Press Release - Reducing Prisoner Reoffending
31 January 2002
Sir John Bourn, head of the National Audit Office, today
welcomed progress made by the Prison Service in introducing
programmes designed to help reduce the risk of reoffending but said
there needs to be greater consistency in their provision across
prisons.
Currently around 58 per cent of prisoners are reconvicted within
two years of being released. Many of these prisoners have drug
problems and poor levels of literacy and numeracy. Eighty per cent
of prisoners admit drug misuse in the year before prison.
The Prison Service has rapidly expanded its provision of
offending behaviour, drug misuse and education programmes to help
address these issues. However, a prisoner’s access to programmes
still owes much to where they are sent. The report also shows that
the approaches adopted to help prisoners resettle in the community
vary widely between prisons, even between those of similar
type.
Evaluations of the effectiveness of some early unaccredited
programmes suggested a reduction in the risk of re-offending.
Better management information systems need to be developed to
enable a full assessment of the impact of programmes, including the
performance of individual prisons.
More generally, the NAO recommends that the Service builds on
the efforts made to date and:
- improve the planning of prisoners’ time in custody including
closer working with the Probation Service. Prisoners’ sentence
plans should identify: the risks of their reoffending and how these
risks should be tackled; and what help they need to resettle into
the community, including assistance to find accommodation and
employment and to maintain family ties;
- ensure that all prisoners who would benefit from attending
programmes have the opportunity to do so. At present, provision
varies markedly between prisons and many prisoners leave prison
without having had the opportunity to address their offending
behaviour. For example, virtually all prisons holding high security
risk prisoners had drug treatment programmes by March 2001, whereas
provision was less frequent in prisons holding lower security risk
prisoners where the risk of reoffending is high;
- ensure that programmes are appropriately targeted at all
prisoner groups, including, for example juvenile offenders (15 to
17 year olds), female prisoners and ethnic minorities;
- strengthen work with prisoners serving short sentences to
reduce the risk of their being drawn into a cycle of reoffending.
Such prisoners are not subject to sentence planning and because of
the length of their sentences will have fewer opportunities to
acquire educational or work skills, receive treatment for their
drug misuse, or undertake offending behaviour programmes;
- improve the relevance of work experience provided in prison.
The kinds of work currently done in prison do not, in many
instances, enhance prisoners’ prospects of jobs outside;
- provide an agreed minimum level and standard of assistance to
prisoners to resettle in the community, based on good practice
across the prison estate; and
- improve collaboration with the Probation Service, health
authorities and voluntary groups so that released prisoners who
need continuing support receive it.
Sir John Bourn said today:
"By doing the right things with prisoners while they are
in jail there are real opportunities to reduce reoffending. The
Prison Service deserves credit for introducing new programmes so
rapidly. They now need to reduce the variation in the provision of
programmes between prisons and, working with the probation service
and other agencies, help ensure that prisoners receive appropriate
support on release."
Notes for Editors
- The report complements work recently undertaken by HM
Inspectorates of Prisons and Probation "Through the Prison
Gate" (2001) which looked at the effectiveness of
collaborative arrangements between the Services in resettling
offenders back into the community, and the effectiveness of the
resettlement process more generally.
- Press notices and reports are available from the date of
publication on the NAO website at http://www.nao.org.uk/ Hard copies can
be obtained from The Stationery Office on 0845 702 3474.
- The Comptroller and Auditor General, Sir John Bourn, is the
head of the National Audit Office employing some 750 staff. He and
the NAO are totally independent of Government. He certifies the
accounts of all Government departments and a wide range of other
public sector bodies; and he has statutory authority to report to
Parliament on the economy, efficiency and effectiveness with which
departments and other bodies have used their resources.
Press Notice 07/02
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