The crisis in English and Welsh prisons is, reportedly, so acute that judges have been told to hold off jailing anyone else for the moment. The total number of prisoners last week reached an all-time high of 88,225, as reports on the malign effects of overcrowding, staff shortages, violence and self-harm continue to pile up. To relieve the pressure, the justice secretary, Alex Chalk, will allow more people to leave prison early and not send people to prison if their sentence is less than 12 months. Instead, Mr Chalk told MPs such “offenders will be punished in the community”. All this, however, seems to shift the problem from jails to the probation service, which is in an equally dire situation.
Probation was briefly a cause célèbre in 2021 when the partial privatisation overseen by Chris Grayling, in his disastrous tenure as justice secretary, was reversed. But while opponents of outsourcing were proved right when contractors failed to live up to expectations, the hoped-for improvement when the work was brought back in-house has not materialised. Last month’s annual report by the chief inspector, Justin Russell, was the last of his four-year term. In measured language, and while making an effort to highlight good practice, it delivered the grim message that the service has “if anything got worse”.
In the first three months of this year almost 7,000 people were recalled to prison, contributing significantly to overcrowding. The vast majority had not reoffended, but had broken one of their release conditions. These can include rules on drugs and alcohol, and keeping in touch with a supervisor. Inspection reports show that the proportion of probationers whose needs are met by the service has declined since 2021’s changes – making the recall figures unsurprising.
The lack of senior people, many of whom left when the service was privatised, is not helping. Currently the service is 1,700 officers short of its target of 6,160, with unmanageable caseloads contributing to high rates of sickness and poor staff retention. The return to challenging face-to-face work after the pandemic also caused difficulties. Like most public services, probation needs to be properly funded.
Mr Russell reserved his most serious criticism for grave failures in public protection. Last week saw the opening of the inquest into the deaths of Terri Harris and three children, who were murdered by Damien Bendall in 2022. He was on probation at the time and wrongly assessed as low/medium risk. The threat posed by Jordan McSweeney, who murdered Zara Aleena in east London last year, was similarly underestimated. Her family have been reported to be considering legal action.
But such catastrophic failures in individual cases point to deeper problems. The merging of probation with prisons looks like an error, with evidence that offender management works better when handled locally. This is how the system works in Scotland, and in English and Welsh youth justice teams – which achieve better outcomes. Devolving power would be a major U-turn: probation is now an entirely national service, having been once locally run and funded. Further integration with prisons is being planned. This should be paused, as unions are demanding. Mr Russell’s proposal for a review by someone outside the existing structure, and a reconsideration of whether the probation service would be better off if it had more independence, is a good one. The current situation is unsustainable, and fresh thinking is urgently required.
