Today the Secretary of State for Justice will outline and present
the Prison and Courts Bill in the House of Commons.
The main theme of the Bill is a greater focus on rehabilitation
and modernising the Courts to ensure victims are at the heart of
the justice system. Despite this however, there is no mention of
the Probation Service which is currently in chaos and failing to
provide even the basic supervision of offenders in the community.
Yesterday saw the publication of yet another damning report by
Her Majesty's Inspection for Probation.
Dame Glenys Stacey said: "We advise government to consider
whether, with changes to probation company contracts these orders
can be made to work well, or whether it is time for a more
fundamental rethink.”
This comment follows the inspection of the new community
intervention Rehabilitation Activity Requirements introduced by
the former Justice Secretary , who promised a
"rehabilitation revolution". The reality according to the
inspector and Napo is that these orders are not being delivered
and in many cases no work at all is being done with offenders to
reduce their risk of re-offending. The report yesterday supports
Napo's claims that Transforming Rehabilitation has not worked and
has led to a much poorer level of service.
Ian Lawrence General Secretary for Napo said: "We have
persistently advised the government that their reforms are
failing. These plans were not evidence based and have led to
chaos in the probation service with private providers failing to
deliver on the most basic community supervision. Instead of
innovation we are seeing less rehabilitation work with offenders.
Job cuts and staff shortages have led to unmanageable workloads
for our members. The Inspector has in a number of reports said
that this is a direct risk to public safety and must be urgently
addressed. No reforms to the prison system will work if there is
not a fully functioning and effective Probation Service to
supervise those being released."
The new orders introduced by in 2014 were intended to
play a significant part in reducing re-offending but according to
HMI Probation and Napo less than ever is being done to
rehabilitate those in the community.
