Public Protection

With permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I should like to make a statement about further measures that the Government intend to take to protect the public from dangerous offenders. In my statement on 28 February, following the publication of the report by the chief inspector of probation on the appalling murder of John Monckton, I made it clear that, although we have already made improvements to our system for public protection and will continue to do so, we have to do more to improve the way in which we identify and manage dangerous offenders who present a risk to the public. I announced that the Government would accept the main findings and the key recommendations of the chief inspector’s report. Today, I have placed in the Library of the House a probation circular that requires chief officers to implement those recommendations and the 31 ““practice”” recommendations that were set out in the report. Arrangements will be made to audit implementation in July and again in October this year. Action on those recommendations is not enough, so I propose to take new powers to enable dangerous and high-risk offenders to be better managed, as well as to strengthen the work of the Parole Board and the probation service. The Government need to provide the framework in which the probation service and other criminal justice agencies can do their job to the highest standards. We have already made changes to the sentencing regime to ensure that dangerous offenders who pose a continuing risk can be detained indefinitely if a court so determines. Those arrangements apply to all eligible offenders who commit offences after the new provisions came into force—that is, offences committed on or after 4 April 2005. I have looked very carefully to see how we can increase safeguards in respect of offenders who committed their offences before that date. I considered whether it would be possible to make the more dangerous offenders subject to the new public protection sentences, notwithstanding the date of their offence. I concluded that it would not, as it would violate the principle of retrospective legislation, and the House would be likely to find that unacceptable. However, I consider that three further steps are necessary. First, I have decided to ensure that offenders who have been sentenced to imprisonment for offences committed before 4 April 2005 are on licence from the moment that they are released from custody until the very end of their sentence, rather than to the three-quarters point of their sentence as now. That means that offenders who give cause for concern at any time during the currency of their sentence can be recalled to prison. I will introduce that change by means of an order under the Criminal Justice Act 1991, which will be laid before the House and the other place as soon as possible. The aim is to focus active supervision on those dangerous offenders who pose the most risk of harm and who will be actively and intensively supervised until the end of their sentence. That step is not enough in itself. There are some offenders who do not cease to be a risk to the public just because their licence has come to an end. Secondly, therefore, we must be able to deal with such offenders. There is a strong case for introducing a violent offender order along the same lines that have proved effective in the case of sex offenders. Such an order would enable the court to make specific prohibitions on offenders who have been convicted of offences of violence, breach of which would be a criminal offence subject to up to five years in prison. I will publish proposals in that area before summer. Thirdly, I acknowledge that many dangerous offenders suffer from mental disorder. The plans that we recently announced to amend mental health legislation will help to ensure that mentally disordered offenders receive the treatment that they need and that the risk that they pose to the public is minimised. I am confident that those proposals, together with the reforms that I set out in my five-year strategy for protecting the public and reducing re-offending—in particular, the introduction of a single named-offender manager for all offenders, coupled with my proposals to drive up performance by introducing alternative providers of services and challenging the probation service to demonstrate that it can and does meet the highest standards—will help to improve the way in which dangerous offenders are managed. Of course, no risk can ever be eliminated, but we need to do much better in minimising risks. Accurate assessment of risk must lie at the heart of our public protection arrangements. It is essential that staff are clear about their responsibilities and are properly trained. With immediate effect, all chief officers of probation will have a specific objective to improve the quality of risk-of-harm assessments in their area, and they will be required to provide regular reports. In addition, almost all probation middle managers throughout the country—there are about 1,400—have undergone a rigorous training programme to improve the quality of risk-of-harm assessments and the way in which they manage such cases. In June, we will introduce a new training tool further to improve the way in which staff assess and manage risk. Still more needs to be done to improve the risk assessment process itself, so I have commissioned the National Offender Management Service risk of harm improvement board to undertake an urgent exercise, with independent input as necessary, to achieve that. I have issued guidance to both prisons and probation staff to highlight the need to avoid over-emphasis on good behaviour in prison and to make progress in addressing dynamic risk factors when assessing risk prior to release. The Parole Board—an independent body charged with the task of deciding whether offenders are safe to be released—has a crucial role to play in assessing risk. New minimum standards for the reports prepared for the Parole Board have been introduced and new monitoring arrangements came into force at the beginning of the month. Urgent work is in hand to ensure that the board has available to it all the relevant information that it needs to ensure that its decisions are well founded. In addition to these measures, the chairman of the Parole Board has also informed me of his plans to appoint senior and well respected independent figures to the panel that reviews cases involving serious further offences, to ensure that lessons are properly identified and learned. I welcome this move, too. More generally, it is the role of all agencies within the criminal justice system to prioritise public protection through partnership working, which is why Her Majesty’s inspectors of probation, prisons and constabulary are conducting a joint thematic inspection of the effectiveness of public protection arrangements. I will report back to the House on any further recommendations that stem from this report when it is published this summer. Taken together, I believe these measures represent an important step forward in protecting the public. Implementation of the improvement package will be overseen by my noble Friend the Minister of State for Criminal Justice and Offender Management. I commend the proposals to the House.