Yahoo News Grayling probation changes led to 'expensive merry-go-round', says report
Offenders have been locked in an “expensive merry-go-round” by a key plank of Chris Grayling’s disastrous probation overhaul, which has failed to reduce reoffending, a watchdog has said.
Under his widely derided Transforming Rehabilitation programme, introduced in 2014, Grayling broadened the pool of offenders eligible for probation in England and Wales to include around 40,000 people sentenced to 12 months or less in prison.
In a report on supervision of short-term prisoners, Dame Glenys Stacey, the chief inspector of probation, said nearly two-thirds went on to reoffend, committing crime estimated to cost the economy £7bn-£10bn a year. Inspectors found the quality of post-release supervision for short-term prisoners was variable.
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) last week announced that the supervision of all offenders in the community is to be undertaken by the state, in a major renationalisation. Grayling broke up the probation sector in 2014 into a public-sector organisation managing high-risk criminals and 21 private companies responsible for the supervision of 150,000 low- to medium-risk offenders.
Labour have claimed that Chris Grayling's mistakes have cost the economy and taxpayers over £2.7bn during his time in government. Here are five of Grayling's biggest failings:
B&B gay comments
In 2010 Grayling was forced to apologise after a recording captured him saying that people who ran bed and breakfasts in their homes should have the right to turn away gay couples.
Banning books for prisoners
Grayling introduced a ban on prisoners receiving books from friends or relatives, and limited the number of books each prisoner was able to have in a cell. A high court ruling in December 2015 found that the measure was unlawful and it was subsequently scrapped.
Rail timetable chaos
Grayling was transport secretary when a change to rail timetables caused chaos, leading to the cancellation of thousands of services. More than one in 10 Northern and Thameslink trains were cancelled after the introduction of the new timetables on 20 May 2018. The rail regulator criticised Grayling's DfT for failing to question the industry’s assurances about the risk of disruption.
Seaborne Freight
Grayling was widely mocked after awarding Seaborne Freight a no-deal Brexit ferry contract despite the company not owning any ships and having never previously operated a ferry service. It emerged that Seaborne's website had copied their legal terms and conditions from a pizza delivery service. The contract was cancelled in February 2019. The government subsequently had to agree a new £33m contract with Eurotunnel to settle legal action.
Part-privatisation of probation contracts
Failings by the Ministry of Justice in the part-privatisation of probation services will cost taxpayers at least £171m, according to a National Audit Office (NAO). Under Grayling, in 2013, the ministry created 21 community rehabilitation companies (CRCs) to manage low- and medium-risk offenders with the aim of cutting reoffending rates and costs. The NAO found that while there has been a 2.5% reduction in the proportion of offenders proven to have committed another crime between 2011 and March 2017, the number of offences per reoffender has increased by 22%.
Related: The Guardian view on privatising probation: a disaster ignored | Editorial
Stacey said: “All under-probation supervision should be supervised to a good standard, of course, but intensive and holistic rehabilitative supervision will be required for this group to meet the government’s aims.
“In my view, a system-wide approach as well as much more purposeful probation supervision is needed.
“Without it, individuals are locked in an expensive merry-go-round of criminal justice processes and the public are left at undue risk.”
Prior to the change, which was designed to reduce reoffending, convicts who had served less than one year did not have to be supervised by probation services.
In the year to September, 38,617 offenders were released following sentences of less than 12 months.
But the inspection report found there had been “no tangible reduction” in reoffending.
It cited figures showing that 64.1% of adults released from custodial terms of less than 12 months reoffended within a year. This compared with 28.5% of those who served sentences of a year or more.
Inspectors assessed 128 cases involving individuals who had been given a custodial sentence of less than 12 months.
They were “shocked” to find pre-sentence reports had been completed in less than a quarter of inspected cases.
Stacey said it was a national problem, adding: “It is plainly unacceptable for magistrates and judges to sentence a person to custody without the benefit of essential information and advice on why they offended, their current circumstances and any alternative sentence options.”
Arguing that the existing “one size fits all” approach should be replaced by a more tailored system, the inspectorate called on the MoJ to consider developing a mechanism that could allow reporting requirements for those on post-sentence supervision to be suspended in cases where the services were not required.
The report also recommended that the MoJ should pilot alternatives to custody for short-term prisoners, including “supported accommodation”, mental health and substance-misuse treatment and the use of monitoring technology.
