UNAFEIThe Japan Criminal Policy Society Foundation
The Asia Crime Prevention Foundation

Criminal Policy Public Lecture January 2011

Community Involvement in Offender Treatment“CHANGING LIVES AND MAKING COMMUNITIESSAFER: STRENGTHENING REHABILITATION THROUGHINVOLVING COMMUNITIES IN ENGLAND AND WALES”

Steve Pitts
National Offender Management Service
Ministry of justice
United Kingdom

I. INTRODUCTION

Distinguished Directors, Deputy Directors, Professors, participants, colleagues
and guests. I am both honoured and delighted to be here to present today to such an
informed audience at the Ministry of Justice and under the auspices of the excellent
work of UNAFEI, the Japan Criminal Policy Society Foundation and the Asia Crime
Prevention Foundation.

The topic is Changing Lives and Making Communities Safer: Strengthening
Rehabilitation through Involving Communities.

I will be speaking about the experience of England and Wales – that part of
the United Kingdom within which my organisation, the National Offender
Management Service – or NOMS – operates. The effective rehabilitation of offenders
is a critical matter - one that effects not only offenders, but of course their victims,
families, and directly and indirectly communities and society as a whole. Successful
rehabilitation means less victims, more settled communities and the potential for exoffenders to contribute beneficially to society. The benefits are not only personal andsocial: Financially, in the United Kingdom, we have estimated that the cost of reoffending by prisoners is about £11 billion per year.

We also know that it is possible to improve rehabilitation and so to reduce reoffending. Our more recent research shows that we can reduce re-offending by
between 10 and 30%, against a predicted rate, by using the most suitable approaches.

2But we also know that this impact cannot be achieved by the correctional services
alone. And that is certain. Our natural logic is born out by research. Successful
rehabilitation requires prisons and probation services to be working with offenders inways that challenge them and support them, that provide a sense of direction and hope,and that help to connect them to organisations, resources and individuals. These
support the sense of strength in community and the belief that the individuals efforts
will succeed. And this work requires community involvement, my subject today.

Before I start to speak in detail, I would like to emphasise one other point.
That is the enormous value that I, and my organisation, places on the opportunity
offered by UNAFEI, The Japan Criminal Policy Society Foundation, and The Asia
Crime Prevention Foundation to participate in international learning and collaborationin an event such as this:I have been fortunate to visit a Detention facility in Japan, and on previous
occasions and I hope later today, to meet with Volunteer Probation Officers. Together
with the work of the Ministry of Justice and the host organisations it is quite clear that
we are able to speed up the pace of exchange and mutual learning through these
events. I am extremely grateful for this opportunity. I very much hope that you willfind some of what I have to say relevant. What is entirely clear to me is that I and myown organisation and country will benefit from these exchanges – and I am extremely
grateful to all of you for making this possible.

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A. Presentation Overview

A word about the structure of this paper:(i)

Following this brief introduction I will present an introduction to NOMS, I
then want to explore quite briefly some of the major developments of thelast few years in our understanding of what is effective in changing lives
and making communities safer. This has been a time of investment andchange in our prison and probation services, including a significant growthin what is known as evidence based practice or “What Works”. The major
focus of this work is reducing re-offending, but enhancing Public
Protection has been another very important aim.

(ii)

I will turn then to the main part of my presentation, the “Essential
Partnership” between Prisons, Probation and Communities. These are thepartnerships without which we know for certain the success of thestatutory services will be at best steps partial. This paper will focus
especially on work with the private and civil sectors, although it isimportant to acknowledge that public partnerships, for example with police,
local authorities, social services, and health services may also be critical inmany cases, including public protection work with more serious,
especially violent, cases.

4II. THE NATIONAL OFFENDER MANAGEMENT SERVICE

A. What is NOMS?

The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) is new. It was created in
April 2008 as an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice with the goal of helping
prison and probation services work together effectively and efficiently to manage
offenders throughout their sentences.

The Director General of NOMS is responsible to the Lord Chancellor andSecretary of State for Justice and sits on the Board of the Ministry, chaired by thePermanent Secretary. The responsibility of the NOMS Agency, on behalf of theSecretary of State, is to deliver the sentences and orders of the courts of England andWales by:

commissioning adult offender services in custody and the community frompublic, private and civil society organisations;

providing the public prison service; andoverseeing the Trusts which provide the public probation services.

In operating through providers and partners in the public, private and civilsociety sectors, NOMS endeavours to manage offenders in an integrated way. Whatwork needs to be done - and who does the work - is based on evidence and driven by
ensuring value for money for the public.

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NOMS manages offenders throughout both their custodial and community
sentence, working with around 260,000 offenders a year. We carry out prison
sentences in England and Wales: there are 135 prisons of which 124 are run by the
public sector and 11 by private contractors. We also manage offenders on community
sentences, and provide services to offenders, victims, witnesses and the courts. Thereare 35 probation areas – areas which became Trusts during 2010 – a change designed
to provide an increased level of independence and clear accountability for delivery,
whether by the Trust or through its partners.

Courts are advised through NOMS by the preparation and presentation of Pre
Sentence Reports. These reports are prepared by Probation Officers, consulting withand drawing information widely from the community. This is often the first stage ofcommunity involvement. Reports may make recommendations on sentence andsentence content, and this leads to the next part of the paper

III. THE SENTENCING FRAMEWORK

A. The Sentencing Framework

The England and Wales sentencing framework, like the effective practice andresettlement frameworks which follow, has a relatively recent genesis. The framework
was designed with a number of purposes of sentencing in mind, and these are set out
in the 2003 Criminal Justice Act:

1. The Purposes of Sentencing

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The 2003 Criminal Justice Act sets out the five purposes of sentencing:the punishment of offenders;

the reduction of crime (including its reduction by deterrence);the reform and rehabilitation of offenders;the protection of the public; andmaking reparation by offenders to persons affected by their offences.

A number of important principles underpin the sentencing framework. These
include the need to ensure that sentences are fair and proportional to the offence, andthat sentences of imprisonment are delivered in a seamless fashion from prison to thecommunity as a “whole sentence”. Purposes of sentencing should be addressed inboth the custodial and aftercare stages of the sentence.
2. Prison Sentences
The structure of prison sentence depends on sentence length. Implementation isprogressive:(a) Under 12 months (currently no supervised licence): The intention of
the act is:Custody period 2-13 weeks, Licence period 6-9 months



Court sets licence conditions



Executive recall(b) 12 months or longer imprisonment7Are served half in custody and half in communityCase Manager agrees intervention plan and conditions



Executive recall(c) Intermittent and Suspended (court handles breach) options(d) In the case of life, indeterminate and extended sentences for serious
and public protection cases, the Parole Board decides the release date.

The intention of the Act is that many of the options applicable to community
sentences are also available on post-release licence.

4. Community Sentences

Since the implementation of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, there has been a single
community order for offenders aged 18 or over that can comprise up to 12
requirements depending on the offence and the offender. These are:

unpaid work (formerly community service/community punishment) – a
requirement to complete between 40 and 300 hours’ unpaid work;

activity – for example to attend basic skills classes;



programme – there are several designed to reduce the prospects ofreoffending;

prohibited activity – requirement not do so something that is likely to lead tofurther offender or nuisance;curfew – electronically monitored;

exclusion – not much used as no reliable electronic monitoring yet available;8residence – requirement to reside only where approved by probation officer;

mental health treatment (requires offender’s consent);drug rehabilitation (requires offender’s consent);

alcohol treatment (requires offender’s consent);supervision – meetings with probation officer to address needs/offending
behaviour;attendance centre – three hours of activity, usually on Saturday afternoons,
between a minimum of 12 hours and a maximum of 36 in total..

Typically, the more serious the offence and the more extensive the offender’sneeds, the more requirements there will be. Most orders will comprise one or two
requirements but there are packages of several available where required. The court
tailors the order as appropriate through the guidance of the pre-sentence report.

Whilst the 2003 Act continues to provide the main sentence framework for thework of the prison and probation services, the new Government has introduced a
Green Paper which may lead to significant change including an increased emphasis on
restorative justice. Community involvement may already be an important aspect ofdelivery of almost all requirements. The Green Paper makes clear this is likely toincrease further still, including creating more opportunities for civil society
organisations and volunteers to be involved in rehabilitation

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IV. WHAT WORKS TO REDUCE RE-OFFENDING AND PROTECT THE
PUBLIC?

NOMS has introduced three systems to reduce re-offending. All three have an
impact on how the organisation approaches communities:



An Offender Assessment System (“OASys”) - designed to assess risk andneeds and to inform case management

The National Offender Management Model – intended to manage offenders
safely and effectively, including managing prisoners consistently and fairly
from prison to the community and ensuring an action plan is developed,
implemented and reviewed.

Interventions - including unpaid work, employability programmes, andaccredited programmes to address a wide range of offending-related or“criminogenic” needs including “thinking skills” such as aggression control,
victim empathy and problem solving.

However evidence also tells us that effective interventions are less likely to workon their own. In order for interventions to be effective, most offenders need to feel
motivated, to have a sense of hope and belief in change, and that they will succeed in
the community. They need both “Human Capital” and Social Capital” (ideas to befound in the more recent theories on desistence from offending). Involving
communities is absolutely vital therefore in making links in terms of community

10integration and social capital, Links with supportive members of the community canalso play a valuable role in Human Capital.

A. The OASys Assessment System

OASys has been developed jointly by the prison and probation services. It isan IT-based system which assesses offending-related need and risk of reconviction
and serious harm. There is on-going validation of accuracy against actual reconviction.
The OASys tool also guides individual sentence planning, measures change, andprovides management information. Data is aggregated centrally, regionally andlocally to support analysis and service planning – of NOMS and stakeholders.

OASys measures a wide range of factors statistically shown to be relevant tooffending. These include education, training and employability, accommodation,
financial management and income, relationships, lifestyle and associates, drug andalcohol mis-use, emotional well-being, and thinking skills and attitudes.

The risk assessment element measures harm to the public, children, staff,
prisoners, offenders themselves, and to adults known to the offender, indicating
whether risk is low, medium, high or very high. Action to manage risk is thentriggered including through MAPPA arrangements described later.

OASys data may be analysed in many ways: Data is able to demonstrate theoffending-related needs of a national probation sample by type of need and by gender.
The data might also, for example, be analysed by prison or probation caseload or by11

region or city. Our OASys data shows that the most common needs of offenders,
related to their offending, include education, employment, with a wide range of otherneeds including “thinking skills” (such as problem solving) , accommodation anddrug problems not far behind. This complexity of need makes our work more difficult,and influences consideration of the aims of community organisations, across all
sectors, with whom we work. This point will be returned to later.

V. SOCIAL EXCLUSION AND COMMUNITY REINTEGRATION

A. Development of the Overall Approach

I would now like to touch briefly on the NOMS approaches to social exclusion,community reintegration and resettlement.

Genesis of the resettlement and community reintegration framework has
followed a similar timescale to the sentencing and what works frameworks. In 2001
the Government’s Social Exclusion Unit (SEU) published a report on prisoner
resettlement and social exclusion. The findings were startling and showed, forexample, that prisoners were far more likely than the general population to be
unemployed (67% of prisoners - pre-sentence - and 5% of the general public
respectively), to have no qualifications, to be homeless, and to suffer from mental
disorders.

12The NOMS reintegration and resettlement framework is based on the Social
Exclusion Unit’s work. The report, which was researched and prepared in close
collaboration with the Prison and Probation Services, proposed a needs-based“pathway” approach through which offenders’ needs are addressed via crossgovernment agreement and action.

As noted by Maguire and Raynor (2006), the SEU’s location in the office of
the Deputy Prime Minister gave the recommendations political weight and allowed
development of a cross-departmental approach to social inclusion and reducing reoffending. A national strategy and action plan on reducing re-offending (2004)
extended the pathway approach to community sentences.

The resettlement framework comprises seven rehabilitation “pathways” for men andwomen. Each pathway addresses areas of work critical to prisoners and to work withoffenders in the community) The pathways support close work between prisons andprobation areas to ensure that pathways are continuous from custody to community.
The pathways are:


Accommodation



Education, training and employment

Health

Drugs and alcoholFinanceFamiliesAttitudes, thinking and behaviour

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Two additional pathways have recently been added for work with women,
including attention to abuse and domestic violence.

The pathways provide us with clear and impartial evidence on which to basepriorities in strategy, policy and practice, including our work with communities.

VI. STRENGTHENING REHABILITATION THROUGHINVOLVING COMMUNITIESI come now to the core of the paper – strengthening rehabilitation throughinvolving communities - which addresses a range of approaches to work with theprivate, public and civil sectors of society in order to meet those objectives of reduced
reoffending and public protection. This paper will focus on involvement of the private
sector and civil society, but it is important to note that this involvement is supported
by linkages across the public sector, for example in relation to statutory health or
employment services, and in relation to the more serious public protection cases
where multi-agency arrangements involving the police and other services aredemonstrating value.

A. Work with the Private Sector

As noted at the outset, NOMS is a commissioning agency. Whilst the large
majority of prisons are directly managed by the agency, eleven out of 135 are14

privately operated. These eleven prisons are run by three companies. Electronic
Monitoring is also delivered by the private sector and other areas of work are being
considered. Whilst this involvement of the private sector as managers and delivers ofservices for offenders has significant benefits, it is another kind of involvement that I
want to focus on today – the involvement of companies in the community in supportof offender rehabilitation.

Some of the most innovative and beneficial examples of private sector
involvement in work to reduce reoffending and social exclusion have been in the fieldof improving prisoner employment.

The Corporate Alliance is a banner for the Government’s employment’s
employer engagement activities for offenders. It includes partnerships with private,public and voluntary sector organisations to improve the skills and employmentoutcomes for offenders. It seeks to:encourage more employers to employ and support offenders during theprocess of finding and retaining employment;

support and disseminate good practice involving employers improving
the skills and employment of offenders; anduse employers to ‘market’ the Corporate Alliance to other employers.

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There are three levels of engagement that enable employers to get involved
with offenders in ways that best suits them. These are:

Level One – activities to support improvement in employability, focusing
on donating materials that can be used to train offenders, and donating
staff time for interview training, CV preparation, and for mentoring
offenders;

Level Two – activities in support of designing and delivering training
programmes, including paid work placements; andLevel Three – delivering “real life” employment in prisons (something
we are keen to increase) in preparation for release and recruiting directlyfrom prisons and probation.

Promotion of the Corporate Alliance at national and regional level has resulted
in over 100 employers, who are already involved with offenders or planning to get
involved, using their involvement to promote the case with other employers.

To ensure that developments to engage with employers are informed andsteered by employers a Reference Group, chaired by a business leader, consisting ofmajor as well as medium and small employers from the private, public and voluntary
sectors has been established.

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(i) Business in the Community

Business in the Community (BIC) is an independent business-led charity withmore than 830 Companies in membership. Through its “Unlocking Talent”
programme, BIC aims to develop skills & talent of workforce as a part of its members
work in support of Corporate Social Responsibility. BIC has a specific offenderemployment initiative: This work is itself an example of partnership between NOMS
and the private sector: work on employing ex-offenders is sponsored by the Barrow
Cadbury Trust.

Business in the community has a clear offender-employment perspective:“Through its member companies, Business in the Community works to improve theability of ex-offenders to find employment. A good stable job is the single greatest
factor in reducing reoffending. Not only does it provide individuals with the necessary
resources and self-esteem to improve their lives but benefits all sections of society
through reduced levels of crime.”

Another perspective addresses direct benefits to the employer:“We share in common with most employers a recurring headache – the recruitment
and retention of staff, and we have had to learn to think beyond the traditional

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recruitment routes. There is undoubtedly a large pool of under-utilised skilled men
and women in our prisons who are due for release into your communities, and who
are keen and willing to work. Those we have employed have been exemplary
employees.”

Business in the Community is clear about the business case for employing exoffenders. Arguments in support of the case include(a) Savings to Private Sector through crime reduction: Crime costs business£19 billion year, re-offending by ex-prisoners costs £11 billion year. Exoffenders in work are 33% - 50% less likely to re-offend and someschemes reduce risk to 10%(b) Recruitment cost savings of 40% - 60% have been identified(c) Mentoring ex-offenders brings skills and experience benefits for existing
employees, including in management, communication, listening and teambuilding(ii) Examples of Corporate Involvement in Training or Employing Exoffenders include:(a) NOMS prisoner retail contract with DHL/Booker (supply chain
management) employs some 500 prisoners in DHL supervised facilities
across a number of prisons;(b) Travis Perkins (tool hire and builders merchants) opened their first training
centre in HMP Stocken just over a year ago and has already expanded into18

(c) Timpson’s (shoes) now have two “Academies” (at Liverpool andWandsworth prisons), demonstrating a strong interest in the rehabilitationof offenders. The Director of the company has issued a statement of
support for employing ex-offenders:“I find the staff we’ve recruited from prisons are among thebest colleagues we’ve got. We see this as a great way of
not only helping people but of getting people to work for us. 75% of those whojoin us from prison are still with us after 6 months”(d) Morrisons (retail) runs a pre-release training course in 3 prisons leading toemployment on release. Significantly, the company achieves a 80%
success rate in retention.
(e) The Compass Group “Rehab” project employs serving female prisoners ina defence establishment where they learn catering and related skills.
(f) Toyota supports a purpose-built workshop for young offenders offering the“Toyota Modern Apprenticeship”

Recognising employers’ needs and concerns in relation to risk is a fundamental
aspect of gaining employer confidence.

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Disclosure of Criminal Records is set out in the Rehabilitation of Offenders
Act 1974, updated by the Criminal Records Bureau, launched in 2002. Both an
Advisors Guide and an Offenders guide are available, providing information, andadvice on previous convictions in relation to CV preparation and interviews.

B. Work with Civil Society Organisations, Social Enterprises, and Volunteers

NOMS attaches very great importance to the involvement of civil society. In
October 2008 the Ministry of Justice and NOMS published the action plan ‘Working
with the third sector to reduce re-offending – securing effective partnerships 20082011’.

Aims include to inform strategic and operational policy by providing advice
on reducing re-offending from a third sector perspective, overseeing progress on 3rd
sector reducing re-offending strategy, and promote potential, diversity, volunteering,
good innovative practice, social enterprises.

NOMS works with civil society organisations at national level and locally.
Examples include:(i) CLINKS, at national level, delivers an umbrella organisation role,
supporting other third sector organisations that work with offenders and their families.
Over nine hundreds voluntary organisations are responsible for more than two
thousands projects that provide services to offenders. CLINKS role includes to20

promote the work of Civil Society organisations, to facilitate effective partnerships,
and to undertake research and development

As well as supporting civil society, including mentor, organisations, CLINKS
estimate that about three quarters of prisoners would be willing to do voluntary work
if it were available. Prisoners provide an increasingly rich source of volunteers –working as peer mentors sometimes alongside paid or other voluntary staff. In total,
more than seven thousand volunteers contribute to the rehabilitation of offenders
nationally.

(ii) NACRO directly delivers a range of services which support the work ofother organisations working with offenders n the public, private or civil society
sectors. Services include:(a) Resettlement consultancy in prisons - working closely with prison
governors and other prison staff to help develop positive regimes with resettlement
advice projects.
(b) Resettlement training - regular training courses at the Prison Service
College and at individual prisons, including training prisoners as peer advisers.
NACRO has developed specialist training material, including on dealing with older
prisoners and managing money.
© Resettlement Plus Helpline offers information and advice to professionals
working with prisoners and ex-offenders – as well as to individuals and their friends
and family members.
(d) Resettlement Service Finder. This online database holds details of morethan 10,000 community services for ex-offenders21

(e) Resettlement provision in prisons. NACRO runs resettlement advice
services in nearly 40 prisons.

(iii) SOVA. “Supporting Others through Volunteer Action” is a leading
national volunteer mentoring organisation working with those socially andeconomically disadvantaged in England and Wales. It delivers more than 60 projects:(iv) St Giles Trust. The St Giles Trust delivers a range of services to serving
prisoners and following release, including to short-term prisoners who do not receive
statutory support from the probation service. One of the most innovative approaches
is the Peer Advice Project. This meets demand for advice services amongst the prison
population by using an under-used resource - serving prisoners. It trains serving
prisoners to NVQ Level 3 in Information, Advice and Guidance and enables them tohelp other prisoners by gaining valuable practical experience as part of the vocational
element of the course.

The course is externally verified by Advice UK and is an excellent way of
improving the skills of serving prisoners and preparing them for employment upon
release.

The Peer Advice Project was initially set up to address the high levelsof homelessness amongst the prison population by training serving prisoners
to act as housing advisors. However, in some prisons advisors cover otherareas such as employment and training opportunities.

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Peer Advisors often find that they are regarded as highly credible,
trusted sources of support as they are serving prisoners themselves. This is areal strength of the project and one the St Giles Trust aims to replicate throughour other services. Other prisoners in open prisons undertake the course on
day release at the organisations Head Office in south London.

(v) Free As a Bird. Continuing the theme of peer support, “Free as a Bird” is a
project for woman offenders and ex-offenders in London. The website is for women
who have experience of the criminal justice system who can use the website to sharethoughts. Peers advise each other on resettlement issues, and pass on practicalinformation, drawing on the strengths that come from having shared some of the same
experiences and found solutions.

Social Enterprises(i) What are Social Enterprises?

Social Enterprises have the following characteristics:



They are independently constituted businesses, driven by a business agenda,
and aiming to meet social as well as financial objectives.



They make profits or surpluses that are re-invested into the business to support
its social purpose.



They are socially owned and accountable to a wider community through amembership and democratic structure.

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The benefits of social enterprises include cost savings, building links with local
communities, innovation and creativity. NOMS research has recently shown that 62%
of Probation areas are involved in Social Enterprise (about 40% of them connectedwith Community Payback). About 53% of Prisons are involved. However 47% ofprisons and 95% of prisons would like to expand that number.

(ii) Examples of Projects operating at Local Level including Social Enterprises

The following provides an indication of the range of civil society and social
enterprise projects working with ex-offenders.

(a) Acumen

Provides skills in horticulture in prison and supports development of housing
for those in need on release.

(b) The ‘Clink’ - CateringThe ‘Clink’ is a restaurant at HMP High Down

It provides training and employment experience in a high quality
restaurant environmentEmploys 16 serving offenders at any one time as trainees

Managed by social enterprise Eco-Actif CIC

Profits to pay staff, provide training and qualifications and follow up
support24

Employs ex-prisoners(c) HMP Dartmoor Resettlement UnitThis project is linked with a high profile public garden – the Eden projectPrisoners, guided by staff of Eden project have turned unused open space inthe prison into productive vegetable gardens.

Boxes of vegetables are delivered free of charge to elderly and poor membersof local community.

The project has received many letters of thanks from local people.

(d) Reach – Prinknash Abbey GardensThis project provides activities to unlock the potential within people who feelsocially excluded or who have committed offences.



The project has transformed an ancient abbey garden which had become
overgrown. The garden is now a centre for learning trades and for providing
leisure for the members of public or disadvantaged people.

VII. CONCLUSION

I hope the huge significance and contribution of communities to offender
rehabilitation will be evident. If further evidence is needed of our commitment to evenmore involvement, we need only to look at our new Green Paper on sentencing and25rehabilitation. Involving communities more in deciding what work undertaken bycommunity service workers is one example. But also, we are intending to increase
volunteer opportunities - whether from individuals, companies, universities, faithgroups or other organisations, and to identify and remove as many barriers as possible
to volunteering. All of this is also in tune with the European Year of the Volunteer
which has just begun.

Finally, we are determined to find new ways to involve communities andcommunity organisations in helping to achieve our goal – a “virtuous circle”
involving all sections of society working in partnership to support rehabilitation, forthe benefits of family and the community, to change lives and to make communities
safer.

Thank you very much for your kind attention.

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