The Guardian has argued in an editorial that the government must show community supervision can work if it is to win support for releasing prisoners early, as thousands prepare to leave custody and a ballot on industrial action is expected.
According to the editorial, freeing thousands of prisoners early was always going to be difficult for a new prime minister. It says Andy Burnham’s choice to exclude those convicted of manslaughter and certain other offences made political sense, but warns that reducing the numbers may have intensified overcrowding inside jails, with about 2,000 offenders due to be released this month.
The editorial describes both the prison and probation services as under enormous pressure and calls for urgent government action to strengthen each of them.
It cites the latest annual report from the prisons watchdog, which it says set out a grim picture of widespread drug use, organised crime and governors losing time to form-filling. The report warned that managers in the Prison Service appeared to prefer managing crises to making improvements, the editorial notes. It adds that conditions have been permitted to decline alarmingly, despite efforts by campaigners and writers such as Jimmy McGovern to draw attention to them.
By contrast, the editorial calls the criticism of the probation service for England and Wales in the latest Institute for Government (IfG) report measured. Probation’s problems draw less attention and no senior leaders are singled out, it says, yet analysis of the effect of sentencing reforms, together with continuing staff shortages and tagging failures, remains a cause of very serious concern. The editorial describes probation as an essential public service that was already in serious difficulty before its caseload expanded enormously.
The editorial traces the difficulties to the failed part-privatisation of the service and highlights the IfG’s finding on the strain caused by “near-constant organisational change”. One outcome, it says, has been de-skilling, with staff depending more on risk-management protocols than on their own judgment. Recalls to prison for breached conditions rather than new offences weaken rehabilitation and aggravate overcrowding, the editorial says, while a workforce stretched too thin has insufficient time to build relationships and appears unable to escape the cycle.
Calling the failure to fit 45% of tags on time plainly unacceptable, the editorial says ministers must get a grip and explain what is happening. It endorses the IfG’s recommendation of further sentencing reforms to make the system clearer, and agrees that the expanding gap between sentences imposed in court and the time actually served risks damaging trust and angering victims.
The editorial also argues that licence periods should conclude at the point supervision ends, saying the present arrangement maintains a pretence that more people are serving community sentences than is actually true, which places probation in a false position.
On the pay dispute, which it calls the immediate challenge, the editorial says ministers should commit to rebuilding capacity and filling vacancies as part of any settlement. Looking further ahead, it says probation needs closer links to local services that help offenders get back on their feet, and notes that the merger with the Prison Service has failed to produce the gains that were promised.
Managing risks to the public must remain a priority, the editorial says, but it backs Enver Solomon, who leads the criminal justice charity Nacro, in arguing for a more “person-centred” approach to probation work. It says no one who knows anything about prisons believes they are fulfilling their rehabilitation remit, and calls for a renewed focus on purposeful activity inside jails. As growing numbers of prisoners are diverted towards probation, the editorial concludes, the service needs the resources to deliver what is asked of it.
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