EUKN - United Kingdom - Going straight: reducing re-offending in local communities

Going straight: reducing re-offending in local communities

Introduction

A study into whether local councils could make a greater contribution to the reduction of re-offending by working more closely with prisons.

Description

This report:

presents the findings of research which looked at whether local councils could make a greater contribution to reducing re-offending by working more closely with prisons;
outlines the extent and cost of re-offending;
highlights some of the reasons for the current prison service not working effectively;
discusses changes to the way rehabilitation is managed, proposals for the new National Offender Management Service, and local government's links to the criminal justice system; and
makes recommendations to councils about the potential contribution they can make to reducing and tackling (re)-offending.

Background information

The project set out to establish the possible benefits to local government and communities from closer working with probation and prison services and to develop new relationships between these services and local government.

Methodology

The research involved:

investigating the relationships between prisons/the probation service and local authorities (through a survey of the Local Government Association’s members, Internet research to map organisations involved in the field and collating good practice of joint working between councils and local institutions);
gathering written and oral evidence from stakeholders and independent organisations;
publicising the issue and encouraging debate within local government press; and
discussions with the Home Office about plans for the National Offender Management Service.

Conclusions

The report recommends that:

there should be increased emphasis on prevention and detection to minimise the number of offenders;
medium to low risk offenders should be diverted away from prison with increased resources dedicated to community-based offender programmes;
an integrated multi-agency approach is needed to address the lack of through care from prison to the community;
local authorities should be given a funded leadership role to co-ordinate the work of local partners to support offenders being released into the community;
local authorities should consider how they can target their services to address offender needs and prevent offending;
there should be more local communication between partners and greater use of reparative initiatives.

Contact info

Local Government Association
Phone: +44 20 7664 3131
info@lga.gov.uk

Publication date

01/02/2005

Project finished

Researcher

Local Government Association

Article info
ISBN: 184049459X

Links

Local Government Association

Going straight: reducing re-offending in local communities (PDF, Eng, 486KB)

Document type

research

Themes

Urban Policy > Security & crime prevention > Tackling crime

Keywords

Working with offenders