Offender Management Bill

To my mind, the purpose of probation has always been the rehabilitation of offenders and the reduction of reoffending. I well understand people finding the word ““punishment”” unattractive and inappropriate when used with regard to probation. However, there are reasons for saying that we should not get too excited about the matter. We are all agreed on the need to divert people from crime. We are agreed that in many circumstances sending people to prison is going to educate them in crime rather than divert them from it, and that whenever possible we should try to avoid sending to jail non-violent offenders who are not a danger to the public. I think that we are also agreed that we have to carry the public with us, if we are going to succeed in diverting more people from crime without sending them to prison. If we are to be successful in persuading the public that a prison sentence is not necessary, we have to show them that a community sentence is not a soft option or a let-off, but instead demands something of the customer. If, in persuading the public of that, one finds it necessary to talk of ““punishment”” in the community, that is nothing to get too fussed about. I understand the concerns of Napo that over the past 15 years the Probation Service’s purposes have been ““eroded””—I think that that is its word—with the introduction of the concepts of punishment, enforcement and public protection. I doubt, however, whether so many people—including, incidentally, many who a few years ago would never for one moment have been thought candidates for probation—would havebeen diverted from prison if these changes had not been made and if we had not educated the public in the way that we have. I agree that one of the consequences of making probation and community service more taxing is the likelihood of more people being in breach and finding themselves in custody as a result. We have to be very wary of that danger. We must avoid systems that remove discretion and make custody an almost automatic consequence of breach. Community orders seem to work, though, in that the reoffending rate is much lower than is the case with, for instance, those on licence from prison. We should build on the success that has already occurred and we should try to make it plain to the public that this is a sensible approach and that it is not being soft on the offender. If to persuade the public of that we have to use the word ““punishment””, I am all for using it, and using it often.