Abstract
The first phase of the implementation of the SDS40 early release scheme to reduce pressure on the prison population has led to some predictable headlines. The scheme means those who are eligible, will be released after they have completed 40% of their sentence, rather than the standard 50%. The first tranche of the initiative for eligible prisoners serving sentences of 5 years or less saw 1700 people released in September. The next phase targeting prisoners serving sentences over five years, will take place in October. The announcement of the scheme was one of the first actions of the incoming Labour Lord Chancellor, Shabana Mahmood, who stated that these measures were being put in place to ‘to avert disaster’ within prisons. The intolerable pressures on the prison system are widely acknowledged. Overcrowded prisons contribute to unsafe conditions. A litany of prison inspection reports as well as ‘urgent notifications’, issued by the Chief Inspector of Prisons to the Secretary of State when an inspection ‘identifies significant concerns about the treatment and conditions of detainees’ provide witness to this (HMCIP, 2024).
The pressures on the probation system have also been well documented, including in multiple contributions to this journal and it is clear that beyond emergency measures a wider systemic rethink is required. With one of the highest imprisonment rates in Western Europe of (134 per 100,000) England and Wales compares unfavourably with European comparators. The reasons for the rise in the prison population, which have been predicted in the MoJ's forecasts for some time, include a rise in the remand population and an overall trend towards longer sentences (Pina-Sanchéz et al., 2023). None of these things are inevitable of course. They are the result of a wider policy context, including court back-logs meaning that cases are taking much longer to process, and changes in sentencing resulting from the successive passing of legislation brought forward by governments of all political hues, which have ratcheted up sentence lengths. The cry to increase punishment is frequently heard, while calls for moderation are much less voluble.
The pernicious impacts of ‘sentence inflation’ have been highlighted in a recent paper written by four retired senior judges (Woolf et al. 2024), who make an urgent call for the government to engage in meaningful sentencing reform to address the problem of the exponential growth in the prison population. One might ask where probation fits into this picture? Woolf et al. (2024: 3) make passing reference ‘to a lack in confidence in the efficacy of non-custodial sentences for less serious offences’ as a further contributory factor to the growth in the use of imprisonment. Yet, comparative studies on recidivism consistently show that community sentences are more effective than prison sentences in reducing re-offending (Gormley et al., 2022). Moreover, community sentence are far less costly, both in economic terms and in personal and social costs. Longer-term data on sentencing trends in England and Wales shows that the use of community sentences have declined, while the use of prison sentences have increased. Some have speculated that this has been partly the result of a diminution in sentencer confidence in probation services because of the years of turmoil precipitated by Transforming Rehabilitation and its subsequent reversal (NAO, 2023). However, this telling is only part of the story. The trend towards a decline in the use of community sentences pre-dated the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms. There is some evidence to indicate that legislative amendments to Suspended Sentence Orders (SSOs) introduced under the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders (LAPSO) Act (2012), potentially displaced some community orders, contributing to broader net-widening (Curzon & Roberts, 2021). All this is to say that any review of sentencing needs to have a wide purview, considering sentencing practices, types of sentences and their implementation in the round. A fundamental rethink would also mean that probation cannot be seen as an adjunct to imprisonment, arguably part of the problem in the first instance.
This issue of the Probation Journal includes articles exploring the role and purpose of probation in various contexts. Rob Canton's piece traces the displacement of social work as the core qualification for probation officers and makes a persuasive case to reconsider this. Matt Tidmarsh explores the changing demographics of the probation profession over time, focusing specifically on the gender of the workforce. Meanwhile, the issue includes perspectives on the use of digital technology on probation by Helen Taylor and colleagues, as well as the findings from research by Noam Haviv and colleagues exploring drop-out rates in a therapeutic community based on routes of admission. As ever, we hope you enjoy the issue, and we welcome your feedback.