Hostels

I suspect that the idea of having supervised accommodation for offenders has been around for as long as probation itself. The hostels operated by the probation service are 'approved' for the purpose by the Ministry of Justice and prior to this by the Home Office. Increasingly they are being referred to as Approved Premises (AP) rather than hostels, but I don't understand why. Many are still owned and operated by voluntary and religious groups, thus once again reflecting our roots. 

Traditionally probation hostels served mainly two distinct purposes, that of a supervised bail address as an alternative to a remand in custody and secondly as a place of supervised re-integration into society from a period in custody. Additionally, in the past it was not uncommon for someone made subject of a probation order to be required to reside at a hostel for a period, usually because of particular problems in being able to live independently. The time at the hostel was used so that appropriate community support could be arranged, together with accommodation. Hostels were also able to be used for short periods in order to afford 'respite' and in cases where some structured support was required say for people with mental health problems.

In my experience it has always been wise to foster good relations with hostel managers because it quite often tipped the balance in being able to get your client accepted, either when they had been refused elsewhere, or worse thrown out by another hostel. However, that was all in the past. Nowadays finding hens teeth is easier than a hostel place and the reason is basically because all facilities are full of high risk parole cases being released from custody. There are virtually no bail places at all and the few that do crop up are again reserved for the high risk cases. Now I'm all in favour of hostels being available for this challenging group who require a high degree of monitoring prior to being allowed to live independently, but it means that there is little or no provision for other lower risk people, but that might have greater welfare needs.

This situation has been developing for some time and prompted the previous government to let a contract several years ago for bail places to be provided by a private contractor. A company called Clear Springs won the Bail Accommodation and Support Service contract, despite having no experience of working with offenders and they supplied several hundred addresses, typically 3 and 4 bed-roomed houses as 'supervised' bail addresses. Unfortunately the supervision proved to be minimal and when neighbours and the wider public became aware, there was a great deal of negative publicity. In the end a death at a property persuaded both Clear Springs and the Ministry of Justice to part company earlier this year. The BASS contract has subsequently been awarded to Stonham Housing, a charity and specialist housing provider working with offenders. 

Sadly, the whole future for Approved Premises within the probation service is about to be thrown into turmoil as it is the stated ambition of the coalition government to divest itself completely of the management and operation of all probation hostels in the very near future. Along with the decision to privatise Unpaid Work, the dismantling of another fine public service looks certain to follow in the footsteps of the Forensic Science Service and the National Air Sea Rescue Service.  

What's Ken Up To?

The next few weeks are going to be quite significant for the Criminal Justice System for all sorts of reasons. No doubt Ken Clarke, the new Justice Secretary, will not want to disappoint his many fans when he makes a keynote speech to the Conservative Party conference on Tuesday. Now I quite like Ken. He strikes me as a decent, honest politician not particularly prone to bullshit and not always 'on message'. His Daily Mail interview some weeks ago signalled his direction of travel in terms of trying to get prison numbers down but somewhat alarmingly I think I'm right in saying that, since taking office, he's not mentioned the probation service once. As a prelude to his speech and in an interview with the Guardian on Saturday 2nd October it's reported that:-

'Backed up by sympathetic allies among the Lib Dems, Clarke has been talking about a "rehabilitation revolution" in the justice system. Plans include widespread restorative justice, diverting drug addicts and the mentally ill out of jail, and a sentencing overhaul. The result could be thousands of people convicted of minor crimes being given community alternatives to prison.' 

Now that all sounds very promising to me, but of course begs lots of questions. Funnily enough it's 'rehabilitation' that has been so effectively hampered in the 'new style' bureaucratised probation service and in fact is last in the list of NOMS priorities. For political reasons the emphasis was shifted to protecting the public and enforcing court orders ages ago. Do I hear a wheel turning?

The mention of plans for 'widespread restorative justice' is very good news and long overdue in my view. Of course probation have been pioneers in this field for years with early experiments in mediation schemes, but it won't please everyone because it's not about punishment or coercion. It has to be a process not lightly entered into and very carefully orchestrated by well trained and skilled facilitators. It won't be cheap to fund, but has real potential for changing behaviour, helping victims and saving society much money and heartache in the future. 

Diverting drug addicts and the mentally ill from prison has to be a very laudable aim, but as we all know is nothing but that if the community facilities are simply not available to deal with these two groups adequately. As a PO on the front line, I can tell you they are not. That's why they're in prison Ken.

A 'sentencing overhaul' sounds ominous to me and I can already sense our magistrate friends taking a deep breath. It's sort of code for basically restricting the sentencing powers of predominately Magistrates Courts. Previous governments have been down this path before and ended up not just irritating a lot of magistrates, but also invoking the Law of Unintended Consequences. Ken has already stated that he wants thousands of people currently remanded in custody pending plea or sentence, to be bailed instead. That is an interesting aim. How is he going to do that, given the current Bail Act already clearly states that there is a presumption of bail being granted, unless certain exceptions apply?

Since probation hostels were prevented from taking all but the riskiest bailees some time ago, we've had three years mixed experience of the national Bail Accommodation and Support Scheme (BASS), since April run by a 'third sector' contractor. Additionally, there's been the option of Electronic Tagging for some considerable time, run by private sector contractors. Of course magistrates already have wide scope to add any number of other conditions to bail, such as residence, non contact, exclusion zones, police reporting etc etc, so what else has he got up his sleeve? A new Bail Act that seeks to further reduce the scope for magistrates to remand in custody? Surely not? 

Like many others, I'm very concerned about Ken Clarke's plans for the future of summary justice and in particular the court closures to save a measly £30million a year. Then there's the back door move towards reducing the Lay Bench in favour of professional District Judges. I really do not see how the cause of justice is going to be better served in this way, or indeed provided at lower cost by replacing volunteers with expensive Judges.  We await with interest to hear what Ken has to say.