1. To restore the Probation Service to the important position in the criminal justice system it fulfilled up to 1992 as a provider of effective Community sentences, and effective supervisor of offenders in the community.
   
   
2. To secure the abolition of this very expensive “NOMS”, whose objectives inevitably promote greater use of incarceration.
   
   
3. To ensure that the Probation Service and the Prison Service can work positively within their own separate identities and administrations to secure, wherever possible, the rehabilitation of offenders.
   
   
4. To ensure that the Probation Service readopts its original duty to “Advise, Assist and Befriend” offenders, as expressed through a professional relationship conducted within the social work ethos.
   
   

    We believe that these first objectives should go some way to restoring the Probation Service to the path of penal moderation it was created to bring into effect.  These objectives would find practical expression in the following further aims:-

 

5. To ensure that a full pre-sentence report by a fully trained Probation Officer, written in plain English, is available to every court which is considering a prison or community sentence.
   
   
6. To ensure that all specialist, supplementary, pre-sentence reports thought necessary by the court when considering their sentence be made available to the court, even where an adjournment or remand is necessary for those reports to be prepared. This has been found to be particularly important where the court is considering Requirements to be placed in a Community Order concerning Treatment for Mental Health problems, Drug Abuse or Alcohol Abuse, whether Residential or Non-Residential.
   
   
7. To ensure that sufficient facilities in the locality exist to make such Requirements workable.
   
   
8. To ensure that sufficient Bail Hostels exist to accommodate homeless offenders on bail awaiting sentence by the court.
   
   
9. To ensure that all supervision in the community is carried out by fully trained Probation Officers using established social work methods.
   
   
10. To ensure that current assessment tools such as “OASys”, and supervision regulations such as “national standards”, are drastically revised.
    
    
11. To ensure that an Equal Opportunities Policy is applied, and all potential client groups receive equitable treatment.
    
    
12. To ensure that Probation Officers are no longer held to be one of the leaders in the government’s over-hyped and unrealistic campaign to “protect the public”, and return to the notion that it is the public itself which is primarily responsible for, and indeed capable of, its own protection, as helped by the appropriate authorities such as the police, civil enforcement officers, local authorities and central government. We would support these efforts where appropriate.

We believe that where imprisonment has to be employed, confidence can only be secured, and unfairness avoided, by abolishing the “cat and mouse  game” surrounding early release and by following these further aims:-

13. To ensure that the concept of “indeterminate sentencing” is carefully examined: our view is that, if it survives at all, it should be narrowly restricted to the most serious offences, such as murder.

14. To ensure that where imprisonment is imposed, the length of sentence should be clearly stated from the outset, and be served, in full, inside prison, subject only to a standard period of remission for good behaviour at the discretion of the prison governor. All early release schemes should be abolished.

15. To ensure that a “Through Care” Probation Officer is available to any prisoner from the point of sentence, throughout his/her sentence and to be their “After Care” Officer also if they wish it. And that any contact following release is voluntary on the part of the ex-prisoner.

16. To support the present rehabilitative “After Care” Hostels for homeless ex-prisoners, with facilities for moving on to independent living, and to create new hostels where necessary.

17. To ensure there are sufficient qualified Probation Officers trained to fulfil these duties, making use of and enhancing the training of many of those already recruited as Probation Service Officers, or Probation Service assistants.

18. To ensure no more prisons are built.

In Conclusion:

We believe that significant reductions in the prison population could be achieved if these proposals are adopted.

The proposals would allow the Probation Service to concentrate on offering serious non-custodial sentencing options, and truly effective supervision in the community.

We are also aware that in the last decade important advances have been made in the area of helping offenders to reconstruct their lives so as to desist from offending, both through the individual relationship with their Probation Officer, and through group work.