November 30

November 30, 2005: Probation - Government Cowardice, says Howard League

The Howard League for Penal Reform has condemned the government for producing proposals that will result in the privatisation of community sentences and abolition of the probation service. Publishing a briefing paper on the day the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee considers the Home Office plans on the restructuring of the probation service, the charity said that the proposals amounted to a last desperate attempt to sustain the mounting shambles of the National Offender Management Service.

The campaigning organisation is sending a copy of the paper to the Home Office and the Treasury because of the huge cost implications for the taxpayer. The Howard League criticised the proposals in the consultation document for:

Being a bureaucratic change that will sound the death knell for a public probation service
Moving away from locally-accountable services to a regionally-based commissioning system for probation services in which private corporations will triumph over local expertise and knowledge
Discarding public service values
Failing to promote community sentences
Placing unknown and long-term costs on the public purse
Likely to undermine community sentences and result an increase in the number of ineffective, expensive short-term prison sentences, thereby creating more victims

Howard League director Frances Crook commented:

"These are dangerous proposals which increase the risk to the public, represent a death sentence for a public probation service and will not reduce crime. There is no evidence that yet another mammoth and costly reform is required and the decisions to do so are being taken behind closed-doors. Despite the appearance of consultation, these changes will be pushed through regardless of the widespread objection from the probation world, and with no real public debate. I am not sure that the public would be comfortable with the idea of private security companies managing problem offenders in the community."

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