Privatised Probation System

One of the key measures in Transforming Rehabilitation was the supervision of 40,000 people who had not previously been supervised and whose sentences were shorter than 12 months. Previously, we had no idea what they were doing, because they were not being supervised by any probation officer. By supervising those 40,000 people—they tend to be a cohort of prolific reoffenders—we end up with many more recalls than happened previously. The answer must be to consider on a case-by-case basis whether the recalls are justified, but we must also acknowledge that it is a good thing to supervise 40,000 more people. When they were not supervised, the public were more endangered.