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Plans to allow thousands more criminals in England and Wales to serve their sentence in the community risk “catastrophic consequences” unless the Probation Service is overhauled, a watchdog has told the Guardian.
Martin Jones, HM chief inspector of probation, said government plans to hand responsibility for overseeing offenders from prisons to probation officers meant the risk “is carried directly into the community”.
He called for extra funds, greater staff numbers, a slashing of red tape and better retention of experienced staff, saying that “any response to simply shift demand from prison to probation will be ineffective at best, and dangerous at worst”.
His comments come as Shabana Mahmood prepares to announce an overhaul of criminal justice on Thursday after the publication of an independent review carried out by David Gauke, a former Conservative justice secretary.
Judges and magistrates in England and Wales will be told to move away from handing out short custodial sentences in favour of community based alternatives, increasing pressure on the probation service.
Tens of thousands of criminals are expected to be tagged and overseen by probation officers in the community instead of being kept in jail.
In comments before Gauke’s formal announcement on Thursday morning, Jones said: “Tomorrow’s independent sentencing review has the opportunity to set out proposals to rebalance our criminal justice system, ensure those who commit crimes are properly punished, and keep our communities safe – this opportunity must be seized.
“However, if any reforms are to succeed, they must follow urgent improvements to tackle ongoing failings within the Probation Service, which remains under immense pressure. Too few staff, with too little experience, managing too many cases, means inspections routinely reveal significant deficits in work to protect the public, and missed opportunities to tackle reoffending. The clock is ticking to address these issues, and we have seen no evidence of improvement.”
Jones, a former chief executive of the Parole Board, said government plans will expose the public to greater risk.
“My concern as chief inspector is that probation’s risk, unlike prisons, is carried directly in the community, which means avoidable mistakes can have catastrophic consequences. Therefore, any response to simply shift demand from prison to probation will be ineffective at best, and dangerous at worst.”
The government must pile more resources in so there are more staff, with more experience, and with better services to tackle the underlying causes of offending, he said.
“Detailed attention needs to be paid to ensuring the Probation Service has the capacity to cope with the work required, and the expertise and funding to ensure better delivery, interventions, and outcomes,” he said.
Ministers must also cut through red tape and form-filling for probation officers if they are to spend more time monitoring dangerous criminals, he said.
“The Probation Service will need to work much more closely and effectively with the police and other agencies to protect the public from harm. Our inspections find that complicated and ineffective systems too often prevent probation officers from communicating and sharing information about risk effectively,” he said.
Gauke’s recommendations are expected to include allowing prisoners to earn their freedom after serving a third of their sentences under new minimum and maximum sentence plans.
He will also say that magistrates should be encouraged to defer sentencing for some offenders for up to 12 months, instead of the current six, and encourage wider use of deferred sentences for pregnant women or those with substance dependencies.
Reports this week claimed that the government had ordered tens of thousands of extra tags, which will be used to monitor offenders in the community. Gauke will call for suspended sentences to be made available for custodial sentences of up to three years, instead of the current two.
Projections have shown that prisons are on course to run out of space by November.
