In fact, both are probably true. There is also little evidence on how far probation intervention increases offenders' employability and employment or reduces their reconviction rates, or on which types of schemes are most effective. Both offered advice and guidance, training, work placements, mentoring and the provision of employment opportunities to offenders under supervision in the community. Both schemes aimed to improve the employment and training prospects of unemployed offenders on probation and thus, ultimately, reduce the likelihood of reoffending. Probation staff valued the work done by both schemes as they provided specialist employment and training input while freeing up probation officers to undertake work focusing more directly on offending.
Schemes can take some time to bed-down.
Those who attended the schemes had lower reconviction rates and were also slower to be reconvicted than other offenders. The report concludes by considering the implications of these results for other projects and highlights a number of factors those planning similar initiatives should consider. The study assesses the work of the Capital Care Project, an arrest referral scheme targeting sex workers in Kings Cross. It examines the impact the project has had on sex workers, police officers and agencies working in the area. Interviews were conducted with a number of the project's clients and examined changes in their access to suitable accommodation, health services and reductions in drug use and sex working.