Rehabilitation and risk-assessment for serious offenders can improve, says report

Life sentence prisoners tend not to reoffend when released into public life, a report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorates of Prisons and Probation concluded, but warned the risk assessing and monitoring of offenders could be improved.

The joint report by Liz Calderbank, Chief Inspector of Probation, and Nick Hardwick, Chief Inspector of Prisons, followed on from work by the Criminal Justice Joint Inspections, which found the level of support needed for those given life sentences as they were prepared for release was often underestimated.

Finding they were often treated the same as other prisoners and “little attention being given to their particular circumstances” to aid rehabilitation, the report said some offenders “were able to serve their sentence with relatively little challenge to their attitudes and

behaviour”.

With most life sentence prisoners “released at some point”, the report stressed the need to ensure the public was satisfied parole “will not happen unless they can be safely managed within the community and that they will be effectively supervised and monitored”.

Despite the overall good behaviour and reintegration of such offenders, a number of problems were outlined in the report.

“Sentence planning was weak, in both prison and the community, and offender managers struggled to design meaningful objectives for those who appeared to have done all required work in custody,” it said.

“Nonetheless, the vast majority of those on life licence formed positive relationships with their offender managers, did not reoffend and, despite the stigma of the life sentence, were able to lead useful and productive lives after release.”

In a joint statement, Ms Calderbank and Mr Hardwick said: “This inspection highlights the importance of both the work undertaken with the prisoner throughout their sentence to address their behaviour and the need for effective joint work between prison and the community to plan and prepare for safe release. This complementary balance is essential for rehabilitation.”

Justice Minister Jeremy Wright said: “Though this is about a small group of offenders, it is essential we get it right to protect the public.”

The Parole Board welcomed the report’s conclusions, saying it “sheds light on the challenging work undertaken with some of the most serious offenders in the criminal justice system”, but defended its risk assessments of when life sentence prisoners are released, claiming it consulted widely with the police, the National Offender Management Service and other agencies before making any decisions.

It said in a statement: “The Parole Board will only direct that a life sentence prisoner should be released when it is satisfied that it is no longer necessary for the protection of the public that the prisoner should be confined.”

It added it is working on improving the guidance for its reports to ensure they are of a consistently good standard and it expects recommendations from the joint report will be incorporated into the ongoing ‘Transforming Rehabilitation’ programme.