Manage Offenders

We assess the reasons for offenders committing crime and put into action plans to reduce the risk of offenders under supervision re-offending and committing harm to others.

The successful delivery of probation interventions rests on the foundation of careful and accurate assessment by the offender manager. In the process of preparing assessments, the offender manager will have collected as much relevant information as possible about the offender including full details of the offender's criminal history, their background, and factors linked to why the individual is committing crime. It is the task of the offender manager to use the initial assessment to produce a sentence plan that is matched to the offender's needs and identifies appropriate priorities.

Supervision

In order to manage the risk of re-offending offenders need to be closely supervised. During 2007/8, at any one time, Wiltshire Probation Area had responsibility for up to 1800 offenders under supervision, including those on prison licence (release from prison), or subject to unpaid work. Wiltshire Probation Area staff are employed to manage and supervise court orders and post-sentence custodial release licences. These ensure that offenders are held accountable for their actions as well as receive services and support that will enable them to move away from further offending. In supervising every offender, Probation staff are constantly balancing their three core responsibilities:

• to protect the public
• to ensure that victim awareness is fundamental to all that we do
• to put together a sentence plan that focuses on those areas where the offender needs help and support to move away from further offending – such as drugs/alcohol misuse, housing problems, mental health issues, thinking and behaviour problems.

Protecting the public is a statutory aim of the National Probation Service. Rehabilitation of offenders is the best guarantee of long term public protection.

Resources must follow risk, and our greatest effort will always revolve around potentially high risk sexual and violent offenders. The management of our resources will always be applied where the risk appears to be the greatest.

Probation, the Prison Service and Police all work closely to manage offenders on their release from prison and when they are in the community. Arrangements in each probation and police area ensure that specialist panels carefully and regularly assess individual offenders and exchange and use information to combine supervision and surveillance.

For more information about Multi-Agency Public Protection Panels (MAPPA) please follow these weblinks:

• Ministry of Justice website
• Wiltshire Constabulary website

Enforcement

Offender attitudes and behaviour cannot be changed unless offenders are seen on a regular basis and know that if they fail to attend appointments they will be returned to court or prison.

Enforcement and compliance are key elements of the role of the offender manager whose task it is to ensure that offenders report in accordance with national standards which state that as a minimum offenders should report to their probation officer on a weekly basis during the first three months of supervision after which frequency can be reviewed depending on assessment of risk in each individual case. Where offenders fail to attend without a good reason after one warning offenders will be immediately reported to courts or the parole board, returned to court or recalled back to prison within 10 working days of the failure to attend (referred to as 'breaching' offenders).

Where offenders pose particular public protection risks, offender managers can apply to have a prison licence immediately revoked and the offender directly arrested.

During 2005/6 Wiltshire Probation Area breached 99% of offenders within the 10 working day standard. Community penalties and prison release licences can only be effective when backed up by rigorous enforcement and compliance expectations.