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Connétable L. Norman
Minister for Home Affairs
Department for Justice and Home Affairs Cyril Le Marquand House
St. Helier
JE4 8QT
31st October 2018
Probation and After-Care Service Dear Minister,
I write to you in respect of an email that was sent from the Chief Officer of the Probation and After-Care Service to both the Panel, yourself and the Assistant Minister on Friday 26th October, further to the quarterly public hearing that same day. The email is appended to this letter.
The Panel would like to clarify the points raised by the Chief Probation Officer and would like to ask you for your response to the issues that have been raised in the email. I would be grateful if we could receive your response by Friday 9th November.
Thank you for your assistance in this matter. Yours Sincerely,
Deputy Rob Ward
Chairman,
Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel
Scrutiny Office | States Greffe | Morier House | St Helier | Jersey | JE1 1DD Tel: 01534 441080 | Fax: 01534 441077 | email: scrutiny@gov.je
Website: statesassembly.gov.je/scrutiny
Email from Chief Probation Officer – 26th October 2018 Dear States Members,
I have just been watching the Scrutiny hearing on the internet (from approximately 6 minutes 50 to 17 minutes.) Great to have that option these days.
Can I correct a few statements about our practice. All prisoners ARE allocated a Probation officer to work with them through their sentence and have been for many years now. Very few refuse this service. The Early Release system CERL which replaced the other forms of temporary release a couple of years ago is a form of Parole for up to 18 months or from the half way point of their sentence for prisoners assessed as suitable. We (Probation) prepare reports on suitability as part of the decision making process. The "new" prison governor Nick Cameron and I are agreed that there is potential to develop further the numbers released in this way and revisit the criteria used by the Release Panel in some respects. We DO supervise those released prisoners on CERL – it is a condition of their release – it NOT correct to say that they are only subject to curfew checks. The Probation Service resourced this supervision service from within its existing resources.
Regarding programmes – we do carry on the work which has been started with clients if they are subsequently imprisoned wherever this is practicable and if the client remains motivated. Some of the work cannot be carried out in a custodial setting. We have offered to provide programmes to the prison but previous Governors have preferred to develop their own programmes and employ their own staff directly with the exception of one programme ASG which is delivered both in prison and the Community. Some programmes are optimised for delivery in the Community and some for Custody which does not mean they are not compatible. I am meeting with the Acting Governor next week about another programme we deliver which a recent report has recommended could work in the Prison setting – we first offered this to the prison in 2014.
There is a joint Sentence Management Unit of Prison and Probation staff and I did not recognise the description given at the Hearing of the way our services interact. That said prison work is only one part of our overall diverse criminal and non-criminal workload. I've attached a slightly dated presentation from a few years ago – part of a joint presentation with the Prison Governor to Jurats.
I did not recognise the description of discussions with myself and my staff regarding a move to the States of Jersey. There has been very little contact or discussion. On 4th October, Charlie and Julian met Mike Cutland and I for a very abbreviated version of the Service brief you have all received for 45 minutes followed by a general 45 minute meeting with staff. This was not specifically to discuss the proposed move although it was the principle subject staff were concerned about.
I have yet to see any business case outlining why a move would be beneficial and any specifics about what it would achieve.
Regards Brian
Brian Heath M.B.E Chief Probation Officer
