Stretched Beyond Their Capacity

It's Friday - time for another report from Dame Glenys Stacey on how the privatised CRCs are doing on another aspect of their work. Here is the press release that accompanies todays release of a report on the thematic inspection of Enforcement and Recall:- 

Overstretched private probation companies struggling with poor enforcement of community sentences, inspectors find

The enforcement by private probation companies of community-based court sentences has been assessed as poor in a report by HM Inspectorate of Probation. Inspectors found that staff in Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) did not see offenders often enough while under supervision on two of the most commonly used non-custodial sentences – community orders and suspended sentence orders.

This lack of meaningful engagement led to poor decisions in managing breaches of the orders. Though the proportion of community-sentences completed or ended early through good progress has been gradually rising, it was still the case that in 2016-17 a total of almost 30,000 court orders were terminated through failure to comply, further offences or other reasons.

Dame Glenys Stacey, HM Chief Inspector of Probation, has previously raised concerns about remote and infrequent supervision of offenders by CRC staff, sometimes only by phone, which risks breaking the face-to-face relationships which are vital to successful probation work.

In the new report – Enforcement and Recall – Dame Glenys said: “Once again, we found CRCs stretched beyond their capacity.

“Good enforcement relies on good quality probation supervision. CRCs focused on contract compliance, but not seeing people often enough, or not engaging meaningfully with them, are inevitably behind the curve on enforcement, as staff may not know when enforcement is called for, or when purposeful work to re-engage the individual would be better for them and for society.” Poor supervision, Dame Glenys added, “is more likely to lead to reoffending and, for some, another round of imprisonment.”

Inspectors also looked at cases where individuals were recalled to prison because of breaches of the conditions of their release into the community under license. It addressed concerns expressed by some commentators that offenders were recalled too readily, for minor breaches. The report showed that a substantial number of people were recalled – with this group accounting for 6,554 out of the prison population of 85,513 in England and Wales on 31 March last year.

However, Dame Glenys said she hoped the report would allay concerns about inappropriate recall. “There have been increases in recall numbers, most recently following the extension of supervision in the community to those sentenced to less than 12 months.”

The inspection found almost all recall decisions by the NPS, the National Probation Service responsible for higher risk offenders, and CRCs were good decisions.

“Often, the level of disengagement or deterioration in the person’s behaviour were such that they could not be safely managed in the community. Recall was appropriate, even when the individual had committed a relatively minor further offence.” The reason for this in CRC cases, inspectors believe, was that recall procedures were generally clear and well understood, and people on licence, and subject to recall, were more likely to be supervised by higher-grade staff who are experienced at making the necessary judgements.

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Foreword

We reported initial teething problems in enforcement soon after Transforming Rehabilitation, with cases moving to and fro between the National Probation Service (NPS) and Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) unnecessarily. Local leaders and staff worked hard to iron out those early difficulties. It is a credit to them that arrangements for CRCs to transfer cases to the NPS for enforcement (as they must) now work as well as they do, time after time. 

At the start of my tenure, magistrates and others were expressing concerns about an apparent reluctance of CRCs to enforce. We alerted the Ministry of Justice last year to our evidence that enforcement was not always happening when it should. CRCs were paid less if too many cases were cut short by enforcement, an incentive not to act. The department acted quickly to redress matters, but understandably, magistrates and others still lack confidence, not sure of effective enforcement. 

I hope that more recent concerns at the other end of the spectrum – that individuals released from prison on licence are being recalled to prison too readily by probation staff – are abated by our inspection findings. There have been increases in recall numbers, most recently following the extension of supervision in the community to those sentenced to less than 12 months. In this inspection, we found almost all NPS and CRC recall decisions were good decisions, with the NPS particularly good at considering alternatives to recall beforehand. 

Often, the level of disengagement or deterioration in the person’s behaviour were such that they could not be safely managed in the community. Recall was appropriate, even when the individual had committed a relatively minor further offence. There is still every reason to be anxious about CRC enforcement, however. We found that NPS cases were sufficiently wellmanaged, whereas too many CRC cases were not. While it seems odd that we found CRCs notably better at recall than enforcement, we think we know why that is. 

Recall procedures are generally clear and well understood, and people on licence are more likely to be supervised by higher-grade staff who are experienced at making the necessary judgements. 

What is more, good enforcement relies on good quality probation supervision. CRCs focused on contract compliance, but not seeing people often enough, or not engaging meaningfully with them, are inevitably behind the curve on enforcement, as staff may not know when enforcement is called for, or when purposeful work to re-engage the individual would be better for them and for society. I suspect this is the biggest issue undermining effective enforcement today: that, in many CRCs, the case management itself is insufficient to enable good enforcement decisions. Instead, poor supervision is more likely to lead to reoffending and, for some, another round of imprisonment. 

Once again, we found CRCs stretched beyond their capacity. We hope that the recommendations in this report provide an impetus for change, so that enforcement decisions can be made fairly and appropriately, as part of good, integrated probation practice designed to tackle entrenched reoffending patterns.

Dame Glenys Stacey

HM Chief Inspector of Probation

January 2018

4.3. Conclusions and implications 

Community Rehabilitation Companies 

Overall, the quality of case management and consequent enforcement decisionmaking in the sample of post-sentence supervision cases was poor. We found that several things had a bearing on this: workload pressures, the complexity of the cases, organisational upheaval and the limited opportunities to engage with service users who were reluctant to be supervised. It is far from the case that nothing can be done. It had been possible to access useful services as part of supervision in cases in the wider sample, particularly if there were well-developed partnership arrangements in the locality. However, the current arrangements far too often fail to make an impact on these difficult cases. 

National Probation Service 

Overall, the quality of case management and consequent enforcement decisionmaking in the sample of post-sentence supervision cases was good in the NPS. The complexity of cases being managed was remarkably high, and the proportion of individuals assessed as a high risk of causing serious harm striking. Despite good probation work, most individuals in the sample remained locked in a cycle of brief periods in the community and frequent return to prison. 

Shared conclusion 

There were marked limitations to what could be achieved for these individuals and wider society. Far from turning around people’s lives, the additional elements of supervision seemed to make no tangible difference. High-quality case management by itself did not deliver effective outcomes in most cases. Where positive progress happened, this was attributable either to the persistent efforts of individual practitioners or to the existence of multi-agency approaches aligned to the localities in which the service was delivered – the key partner agencies of police, local authority and health service providers. In some areas such working arrangements were in place. In others they were non-existent. Again, we found no clear pathway for female service users.

Michael Spurr Apologises

Regular readers will be aware of Carl Eve's sustained journalistic efforts regarding the Tanis Bhandari murder and I see that an official apology has been forthcoming from Michael Spurr, as reported here:- 

Apology for mother of man murdered by a known criminal

The man in charge of the service which monitors offenders has written to the mother of a murdered Devon man to apologise for failings which contributed to her son's death. Michael Spurr has written to Andrea Sharpe, mother of Tanis Bhandari, to apologise for errors in the handling of the case of Donald Pemberton, who was convicted of murder. Mr Spurr said he is “truly sorry” about the difficulties the family faced trying to get information about the monitoring of Tanis's murderer, reports plymouthherald.

The chief executive officer of the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), said a Serious Further Offence review has revealed a litany of failings. He revealed he was “looking into the processes” by which the reviews were carried out and how the service could improve. He admitted the case was “assessed against current requirements and processes were not followed as they should have been” adding “the SFO review therefore found the management was insufficient in each of these areas”.

Since receiving the letter in late April, Andrea said she has had mixed feelings about its contents. Although she now feels vindicated in battling against the authorities for the truth, the letter has underscored her strong feelings that killer Donald Pemberton should not have been at liberty when he killed Tanis on January 1 2015.

She said: “I felt great relief having read the letter but it opened up worse feelings. For example, learning now that the killer could have been re-arrested on December 30 – that really broke me. He didn’t need to be on the street that night. I don’t know what else I can do now. I feel like I’ve come to an end.”

Tanis, aged 27, was murdered on January 1, 2015 at the Green in Tamerton Foliot by Ryan Williams, aged 21 and Pemberton, 20. Pemberton was on licence at the time, having served two months of a four-month sentence for having a sharp article in a public place. His licence terms stated he was “to be well behaved” but two weeks before the murder he was arrested for brandishing two meat cleavers in Anstis Street in Stonehouse.

As The Herald has since learned, Pemberton's licence details were not on the Police National Computer and he was bailed by police to return to Charles Cross police station on February 9, 2015. His probation worker was not made aware of Pemberton’s arrest until more than a week later thanks to a call from the mental health Insight team. A court date to deal with the breach was eventually arranged to be heard on January 16, 2015.

In December last year The Herald exclusively revealed how two internal investigations – by the police and the privatised arm of the probation service – into the sequence of events which led to the death of the 27-year-old revealed a catalogue of delays, computer inadequacies and human errors.

The police’s internal investigation found “there was a chance” that Donald Pemberton – now serving a life sentence for the joint murder of Tanis – “would not have been at liberty on that night” had key information been available to officers on the Police National Computer “and a recall to prison had been issued for him, as a result of his behaviour” two weeks earlier when he was arrested for threatening a group of men with two meat cleavers.

In addition, the police report found that the circumstances which led to the builder’s death could be repeated not just in Devon and Cornwall, but in any force area in the country because of failings by the prison authorities in informing the Police National Computer Bureau.

The police report warned: “The concern is that Prisons, nationwide are adopting different criteria for sending, or not sending, prisoner licence details to the PNC Bureau. While this practice continues, and until all prisoner licence details are sent to the PNC Bureau, there is every chance incidents similar to this case will recur.”

The Herald, working Tanis’s family, called upon local politicians to put pressure on the government into tackling the issue. In February this year The Herald reported how after meeting with Tanis’ family Plymouth Moor View MP Johnny Mercer wrote to then Justice Minister Liz Truss asking: “what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the findings of the Devon and Cornwall Police inquiry into the murder of Tanis Bhandari that omissions in the recording of license conditions on the Police National Computer are likely to recur.”

The question, sent on January 27, was answered by Brandon Lewis, minister of state for policing and the fire service, on February 2. He wrote: “The omission in the recording of licence conditions in this case related to a Post Sentence Supervision notification, which is applied to offenders released from sentences of more than one day and up to two years in custody. This issue has now been resolved. All licence conditions are now recorded on the Police National Computer and prisons are also required to notify local police and probation services when offenders are released from their custody.”

The Herald later learned there had been a follow up question by Mr Mercer to the Secretary of State for the Home Department, asking “on what date the issue of the omission relating to the recording of licence conditions on the Police National Computer was resolved”. It received the answer from Mr Lewis: “This issue was resolved on 19 April 2016.”

The internal police report, which discovered the issue of the PNC omissions regarding licence details, was signed by the investigating officer dated September 9, 2016. The police have said their report was not forwarded to any government department prior to its completion in September 2016. There is, as yet, no explanation from the Government as to how it resolved the nationwide error found by Devon and Cornwall Police before the force had even completed its internal report.

In his lengthy letter to Andrea Sharpe, Tanis’s mother, Michael Spurr noted how because of Pemberton being a youth offender and previously receiving a custodial sentence of less than 12 months for the meat cleaver incident, any breach of his supervision was not a separate criminal offence and meant he could not be recalled direct to prison on the day of the breach. Instead, he would have to appear at court at a later date.

He noted how Pemberton, having been sentenced to four months custody after being convicted of the possession of an offensive weapon, was released on October 31 on a three month Notice of Supervision. He admitted the “releasing establishment should have informed the police of his release so that this information could be uploaded to the Police National Computer (PNC) to record that Donald Pemberton was subject to supervision.

“Unfortunately, this did not happen and I apologise for this. The failure was that of a particular prison establishment rather than a system failure.” He went on to reveal that Pemberton kept two of his three appointments with his “Probation Service Officer (PSO) in November 2014 and was issued a warning for the missed appointment. He explained how the PSO “identified at an early stage that [Pemberton] had mental health issues and set up an appointment with his GP”.

In addition, he admitted that by early December the CRC [Community Rehabilitation Company] which took over the privatised arm of the Probation Service “had concerns about his compliance with his supervision and about his ongoing mental health problems, which were significant enough to require a short period of hospitalisation”.

Mr Spurr revealed how over the “next two weeks” Pemberton was seen by his PSO and by the mental health team. Following Pemberton’s arrest on December 15, 2014 he was bailed until February 9, 2015. Mr Spurr said he “cannot comment” on the police’s decision, but notes Devon and Cornwall Police internal review of the case.

He wrote: “We did not to tell [sic] the police about the Notice of Supervision as we should have done, but the PNC would have included a list of Pemberton’s previous convictions including his recent incarceration in a youth offender’s institution. As you are aware the investigating officers did not check the PNC, therefore were not aware of his previous convictions and did not identify he may have been subject to supervision.”

The Herald learned from the internal reports by the police and CRC that Pemberton’s PSO only found out on December 22, 2014 he had been arrested and bail, thanks to a call from staff at the Insight Mental Health Team. This delay meant attempts to discuss the matter further with the arresting officer and discussions with the National Probation Service (NPS) were equally delayed.

Mr Spurr has now revealed that the NPS enforcement officer “had some concerns as to whether there was enough evidence to prosecute the breach, as [Pemberton] had not been charged”. This was despite police investigators already securing and viewing very clear CCTV evidence of Pemberton threatening a group of men with two meat cleavers.

Mr Spurr notes that following further discussion about the risk Pemberton posed, “a decision was made to summons [him] to appear in court. On 24 December, a court date of 16 January was set.” He also revealed that the enforcement officer chose not to go to court to request an arrest warrant be issue as Pemberton had not yet been charged and had a fixed home address.

However, he confirmed that Pemberton “then missed an appointment with his PSO on the 29 December and unsuccessful attempts were made to contact him by phone on 30 December. “Following missed appointments, if an offender does not have a reasonable explanation for missing the appointment enforcement action is taken, however, in this case breach proceedings had already been instigated so there was no further follow up.”

Mr Spurr accepted Andrea Sharpe and her family were “entitled to be informed by the Witness Care Unit” of her right to ask for a Serious Further Offence Victim Summary Reports (VSR) and to be informed about the Victim Contact Service (VCS).

Tanis’s family only found out they were entitled to a report from the Probation Service about the monitoring of Pemberton because they were told by The Herald. Until that stage they had not been contacted by the Witness Care Unit and were completely unaware they were legally entitled to the VSR. Even their Devon and Corwnall Police Family Liaison Officer was unaware of the Victim Summary Report and that they should have been contacted about seeing it.

Mr Spurr said he has since asked Her Majesty's Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) Victims Policy team to work with Witness Care Units “to ensure that they are aware of their responsibilities and to reduce the chances of this very important piece of work being overlooked.” He admitted that in relation to Tanis’s family’s experience the HMPPS Victims Policy team has “already made contact with the Devon and Cornwall Witness Care Unit and they have now reviewed their processes.”

Mr Spurr said he recognised it had been a very difficult year for Andrea, compounded by trying to obtain information about the case while still grieving the loss of her son. He wrote: “I am truly sorry about the difficulties you have faced and the additional distress this has caused you.”

As a result he said he would be “looking into the processes by which SFO reviews are carried out. In this regard, I am considering how we can ensure that the SFO review procedures promote a culture of openness about learning; produce robust reviews; provide victims with information on how was [sic] offender was supervised and; where there were shortcomings, how any lessons learnt will be implemented.

He said current SFO Review procedures asked three questions “whether Risk Assessment was sufficient, whether Risk Management was sufficient and whether Offender Management was sufficient”. Assessing the case of Pemberton’s management against current requirements he admitted “processes were not followed, as they should have been. The SFO review therefore found the management was insufficient in each of these areas.”

He admitted the written assessment and plan of Pemberton “was not completed in a timely manner, was of insufficient quality and was not reviewed in response to changing circumstances”. He admitted there was “an escalating pattern of worrying behaviour that was not sufficiently spotted and risk escalation to the NPS was not considered”. In addition, he noted that the Probation Service Officer who tried to contact Pemberton on December 30, after he missed his appointment on December 29, “took no further action” after this date.

Mr Spurr said the SFO review “found that more should have been done at this point, including risk escalation to the NPS and consideration of contacting police. (The SFO review also stated it was not clear what action the police could have taken if any). I have looked at the review and concluded that a warrant could have been applied for at this point.”

While recognising the context of the decision making at the time and the police’s decision to bail Pemberton, Mr Spurr said “there were sufficient concerns about the possession of weapons and the risk Pemberton posed to justify an application and it would then have been for the Court to decide whether to issue the warrant.”

As a result of Tanis’s family’s battle to highlight the mistakes made and hold organisations to account, Mr Spurr outlined a series of future actions to “prevent, as far as we can, further offending in the future”. Among the raft of actions already agreed include underscoring the importance of prison establishments to notify police and the PNC Bureau about the release of offenders and details of their licences. He said this importance had been “reinforced and further reminders will be issued”.

In addition an audit “will be undertaken to make sure the relevant Prison Service Instruction is being followed”. He said HM Prisons and Probation Service was working with police “to improve the type of information stored on the PNC” but claimed the “technical changes” to the PNC were “a police matter so I cannot commit to a time scale for this piece of work to be completed”.

He said HMPPS would also issue guidance on the use of warrants “making clear the circumstances in which they should be used for public protection, including for any young offenders who may still be subject to the previous Notice of Supervision arrangements”.

He said the HMPPS “Contract Management Team” undertook an audit of liaison arrangements and relationships with “key stakeholders in the Dorset, Devon and Cornwall CRC”, adding that the findings would be “discussed with the CRC Chief Executive Officer and senior managers” to agree any further improvements required.

In addition, he said the CRC had implemented a “new case management model, including an evidence based risk assessment and allocation process and a centralised administrative and information sharing function”. Finally he said he would review the current SFO review procedures “with the aim to provide more comprehensive and straightforward reports to be shared with victims”.

The Parole Board At 50

A couple of weeks ago Russell Webster published a guest blog by Martin Jones, Chief Executive of the Parole Board for England and Wales and it covered a lot of important ground:- 

The parole board faces up to new challenges

Striving to improve

2017-18 represents the fiftieth anniversary of the creation of the Parole Board. Those fifty years has seen fundamental changes and many improvements in the way our system works, it has also brought enormous new challenges.

Deciding whether it is necessary to keep someone in prison to protect the public is a vital, often difficult, and sometimes unpopular, decision. We need our independent members to show good judgement, to assess, based on all the evidence, whether somebody serving a prison sentence can be safely managed in the community.

The Board has published a strategy: Parole Board Strategy 2016-2020 setting out our plans for ensuring the Board meets our important duties. Our number one priority at present has been to tackle the unacceptable delays to hearings. Delays have a corrosive impact and can cause a loss of hope.

The rise of oral hearings

Whilst fifty years ago, the Parole Board rarely, if ever, saw the person whose liberty they were deciding, in 2016-17 the Parole Board held a historic high of 7,377 hearings. This high, is partly a consequence of increased numbers of people being eligible for a parole review (including the continuing legacy of the discontinued IPP sentence) but most recently the result of the Supreme Court judgment in the case of Osborn, which obliged the Board to hold more hearings to ensure fairness. We now hold nearly five times the number of hearings we held a decade ago. Our hard work has now brought down the backlog by 40% over the last two years, bringing down delays; but there remains more to do.



IPPs

The Board’s strategy also commits us to making progress on IPPs. Whilst our role is to look at risk to the public, and I believe there are a small number IPPs who remain a genuine danger to the public; I share the concern of many commentators about the fact that there are still 3,528 IPPs in prison. I fear that for some imprisonment itself and their despair; is not helping. Whilst historically there was justifiable concern about the failure of IPPs to make progress, in recent years the numbers of IPPs progressed has risen significantly as a result of progress in custody and greater confidence. In 2016-17 the Board ordered the release of over 900 IPP prisoners (including the re-release of recalled IPPs); this is 20% more than in the preceding year and I expect us to make further significant progress this year. Despite the progress made, I can understand why IPPs are perceived as creating potential injustice, and believe there is a compelling case to changing the licence arrangements, which have the potential to compound the difficulties seen over the last twelve years.

Recalls a growing challenge

Whilst the Board strives to keep up with growing demand, it is striking to note the range of cases now coming to the Board. When created our primary purpose was to provide to ministers on the release of those serving a life sentence following the abolition of the death penalty. Today we spend significant time dealing with recall prisoners; whose numbers have increased astonishingly over the last twenty years. On average, we receive around one thousand recall cases a month and many of those cases are going to an oral hearing. Whilst it is quite right that prisoners have the right to challenge the lawfulness of their recall, I believe that more could be done to encourage probation officers to exercise their professional judgement to keep people in the community, and fully support efforts being made by Sonia Crozier as head of the National Probation Service to find alternatives to recall and increase confidence.

We are also working with our members to ensure we have a robust, evidence based approach to risk. The recent decision to stop SOTP programmes is salutary. Parole decisions cannot be takes through tick box approaches. Treatment and programmes are not panaceas. Risk can reduce through age; maturity; insight into offending; and a reduction in opportunities to offend. Whatever has happened in the past; the Board is encouraging its members to look at all of the evidence available and to be open and reflective about our decision making. Risk can never be entirely eliminated, but good decisions will identify the risks and how they might be managed in the community. But this needs imagination from all involved. Looking to the future; I am certain that the Parole Board has the opportunity to utilise technology such as alcohol monitoring to better manage offenders in the community; and we are already making use of GPS tracking devices on a small scale.

Balances the rights of prisoners and victims

Finally – our system is not just about processes; it is about people.

Whilst we strive to do the very best we can, there are no crystal balls. If we measured our success only by the number of serious offences committed by those released by the Parole Board the overwhelming majority of our release decisions are sound. However, whilst deeply regrettable, there have always been a tiny number of cases where those released by the Parole Board commit serious offences. We take each such tragic case extremely seriously, as the public would expect. A serious offence can be a hammer blow to the member who makes the decision. We always seek to learn lessons; but we cannot allow these rare cases detract from the fact that most of those in our prisons should have a second chance.

The Board remains committed to making fair and independent decisions, as swiftly as possible, with care, humanity and courage. I know from speaking to victims, prisoners and their respective families how important our decisions are. Losing a member of your family through violent crime, or through imprisonment, is always devastating and the consequences of that loss has an impact down the generations. That is why we must do our very best to make the best decisions we can.

Martin Jones, Chief Executive of the Parole Board for England and Wales.

Fiddling While Rome Burns

It's clear that last nights shocking footage shown in the Channel 4 Cutting Edge Secret Life of Prisons documentary even surprised many criminal justice insiders and is a disgrace that any government minister worth their salt would feel oblidged to respond urgently to. But we have the clueless Liz Truss at the helm and she continues to fiddle while Rome burns. This from the Prisons.org.uk website:-

IMB Reform: National Council to be Scrapped and Replaced by a Chair and Management Board

The Secretary of State for Justice, Liz Truss, has approved plans to overhaul the national governance structure for Independent Monitoring Boards (IMBs).

In July 2014 the Ministry of Justice received an independent report it had commissioned by Karen Page Associates (KPA) (read the report) which looked at the current national IMB system of monitoring in our prisons and in a severe condemnation of the current management and governance arrangements concluded that “critically, IMBs did not have enough credibility with key stakeholders” and that there should be, for the whole national IMB system, “urgent root and branch review and reform of sponsorship, governance and leadership.”

The KPA Review found among other things:

• Some members did not inspire confidence because of the way they undertook monitoring or because they seemed not to know enough about prisons or immigration removals systems. This minority could affect the way all members were perceived.
• There were unexplained inconsistencies between boards in the way they worked.
• Boards did not express their findings in a sufficiently compelling, evidence based way.
• The arrangements at national level for sharing information and reviewing findings between government and IMBs were, with some exceptions, not sufficiently focused and business-like. There were missed opportunities for cooperation and shared approaches with government and with other government sponsored independent bodies.

In response to the KPA Report the Ministry of Justice set up a closed, invitation-only, Governance Review with three suggested governance formats going forward.

Mark Leech, the Editor of The Prisons Handbook, and an invited contributor to the review said:

“The consultation proposed three potential models for IMB reformed national governance to address concerns around confused governance, leadership and accountability, the first two models really only consisted of a fudging of the current arrangements; Model 3 although not ideal represented the most deep-rooted governance reform – like the majority of the contributors to the Review I opted for option three and this has now been approved, with some minor changes, by the Secretary of State for Justice.”

Key features of the revised Model 3 include:

President and National Council replaced by a Chair (a part-time, paid public appointee) and Management Board (a mix of IMB members and Non-Executive Directors, all unpaid, each with their own specialism). The Management Board will be responsible for setting the policy and strategy, taking on a more executive role than the current National Council does and will be accountable to the Chair.

Management Board to be supported by a network of working groups and regional representatives (a function currently provided by the National Council) to support chairs and members in the regions.

IMBs continue to be supported by the Secretariat, with the head of the secretariat line-managed by a civil servant but task-managed by the chair of the management board, in accordance with directions set by the Management Board.

A new Governance Framework, sitting alongside the Monitoring Framework, to set clear roles and responsibilities for each part of the governance structure.

It is important to stress that the structure of IMBs (Chair, Vice Chair and Board Development Officer), their monitoring role and their right to inform the Minister of any concerns will not change under these proposals.

The Ministry of Justice has said that these changes will of course take time to implement and further changes may be required as the Prison Reform proposals take shape.

Commenting on the decision to implement a revised Model 3 Mark Leech said:

“In May this year, in The Prisons Handbook 2016, my Editorial posed the question as to whether the time had come for IMBs to be abolished as my view was that, as the KPA Review found, the IMB as a national organisation, lacked any credibility with prisoners and indeed with many prison staff too. My Editorial was followed by an article written by the then Chair of Hollesley Bay prison IMB Faith Spear, writing under the pseudonym of ‘Daisy Mallet’.

“Faith’s article, “Whistle Blower Without A Whistle”, exposed a shambolic system of monitoring in our prisons that was – as the KPA Review also found – unfit for purpose and in need of complete reform. Mrs Spear’s article lifted the lid on a system of prison monitoring in which IMB Members, despite their clear legal independence, were ‘gagged by grooming’ from speaking to the press and, among other things, were coerced in many cases from discharging their full monitoring functions by, for example, failing to visit the prison during night. “It was a powerful article, and one that set in motion a savage train of events which has seen Mrs Spear treated disgracefully; she is currently suspended from the IMB and facing disciplinary action at the end of this month.”

You can read the Editorial and Mrs Spear’s expose: here

By implementing Model 3, the new governance arrangements of the IMB will see the much-needed scrapping of the discredited and dysfunctional ‘IMB National Council’ and its completely ineffective ‘President’.

Mr Leech said: “Model 3, although the option that brings the most change, is not ideal – real reform will only come when the IMB are removed from the MOJ completely and placed within the Prisons Inspectorate, along with whom it forms a part of the 20-strong National Preventive Mechanism, which discharges custodial monitoring duties owed to the United Nations, but sadly that was not an option that was on the table.”

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As an aside, just look at these recall figures for women, teased out of the MoJ:-

Asked by Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) Asked on: 27 October 2016
Ministry of Justice Prisoners' Release: Females 

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many women were received into each prison under licence recall in the 12 months (a) prior to and (b) following the introduction of Transforming Rehabilitation.

Answered by: Mr Sam Gyimah Answered on: 07 November 2016 

The Government’s Transforming Rehabilitation programme included the extension of licensed supervision to those receiving sentences of under 12 months. This was brought into effect by the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014 in February 2015. Before that, the prison into which recalled offenders were received was not recorded centrally. The number of women received into each prison under licence recall for sentences of all lengths in the 12 months since February 2015 is provided in the table below.

Bronzefield 246
Eastwood Park 194
Foston Hall 120
Holloway 108
Low Newton 67
New Hall 159
Peterborough 159
Styal 211

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Meanwhile, the Justice Committee is due to start taking Oral Evidence as part of their Prison Reform Inquiry:-

The Justice Committee hears from Governors and Executive Governors of Reform Prisons.

Inquiry: Prison reform
Justice Committee
Ministry of Justice white paper: Prison Safety and Reform

The six Reform Prisons began operating this summer as part of the Government's prison reform programme. The Justice Committee is opening oral evidence for its prison reform inquiry by hearing the experiences and findings so far of their Governors and Executive Governors.

Witnesses

Tuesday 15 November 2016, Committee Room 6, Palace of Westminster

At 9.45am
Ian Bickers, Executive Governor, HMP Wandsworth
Nick Pascoe, Executive Governor, HMP High Down and HMP Coldingley
Jo Sims, Governor, HMP Coldingley
Louise Spencer, Governor, HMP High Down

At 10.40am
Ian Blakeman, Executive Governor, HMP Holme House and HMP & YOI Kirklevington Grange
Chris Dyer, Governor, HMP Holme House
Nigel Hirst, Governor, HMP Ranby
Angie Petit, Governor, HMP & YOI Kirklevington Grange
Neil Richards, Executive Governor, HMP Ranby

Trouble With Recall

Naturally focused as we are on TR and our fight for survival, it's easy to miss other stuff going on, such as this from Frances Crook in her latest blog at the Howard League. It seems Chris Grayling and the MoJ have another cunning plan up their sleeve, this time involving those recalled to prison:-

Our concerns about new Ministry of Justice measures to handle prisoners on their recall into custody

Thousands of people released from prison on fixed term licences are returned to prison each year at the request of their probation officers. The system allows for standard and emergency recalls straight back to prison with no consideration by a court. The reason for this is to ensure that the public can be protected. Nobody can object to that. But, nor, is it right or cost effective that people should be detained a moment longer than necessary or released at the end of their sentence without any supervision because nobody is able to make the judgement call that they are safe to be released again.

For the past forty years, a huge proportion of these cases have been reviewed by the Parole Board and many are re-released safely on licence. It is not unusual for a person to have been recalled following an arrest for a further offence which turns out to lead nowhere or on the strength of an unfounded allegation.

It was therefore a surprise to discover that three working days before it was due to be debated in the House of Lords, the government laid amendments to Part 1 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill introducing a whole new scheme for fixed term recalls to prison. They provide for the use of ‘recall adjudicators’ in determinate recall cases – any case where a prisoner serving a fixed term sentence is recalled to custody and falls to be considered for re-release on licence.

As Lord Faulks admitted in the House on 20 October 2014, there remains ‘unknown detail about the precise operation, impact and cost of the new model’. Nothing is known about this scheme other than that recall adjudicators will have ‘significant criminal justice experience’. There is nothing in the proposed amendments to say whether recall adjudicators would be impartial or independent, trained professionals or lay people; whether hearings would be ‘on the papers’ or oral, what powers recall adjudicators would have to require evidence and information or whether legal aid would be available for prisoners subject to it.

Yet it is quite clear that if passed, the amendments will enable the Secretary of State to hive off a section of work currently completed by the Parole Board and will provide the Secretary of State a wide discretion to set up a new scheme without further debate or discussion in parliament. The provisions are widely drafted and raise a number of concerns.

There is no provision for the process to be judicial and no provision for legal aid. Without safeguards, there is a real risk that these changes could see a vast increase in the prison population.

The work itself is not disappearing and on the government’s own analysis may well increase considerably as it rolls out its Transforming Rehabilitation programme and as a result of further aspects the Bill that will lower the test for recall to release from the risk of harm to the public to non-compliance with licence conditions. While the proposal provides the option for the parole board not to have to complete this work, there is nothing in this proposal that will result in a reduction in recalls. If the parole board does undertake the work, there is no point in introducing the scheme on the basis that it would lessen the burden on the parole board. If the parole board does not undertake this work, there will be the increased cost of recruiting and training new adjudicators and devising a new scheme.

Most frightening of all is the sheer disregard for the Parliamentary process demonstrated by the decision to present a scheme to peers for endorsement without any detail as to what it will involve or the consequences just three working days before report stage. At best, recall adjudicators will require all the financial and administrative costs of a new scheme. At worst they could result in the need for thousands more prison places in a system bursting at the seams.

Some Observations 18

I thought I'd better try and pen something in case people thought I'd been gagged. In truth I'm waiting, like many in probation I suspect, to hear exactly what Napo and the other unions have stitched-up with the Ministry of Justice. I gather the NNC meeting on Monday was unsatisfactory for a number of reasons, mostly to do with absences, that of delegates, the Napo General Secretary and crucially appendices B and C that deal with transfer of staff and pensions respectively.

With the clock ticking inexorably towards a decisive NEC vote scheduled for 17th September, it doesn't take a genius to see that the membership are not going to have long in which to absorb the details and voice an opinion. Apart from questioning the wisdom of going down this negotiating route in the first place and whilst supposedly fighting the TR proposals at the same time, I just don't understand why somebody doesn't tell Grayling to fuck off with his daft bullying timetable.

Anyway, one result of the meeting on Monday is that the cat is out of the bag regarding the indicative ballot turnout - it was 34%. 

Moving on to other matters that have caught my attention, I suspect I might not have been alone in having professional reasons for tuning in to watch the first episode of the Channel 4 series 'Burgled' set in Leeds, West Yorkshire. The city apparently remains a burglary hot spot and the series follows a dedicated police team tasked with catching those responsible. I found nothing particularly surprising from the first programme, apart that is from absolutely no mention of probation involvement in what is clearly an Integrated Offender Management initiative.

It would seem from twitter conversations that such is the determination of Chris Grayling and the MoJ to win the TR omnishambles war that orders have been issued prohibiting footage of probation staff involvement being aired. It would seem that our involvement is to be airbrushed out of the picture, bringing to mind similar propaganda tricks in Communist Russia. Utterly disgraceful if true, as we all know probation is a key element of IOM.

The Parole Board authorised the release of Jon Venables recently under yet another identity. I've been reading the very thorough report on the case as part of the Serious Further Offence investigations and it's particularly encouraging to read of the praise given to probation, and especially for a case that had no probation involvement from the beginning due to Jon's age.

I've always felt this was most unhelpful in a case which we all knew would eventually end up on our plate and result in a very unsettling transfer at an arbitrary age-related point. I find this revelation so shocking that I think I would have refused to take the case on:-

The assessments and work done during Jon Venables’ time at
Redbank were not shared with his subsequent supervisors to 
inform their understanding of the subject.  The reports seen by the 
Parole Board, including the several psychiatric evaluations, do not, 
however, contain any indication, even indirectly, that there was a 
sexual motive on the part of Jon Venables in committing the 
original offence or other warning that might have alerted his 
supervisors to potential abnormal sexual interests. (para 102, 104)

There is much in the report of interest, but I particularly noticed this other bit:-

No suitable individual was identified after 2004 to establish a long 
term mentoring arrangement that might have helped him cope 
better with the strains of living under his changed identity, his 
problem in balancing study and employment, and his issues with 
establishing a ‘normal’ lifestyle for a young single man of his age 
and social background.  Such support could also have eased the 
load of his offender manager in maintaining the appropriate 
boundary between offender manager and mentor. (para 97, 199)   

Without doubt there has always been a role for skilled volunteer input in probation work and it was most unwise for many Service's to take the decision some years ago to dispense with them. Of course their benefit has been rediscovered once more in recent time, raising the suspicion that it's resource-driven and politically-motivated as part of the 'Big Society'. Yes whatever happened to that big idea?

A great shame because volunteers carefully chosen can add so much to help achieve positive outcomes for clients, whilst giving a sense of purpose to many people with lots of spare unproductive time on their hands. As the report says, it also helps the PO enormously. 

Of course an excellent example of the volunteering ethos is provided by the increasing profile of Circles of Support and Accountability, a specialist charity closely linked to probation that works with sex offenders and their re-integration within society. The work was highlighted at the weekend in an article in the Independent:- 

Circles UK has been running these groups quietly in Britain for more than 10 years, but is so concerned about the hysteria around the subject that it usually shies away from publicity.

While befriending paedophiles may be a hard sell to the tabloid press, the statistics show that it works.

A review of a Circles project in the South-east found that none of its 71 past clients had made another contact offence over a four-and-a-half-year period." A control group of 71 criminals with a similar offending history committed 10 new offences in the same period.

The latest man Paul has agreed to help is Barry, a 69-year-old who is on the sex offenders' register for life after sexually assaulting young children, including his own son and stepson, for more than three decades.

but for me this quote from a volunteer serves as a warning that selection and training are extremely important and must have made the organiser cringe just a little:- 

Despite his disgust at Barry's actions, Paul is one of five volunteers who meet up with him every week to talk about his life. "I hate do-gooders and I don't usually volunteer for things, but I felt so strongly about this," Paul says. "He's a bastard and what he's done is awful and I'd love to wring his neck. But we can't kill him and we can't lock him up for life, so what are we going to do? The only answer is you try to help him not to do it again. To me there's no alternative."      

Out of Jail and On the Streets - Verdict

Now I've had chance to reflect on the BBC1 fly-on-the-wall documentary 'out of jail and on the streets',  I'm tempted to pass a few comments. It's on i-player here and a news item can be found here.

First off I think it confirms what many of us have suspected, namely that there's plenty of interesting story lines to have a go at. The production company did a good job and I think the edited version tries to be fair in terms of how the 'protagonists' are portrayed. Clients, bless 'em, just tend to say what they think with little or no insight into the irony of some of it, like the rapist who can't see what the problem is in 'going round to collect some things' from an ex whilst 'high' at 2 in the morning. Recall was entirely appropriate in my view.

The sex offenders featured in the programme give a flavour of what sort of issues probation face in supervising them in the community, but I'd have been happier had I seen some evidence of SOTP courses either whilst in prison or as licence conditions. It's no good just monitoring, we  also have to be doing some work that seeks to address the often distorted reasoning that lies behind behaviour. I'm probably being grossly unfair on a programme of only an hour's duration and without sight of the files, so I guess I'm making a case for a long-overdue series.  

As has been highlighted by a commentator to this blog, one danger in a programme like this is that the film crew will record the interview between officer and client, then get the client on their own to say 'what they really' think. So it was that we learnt that Dave regards it all as a 'game of cat and mouse' when 'messing' with probation and 'they only want to set us up to fail.' 

Having been imprisoned for the drunken joint kidnap of a guy, who is then tortured into supplying further alcohol, Dave explains with not untypical twisted logic that the offence wasn't alcohol-related - 'I just do bad things and the alcohol helps me to forget.' In the process of course he completely confirms the accuracy of his supervision plan that seeks to restrict his alcohol intake. One wonders again though what work was done with him whilst in prison, and indeed why there appears to be no licence requirement to attend an alcohol-offending programme?  

To be honest Dave did bother me because the team appeared not to know him. I wonder at what point the public protection team picked up the case and who if anyone visited him in prison? I've said it before and I say it again. In my book best practice is for the PSR author to see the case right through from initial interview to end-of-licence. This guy is going to need a fair amount of work and he needs the stability and consistency of an officer who gets to know him over time. Recall was sadly inevitable.

I think the point about the relationship between officer and client is admirably borne out by the sad case of Roger and his officer Vicky. What struck me most about this was that Vicky felt obliged to pass comment on the amount of care and work she had expended on her clients behalf. You just know that she was somehow made to feel a little uncomfortable about 'going the extra mile' and I find that very unfortunate indeed.

The officer should not be made to feel like that because I think most people can see that it all makes complete sense. Public protection cannot come 'just' from monitoring - G4S could do that heaven forfend - real public protection and effective rehabilitation comes from changing attitudes and fixing problems as well, and that takes compassion, skill and experience.  To me this programme began to give us a sense of the magic that is indeed 'probation.'  A good start, so more please BBC!  

PS To sign the petition go here.      
      

Recall - What's the Problem?

Once again the very popular website Prisoners Families Voices has returned to the thorny issue of recall. There's no question that numbers being recalled to prison for missing probation appointments have rocketed over recent years. A quick glance at the website will show just how strong feeling is about the issue, which on the face of it is surprising because it is quite straightforward. You get released automatically from prison part way through a sentence and one of the licence conditions is to report when required to probation. Missed appointments = recall - simples!  

This has always been the case for as long as I can remember, so what's the problem? Well again a quick glance at the complaints on PFV shows clearly that the reason so many appointments are missed is because the experience is viewed as utterly useless. We all know about the '5 minute interview' when the guy's mate doesn't even turn the engine off. Nothing meaningful can happen during this most fleeting of 'tick box' experiences and I think as a result it's quite understandable that clients say to themselves 'sod that for a game of soldiers - I'll not bother'. 

But that's not all. It's about the way clients are increasingly being treated nowadays by the modern probation service. Time after time the complaints on PFV revolve around endless changes of officer. Ever since the transition from the days when probation officers saw all clients, to the current position whereby they only see high risk cases, a lot of the others have been getting a raw deal in my view from a pool of ever-changing probation services officers. It's not their fault, but management have allowed a situation to develop whereby cases are merely seen as needing to be 'processed' in terms of making sure they report so as to achieve targets, but with little or no encouragement as to anything more constructive. 

I know I could be accused of making sweeping generalisations, but there's no doubt in my mind that for many, particularly low risk clients, the quality of engagement with the service is just not good enough. The complaints on PFV speak for themselves. Common sense says no meaningful work can be undertaken if a client keeps seeing different officers and the focus of attention is merely on just getting them to turn up. In such circumstances I can quite see why clients are disinclined to report than engage in a process that seems pointless. I think I'd be inclined to do the same, so angry would it make me feel.

I'm actually going to go a bit further and suggest that some officers actively strive to encourage non-reporting by subversive behaviour. I find it deeply offensive to be suggesting such a thing, but sadly I have rather too often witnessed the glee with which non-appearance is greeted. Of course recall 'gets shot' of a client for a period. 

So, in essence I feel the complaints being aired fairly regularly on the PFV website are justified and as a result deserve a comment from somebody who represents the Service nationally. Unfortunately I'm not at all sure who that person might properly be. That in itself is an extremely unsatisfactory state of affairs of course. But I'm sure senior people read this stuff on a daily basis, so I wonder if we can tempt any to put their head above the parapet for a response?         

Reality Imitating Fiction

Regular readers will recall my taking to task the BBC 1 four-part probation drama 'Public Enemies' for bearing little relation to reality. In addition to painting the extremely unlikely scenario whereby a life sentence prisoner is released back into the community where the index offence had been committed, it also strayed into the equally unlikely world of a sexual relationship developing between officer and client.

I guess it was bound to happen, but exceptions always prove the rule and here we have a case of a female probation officer indeed having an inappropriate relationship with a released life licence client. This highly unprofessional breach of trust only came to light because the client 'went on the run' after being informed by the officer that he was to be recalled to prison having been arrested for Driving over the Prescribed Limit. I guess it was this act that resulted in the offence of Wilful Misconduct in Public Office.

Setting aside the unforgivable crossing of professional boundaries, I notice that it's reported that a supporting letter from a colleague is quoted as saying 'how easily this might happen'. Now I suspect (and hope) that this refers to the act of informing the client, rather than sleeping with him. Having reflected carefully, I'm fairly sure I and many other officers might have done something very similar by informing clients either of an application for recall or of it's imminent granting, and possibly prior to the warrant being issued. In all cases the aim is not to tip the client off so that he 'does a runner', but rather to try and maintain trust with them by explaining the reasoning and support a voluntary surrender to custody. In this case the plan went awry because the guy 'wanted to say goodbye to a number of people' first.

It may sound naive, but I've never really thought that by doing such a thing I could be accused of Wilful Misconduct in Public Office. I've always thought it risky, but then much in this job is. The thing about recalling a client is that you still have to work with them afterwards and quite quickly prepare a plan for the Parole Board that sets out reasoned arguments regarding the behaviour that resulted in recall and how it can be constructively addressed. It will be appreciated that ideally this can only be achieved with the clients full cooperation, a process made almost impossible if they feel betrayed by you. Clearly a difficult balancing act, but one that's continually at the core of our work. 

If I'm honest I know full well that this won't be the first time a probation officer will have slept with a client. Nevertheless it's very rare and hugely disappointing for us all and although not a criminal offence, warrants instant dismissal. I note that in passing a suspended prison sentence with Unpaid Work and a six month Curfew, Judge Richard Foster told Luton Crown Court that "cases like this were more common among police or prison officers and to his knowledge no other probation officer had been charged with this offence."               

Whatever Happened to Parole?

I see that NAPO have decided to highlight the issue of the automatic release of prisoners at the half way stage in their sentence, irrespective of any concerns about the risk they may pose. As a consequence, greater numbers are now having to be recalled within days of release. The full briefing document can be accessed from the NAPO page and it gives 'chapter and verse' on some very disturbing cases indeed. 

Of course the situation used to be very different before the introduction of that part of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 relating to the release of prisoners. On 4th April 2005, for offences committed after this date, all determinate prisoners became eligible for release at the half way point automatically. This very helpful article in the prisoners newspaper 'Inside Time' explains what the position was for offences committed prior to this date:



"The Criminal Justice Act 1991 provided that any person serving a sentence of four years or more would be deemed a ‘long term’ prisoner. Under these provisions a prisoner would serve half of his designated period in custody and would then become eligible to apply for early release on parole licence. If he were successful in that application he would remain on licence to the three quarter point of his sentence when his licence would expire. The final quarter of his sentence would be the ‘at risk’ period – a period that would only take effect if the prisoner were convicted of another offence."

As all probation officers at the time knew, this aspect of the 1991 Act was not only extremely useful in motivating prisoners to 'behave' during their sentence, it was also an inducement to participate constructively in courses and programmes designed to alter or improve their thinking and attitudes. The parole application process was taken very seriously by all concerned and necessitated full reports being prepared by probation, psychology and programme staff, to name but a few. The resulting parole dossier would duly be sent off for consideration by the Parole Board, along with the report prepared by the 'independent'. This refers to a personal visit and interview by an independent member of the Parole Board (ie not a member of the Reviewing Panel) in each case.

This system was well understood, worked well and if early release on Parole Licence was granted, considerably more licence conditions could be attached than is possible under the present system. So if it worked so well, why was it changed I hear you ask? The answer of course was connected to cost and the urgent need to reduce the bulging prison population at the time. I think something was said about the need for 'simplification' as a smokescreen and justification, but it yet again serves as a classic example of the perils of allowing politicians to meddle with the Criminal Justice System.

Undoubtedly we are now experiencing what the then Labour government would say was an unexpected consequence and what we would say was utterly predictable, but sadly there is no sign that the present government will admit there is any problem at all. The attempt at sponsoring a Private Members Bill in Parliament will get nowhere of course, but it will serve to get the subject on the agenda as we move towards an environment of privatisation. Should put the wind up prospective bidders I would have thought.

How Others See Us

According to their website, the Johnson Partnership describes itself "As the largest criminal firm in England and Wales, we cover the entire country and have lawyers specialising in every area of criminal law practice". They go on to say they "have teams of criminal defence solicitors in Nottingham, Derby, Mansfield and Chesterfield". Not quite the geographic spread I was expecting for a practice that covers the 'entire country' but then they seem to be an outfit that takes some pride in handling various aspects of Prison Law and especially Recall.

What particularly caught my attention and brought me up with a start is their view of the modern-day Probation Service

"The changing role of the Probation Service has meant that many prisoners released on Parole are faced with Probation Officers who feel more like the worst kind of Police Officer. More people than ever are being recalled to Prison for alleged breaches of licence. As some of the periods of recall are for no more than 4 weeks, it is hard for Prisoners to overturn a misguided decision for their recall to Prison.

At The Johnson Partnership our Prison Law team have successfully appealed a number of decisions to recall Prisoners on licence, either because there has in fact been no breach of licence conditions, or because a more appropriate course of action should have been taken by the Probation Service".

Trying to drum up business is fair enough, but surely it's going a bit too far to say that "many prisoners released on Parole are faced with Probation Officers who feel more like the worst kind of Police Officer".

Whilst rooting around on their website I was interested to read about their success in 'Cutting Parole Board red tape". They explain that

"Jessica Rogers, who joined The Johnson Partnership in March 2010, has had the unprecedented accolade of having an article published in “Inside Time”, the national newspaper for prisoners.  Jessica has been successful in short circuiting the customary process for moving IPP prisoners to open prison conditions.  By making representations directly to the Ministry of Justice, rather than pursuing the usual cumbersome Parole Board process, she has met with speedy and spectacular success".

For all those colleagues who have IPP cases on their caseload, the short piece is worth reading in full, especially as it concludes with the astounding statement that

"By actively pursuing the Ministry of Justice route, Jess has been able to achieve the best results in the shortest possible time.  The expensive, lengthy, frustrating bureaucratic Parole Board process could become a thing of the past for model prisoners with positive future plans".

Blimey!