Too many prisoners reoffend. The coalition is determined to break this cycle
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Version 0 of 1. Breaking the cycle of crime in our society is the driving ambition behind the coalition’s reforms to the criminal justice system. It is a goal that unites us personally and politically, even though we may disagree on other issues from human rights laws to the European Union. The challenge we face as a country is clear. Crime levels are falling. Fewer people are coming into our system as first-time offenders. Yet more and more crime is being committed by people going round and round the system. It’s this cycle that we are determined to break. Reoffenders overwhelmingly share the same characteristics. They come from troubled backgrounds. They may have had little in the way of parental guidance and dropped out of school at an early age. Often they have low levels of numeracy and literacy and nearly a quarter were in care. Our current system is inadequately equipped to help them sort their lives out when they arrive in our prisons. It’s striking how many prisoners enter custody without any idea about how they will actually sort themselves out when they are released. That problem is made much worse by what we believe to be the biggest failing in our system. If you go to prison for less than a year, you walk out at the end of your sentence with £46 in your pocket, and that’s all. No supervision. No support. Nothing. Most of these people reoffend. That’s why this coalition government has agreed a comprehensive package of reforms to tackle this unacceptable issue. Today we are publishing the first set of results from our ground-breaking pilot schemes at Peterborough and Doncaster prisons, where a new approach to rehabilitating offenders is being tested. At both pilots offenders are being given targeted support on release to aid their resettlement back into the community. If the providers are successful at reducing reoffending they will be paid for these results. Early findings from the pilots have shown the impact that greater support from custody to the community can have, and this gives us great encouragement. As a result of legislation we have already put in place, for the first time, every offender who leaves prison will get a year’s support and mentoring. Those on short sentences will no longer be released without the help they need to turn away from crime. We are also clear that we cannot meet our ambitions to reduce reoffending without serious reforms to probation. That’s why we are bringing public, private and voluntary sector skills together to reinforce work done by probation. This will make sure that we use all of the strengths available to tackle this enormous challenge. With these reforms, a refocused national probation service has been tasked with protecting the public from the most challenging and dangerous offenders. The work we do with lower- and medium-risk offenders is moving into a new generation of community rehabilitation companies (CRCs). Free from public sector finance rules, they will be able to do innovative new things in areas such as housing provision – such as long-term deals with landlords to provide accommodation for those leaving prison who might otherwise end up sofa surfing. These organisations will be required to draw up a plan for the offender’s rehabilitation within the first few days of them entering prison. The same organisation will then continue to support that individual throughout their time in prison, and this will continue as they are released into the community. These are major reforms so it is understandable that concerns exist. That’s why we are taking a measured approach, and ensuring that CRCs are first running in shadow form in the public sector. Probation staff are working hard to implement these changes on the ground and they deserve our thanks and support. Our reforms to rehabilitation can deal with one of the greatest failings of the system we inherited – where there are more and more victims as a result of the same people committing crime over and over again. High reoffending rates have dogged successive governments for decades. Our two parties, working together in the national interest, are finally tackling this historic failing head on. |