To fix the justice system, the government must first grapple with the forgotten service: Probation
Policing and prisons have been a mainstay of the news cycle for the Labour government, with the Southport riots, early prison releases, and (more recently) neighbourhood policing all making the headlines. While discussions around police and prisons continue to hit the headlines, pundits and policymakers too often neglect a crucial part of our justice system – probation services.
Maybe there is an understandable reason why. Five year (though often shorter) election cycles full of combative rhetoric, coupled with a public that remains fearful and paranoid of rising crime (despite actual falling levels) gives politicians the incentives they need to make big, public promises; promises of more police, more prisons and harsher sentences to assure voters that they will be ‘tough on crime’. In contrast, probation operates in the shadows. Investing into services that support prison-leavers may expose policymakers to criticisms such as being ‘soft on crime’. Part 1 of the Independent Sentencing Review confirms that this approach is not only the wrong answer but also exacerbating the problem.
However, now is the chance to do something different. Coming into office, the new government promised an end to such ‘sticking plaster politics’ and there have been some promising signs since the start of this Labour government. From the widely lauded speedy appointment of James Timpson as Minister of Prisons, to Shabna Mahmood’s early release scheme and commissioned sentencing review, the government has taken important and sometimes difficult steps towards resolving the justice crisis. However, these steps are not enough. Without giving attention to probation, the government will miss the opportunity to truly improve the outcomes of our justice system.
Probationary reform is both a moral and economic imperative.
Over the past few decades, successive attempts at top-down restructuring have veered probation away from its founding mission to support people back into society, to instead managing and avoiding risk. Combined with a strikingly low workforce of under 21,000 practitioners that manages triple the number of people currently in prison, the service is crumbling under pressure. This is clear in the massive increase of the recall population in prison from just 100 in 1993 to 12,920 in 2024. Judges and magistrates have also seemingly lost faith in the probation system to offer a better alternative to incarceration, resulting in a greater use of custodial sentencing. Now England and Wales incarcerate more than any other country in Western Europe. It is clear that probation is failing to support sustainable re-entry into mainstream society, hindering the ability of prison-leavers to live lawful, happy and productive lives.
This shortfall in probationary support is having dire consequences.
Most people leave prison only to find that they felt more stable when inside, with research by Birmingham City University finding 41% of prison-leavers were unsure where they would live on release. From 2023 to 2024, 13% of prison leavers were released into homelessness making them 50% more likely to reoffend. And whilst half of the people in prison deal with drug addiction, only one-third of those who left in 2022 received any treatment or support leaving them to look towards crime to continue funding these habits. When people feel they have no choice but to return to crime, we fail them, their victims and the public. But it does not stop there. The impact of this is also felt intergenerationally with children of offenders being more likely to commit crime themselves. A 2007 study found that two-thirds of those with a convicted father were convicted themselves by age 32 compared to a third without. Until we support those who leave prison to find safety and stability outside, we leave everyone at risk to fall back into crisis.
The failures of our current probation system also carry significant economic costs. In the detecting, sentencing and imprisoning of reoffenders, the government spends £18.1 billion per year. The government’s new ‘Plan for Change’ allocates £2.3 billion of the Budget to build four new prisons. In addition, His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service estimates it would cost more than double the current maintenance expenditure to bring the whole estate into fair condition. If probation worked effectively, intervening and supporting in the right way, the government would be able to invest that money into the public services that matter to us most, such as the NHS. Not only do we bear the massive cost of resentencing, but also the lost economic potential of those in prison rather than in employment. Spending more upfront to support prison-leavers to change their lives will lower their odds of returning to the crisis points that led them to prison in the first place. Rather than the tens of thousands of pounds needed to keep someone in prison, we must help them achieve their economic potential outside, giving them the support and resources they need to end the cycle of crime they are stuck in.
The government has taken difficult decisions to prove its commitment to resolving the justice crisis, the early release scheme being one of these. However, without attending to probation, we fear these efforts will be in vein as can be seen in the scheme’s overwhelming recall rates. Likewise, more prisons without the tools to keep people out of them will inevitably lead to further capacity issues.
Since its inception, Demos has been a thought-leader on public service reform. Over the past year, our Future Public Services Taskforce has been developing a new cross-cutting public service reform strategy. Based on this work, we believe a new delivery of probation – one founded on prevention, strong relationships and professional autonomy – will renew its direction. For the government to make real and lasting change in the justice system, it must first grapple with the forgotten service: Probation.
If you are interested to learn more about our work we are pursuing in this area, please get in touch with me via [email protected].