production of detailed recommendations for community sentences and the use of treatment requirements which all seem to have suffered. 

However, participants also highlighted innovations which they saw as having the potential to address these issues. Some of these focus directly on improving sentencing such as the Embedded CRC model in use at Teeside magistrates court where a CRC Probation Service Officer (PSO) is housed with the NPS court team to provide information on CRC service provision. Another promising example is the five-site Community Sentence Treatment Requirement Pilot which seeks to increase the use of those requirements via new resources for on-the-day assessment and enhanced provision in the community. 

Other strategies focus on improving sentencers’ broader knowledge of community sentences such as in Lincolnshire where the NPS and CRC have collaborated to provide magistrates with high quality training including opportunities to meet with a range of probation staff including former service users. Participants were also supportive of models of problem-solving courts where sentencers conduct regular reviews of offenders under probation supervision, which they felt could reduce reoffending as well as increase sentencer trust.

However, while we believe that these innovations can improve pre-sentence reports, we must observe two caveats. Firstly, many of these will require some investment. While the cost is likely to be less than the savings we could achieve through meaningful reductions in custody, we cannot pretend that improvement can be delivered for free. Secondly, many of these ideas are work-arounds to problems created by TR’s break-up of probation trusts. Repairing the damage to sentencer trust will be much easier if we use the opportunity of the end of the current round of CRC contracts to heal the rift in our probation service. 

You can sign up to receive a free copy of the report when it’s released at http://justiceinnovation.org/mailing-list/

Stephen Whitehead 

Head of Evidence and Data Centre for Justice Innovation