Probation focus cover october 2014_layout

OCTOBER 2014
Secretary of State The Essex CRC Newsletter for the Courts
Minister of Justice Second partnership
event takes place in
Basildon
Look who's taking the
‘Ice Bucket Challenge'
Statistics show a
marked rise in drugs
deaths

Page 1 OCTOBER 2014
Notes from MARY ARCHER, OBE I recently posted my centenary Blog, in Helping to inform future Inspections
which I mentioned my recent office visits.
Having recently hosted a visit by the Part of the reason for the visits was to get Justice Minister Chris Grayling, we have the information I need from staff to talk to been asked to meet the new Chief
the CRC's new owners – when we know Inspector of Probation, Paul McDowell. He
who those new owners are. There have will learn more about been plenty of rumours circulating about CRCs' perspectives on the who the bidders for the CRC might be and changes and how they when we will know who has been selected, will play into the way and I've tried to be very clear that nobody future inspections are actually knows outside of the bid selection team, nor when the announcement will bemade.
I'm telling staff and partners everything Iknow that I'm able to pass on, but there'svery little I know that I can pass on.
We still don't know when theannouncement will come. I'm keeping aclose eye on things, and the day we findout, I'll probably Facetime the news withstaff in the offices.

Page 2 OCTOBER 2014
Secretary of State visits Essex: we update the Minister of Justice Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor,
Chris Grayling, paid a visit to Essex CRC's
Headquarters in Witham last month to seek views
about the Transition, our current situation, and our
aims going forward.
He revealed his own thinking to both CommunityRehabilitation Company and National ProbationService staff, in two separate meetings. The thirdinvolved Essex CRC's Senior Management Team.
Staff informed him of the challenges they had neededto overcome and the issues still facing them in thecoming months.
He listened to some of the detail involved in achievingthe vital links between CRC and NPS. Established systems and processes are crucial inmaintaining cohesion between the two, and we arestill working to make these as good as possible.
All three meetings were achieved in the space of twohours, before the Minister and his team followed up The Minister meets CRC staff (above), and saying hello to Chief Executive Mary Archer OBE with a visit to Chelmsford Prison.
Page 3 OCTOBER 2014
Explaining who we are and what we do: two events reach out to partnership organisations The task of explaining our work and the changes affecting Probation services in
Essex continued at a partnership event held in Basildon, last month. It followed a
similar event in Witham, in July.
Public and other Sector representatives met
members of the CRC Board, Executive team and
managers to discuss the impact of TR on
probation services in Essex.
Page 4 OCTOBER 2014
Central Delivery Unit takes the
HR & Training Manager Sam Mott goes first, before
who in turn (bravely)nominated.
.Chief Executive, Mary Archer OBE
Page 5 OCTOBER 2014
keeping our foot on the gas!
Looking at our current Scorecard, Board members acknowledged that, although we have
seen dips lately, given the organisational change in April and May, we aren't doing too badly.
Essex CRC and NPS-
We're looking to improve aspects around: Successful completions  Licence recall requests  Accredited Programmes  Sustained Essex – the Interface
Employment  Bridge commencements  MARI commencements  MARI completions ETE completions Deputy Chief Executives Gill Hirst and Alex Osler meet  Percentages of caseloads reviewed in the last six months regularly with Shirley Kennerson and David Messam, The hard work continues. There may eventually be some tweaks to our targets, given that we Assistant Directors in the NPS, for fruitful discussions are now a smaller organisation, but they will be tweaks and not massive changes.
regarding the way we link and work with one another.
Managers are being encouraged to raise issues which couldbe helped by this process.
PUBLIC PROTECTION Uninitiated people looking at the split between CRC and NPS might assume thatpublic protection cases belong with the NPS. But we all know that we will stillhave complex, demanding cases which have all the same elements of publicinterest in them, and need managing as mindfully and carefully as we alwayshave to ensure public protection.
Page 6 OCTOBER 2014
SHARE SALE:
More than 80 bids to win regional rehabilitation
contracts are currently being evaluated by the
government. The competition winners will lead the
After the bidders met the end‐June deadline for entry, officials at the MoJ 21 new Community Rehabilitation Companies.
decided there was more information they need, and re‐framed some of theirquestions. The bidders submitted new answers.
There is an average of four bidders for each area.
More than half of the bidders include a charity, The timescale for now is that contracts will be awarded at the end of this year.
mutual or social enterprise. Eight potential staff They must be signed by February, when the pre‐election ‘purdah'1 starts and organisations are competing for a share of the no more business can take place. 1Purdah, (originally used to describe the seclusion of women in religious practices and culture) is usedin politics to describe the period before an election when government is prevented from announcing A limit has been put in place that will prevent any new legislation and undertaking certain pieces of work which could in theory (and sometimes prac‐ organisation from winning more than 25% of the total tice) influence the result of the election. value of the competition, to ensure a diverse range ofproviders that will encourage quality and innovation. Almost 1,000 organisations, including 700 listed asvoluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE),have put themselves forward to work with the chosenproviders to develop new ways of reducing reoffending and protecting the public.
Pay is currently £111k underspent, but that will soon disappear – as we are recruiting and aim to be fully staffed by December.
Page 7 OCTOBER 2014
Policing: a postcode lottery?
A member of the public will receive a different response from the
leading to long-term reductions over the last ten years.
police for the same kind of crime or incident, depending on
However, we were concerned to find that a member of the where they live, according to a report by HM Inspectorate of
public will receive a different response from the police for the same type of crime or incident, depending on where The report, Inspection into crime prevention, police attendance
they live. This sort of postcode lottery has to stop and a and the use of police time, looked at three principal aspects of
consistent approach applied across England and Wales." day-to-day policing: the prevention of crime; how crime is HMIC was concerned by the significant variation in the way investigated and offenders are brought to justice; and freeing up in which forces approach police attendance in response to and using police time more efficiently. calls from the public and that almost half of all forces were HMI Roger Baker, who led the inspection, said: "Police forces have unable to provide details of the reported crimes that they done a good job in tackling crime and anti-social behaviour, had attended.
Report looks at
for poor behaviour, formal
should be recorded, investigated and  The impact of significant disruption adjudications, and punishments for
acted upon, to protect the apparent on the well-being and safety of already deaths in custody breaches of prison rules.
victim and address the behaviour of the vulnerable prisoners should be fully Many had spent time in segregation or alleged bully or bullies. considered in decisions to relocate An investigation by the Prison and
on the basic level of the incentives and  Managing risk, treating mental health them.
Probation Ombudsman of
earned privileges scheme (IEP), and managing behaviour need to be  Mental health care and referrals 80 cases of self-
privations which inevitably reduced better integrated need to be made and acted on in a protective factors such as social  Young adults often have strong timely and consistent fashion. among young
interaction and activities. For the more attachments to their families and adults in custody,
challenging and complex individuals, it  Those subject to, or under threat of, partners and their lack of life experience going back to
was also rare for the different aspects of deportation can experience significant can mean they are more emotionally 2007, found that
discipline, safety and healthcare to distress. Attention should be paid to the affected by the break-up of relationships receive consistent and multi-disciplinary possibility that their risk of suicide and and family bereavements. Prisons need self-harm is raised and they should have to take this into account when assessing common, with
access to interpretation and translation Lessons to be learned:
services, immigration advice or legal  Indications and allegations of bullying representation as needed.
Page 8 OCTOBER 2014
Drugs poisoning deaths:
new stats published
hidden secrets
Fingerprint evidence has been helping the police
increased by 23%, from 1,0177 in 2012 to solve crime for about 100 years, and now a new technique could reveal vital clues about a  Heroin/morphine remain the substances suspect's activities hours before the crime took most commonly involved in drug poisoning deaths. 765 deaths involved heroin/morphine In a unique trial scientists from Sheffield Hallam in 2013; a sharp rise of 32% from 579 deaths University have joined forces with West Yorkshire Police to analyse fingerprints taken from crime  Deaths involving Tramadol (220) were 2.5x scenes for substances hidden the number seen in 2009 (87).
within or on the print.
 There was a sharp rise of 21% in the The scientists say the results can reveal the National statistics have been published by the number of drug misuse deaths in England, suspect's sex, whether Cornflakes for breakfast?
ONS about deaths related to drugs poisoning with no change in Wales, but mortality rates they have handled or were still significantly higher in Wales than inEngland.
 2,955 drug poisoning deaths (involving both legal and illegal drugs) were registered in  Male mortality rates increased significantly England and Wales (2,032 male and 923 in three substance categories: heroin/morphine, benzodiazepines andparacetamol. Rates for women were stable,  Male deaths increased by 19% compared to except for a rise in cocaine-related deaths.
2012. Female drug poisoning deaths haveincreased every year since 2009.
 In England, the North East had the highest mortality rate from drug misuse, and London Male drug deaths (involving illegal drugs) Page 9 OCTOBER 2014
Fifty years
Should we fund addiction treatment
since last UK
by new tax on alcohol?
Gwynne Evans, 24, and Peter Allen, 21,
Drink and drug addicts should be
with jobseekers screened for were hanged on 13 August 1964. Evans'
treated in abstinence-based treatment
execution took place in Strangeways centres paid for with a new tax on
prison, Manchester, Allen's in Walton  Offering benefit claimants with alcohol, a think tank has urged.
prison in Liverpool. They were found addiction problems support guilty of jointly murdering a 53-year-old The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) said and abstinence-based laundry worker, John Alan West, after a that by 2024, a ring-fenced Treatment treatment, with the brief trial. Capital punishment was Tax would put up the cost of alcohol threat of sanctions if abolished the following year.
bought in shops by 2p per unit and fund treatment centres for 58,000  Piloting a charge addicts a year.
card for long-term Its report says 300,000 people in England are addicted to opiates and/or parents with serious crack, 1.6 million are dependent on addiction problems alcohol and one in seven children to restrict how they under the age of one lives with a spend any income substance-abusing parent. Other CSJ support to essential items only recommendations include: Gwynne Evans and Peter Al en were the last  Doing more to tackle so-called legal people to be hanged in the UK  Scrapping the drug advice highs and educate young people site FRANK, which it says does and parents about their dangers.
Global research by the UN and others not send a strong signal to indicates that capital punishment is not a young people about the risks of deterrent to murder. States in the US experimenting with drugs with the death penalty have significantlyhigher homicide rates than states where  Involving job centres in the death penalty has been abolished. identifying and helping addicts, Page 10 OCTOBER 2014
It'sThe Colour Purplefor Bi Visibility Day Bi Visibility Day, also known as International Celebrate Bisexuality
supported Bi Visibility Day by wearing purple – the official colour of Day, has been marked each year since 1999 to highlight issues and
help raise the profile of the bisexual community. The annual event For further information on events celebrating Bi Visibility Day in your was started when a small group of committed campaigners organised area, visitor visit the Bi Visibility Day web page to encourage people to think about issues facing bisexual people. As Stonewall Diversity Champions, Essex CRC staff at Central DUoffice and Senior Champion, Assistant Chief Executive Paul Farmer Thurrock & Central DU
cakes & coffee make
money for charity
Sweet-toothed staff in our Thurrock officeheld a Macmillan coffee morning, recently,and raised an impressive £90.61 for CancerSupport.
Central DU staff held one too and raised£53.22 in donations.
Goodies at Thurrock Page 11 OCTOBER 2014
Remand: over-use ‘wasting millions and worsening overcrowding' says prison reform group Overuse of remand sentencing is worsening prison
Of the 36,044 men, women and children who were
offence of
overcrowding and wasted almost £250m in 2013,
remanded into custody by magistrates, 25,413 did not
claims the Howard League for Penal Reform.
go on to receive a custodial sentence.
More than 35,000 people remanded into custody last
In the crown courts, 9,844 of the 36,833 men, women
year went on to be acquitted or given non-custodial and children remanded in custody were either sentences, the charity claims.
acquitted or given a non-custodial sentence, at an estimated cost of £65m.
With each person remanded for nine nt has launched a weeks on average, and a prison place costing £37,000 per year, it cost an
strengthening the law by creating estimated £165m to the prison system,
a new offence of domestic abuse.
said the charity.
The consultation asks whether The Magistrates' Association denied the the law needs to be changed to claims that there is ‘widespread misuse', reinforce the fact that domestic adding that ‘very careful consideration abuse can be emotional and was taken by its members when doing psychological as well as physical.
their job in administering the law'.
This could in turn help to bringabout a culture change amongstthe public and police, and in thecourts.

Probation Focus - October 2014

Source: http://www.essexcrc.co.uk/?ddownload=36543