The Government has consistently stated that the proportion of
prisoners who reoffend upon release from prison in England and
Wales is too high. It is argued that reoffending not only
creates more victims but also generates major economic and
social costs for the community. In May 2013, the Ministry of
Justice published Transforming Rehabilitation, a strategy that
aimed to tackle this problem. However, concerns remain
regarding both the effectiveness and the scope of its
provisions. This Briefing discusses the measures that prisons
in England and Wales implement with the aim of reducing the
probability of reoffending.
Prisons adopt a range of measures to reduce reoffending. These
include direct therapeutic interventions to address the
psychological causes of criminal behaviour, as well as services
to prepare offenders to successfully reintegrate into the
community after release. Those services include the provision
of academic programmes, vocational courses and employment
opportunities. However, although these measures are in place,
the Government states that reoffending rates remain too high.
The Ministry of Justice has published several papers concerning
the effectiveness of prison services that contribute to
rehabilitation. Its Transforming Rehabilitation strategy
included the creation of a resettlement service known as
‘Through the Gate’, which seeks to provide offenders with a
continuous mentoring scheme from prison through to the
community. However, questions have been raised about the
effectiveness of the service. In May 2016, the Ministry of
Justice published Unlocking Potential: A Review of Education in
Prisons. The review called for improvements to the provision of
education in prison and the monitoring of that provision.
In November 2016, the Ministry of Justice published a white
paper, Prison Safety and Reform, that committed to the
development of new measures for tracking how a prisoner’s
rehabilitation progressed during the course of their sentence.
In February 2017, the Prison and Courts Bill was introduced,
which intended to render rehabilitation a statutory purpose of
prison; the Bill was dropped in April 2017 following the
announcement of the General Election. In August 2017, issued a report
entitled Importance of Strengthening Prisoners’ Family Ties to
Prevent Reoffending and Reduce Intergenerational Crime. The
report reviewed both the impact of social ties on
rehabilitation and how those ties could be best maintained
across a prison sentence.
