Supervision

In order to manage the risk of re-offending offenders need to be closely supervised. During 2005/6, at any one time, Wiltshire Probation Area had responsibility for up to 1800 offenders under supervision 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.

For a copy of the Probation Bench Handbook, please visit our Information Centre.

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: