National Probation Service

NPS logo

The National Probation Service for England and Wales is a statutory Criminal Justice Service, mainly responsible for the supervision of offenders in the community and the provision of reports to the criminal courts to assist them in their sentencing duties. It was established in its current form by the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act in April 2001, but has existed since 1907 as a set of area based services interacting at ever-shortening arms-length with central government. Northern Ireland has its own probation service, whilst in Scotland criminal justice social work services are managed within the social work departments of local authorities.

In its current form, the NPS is part of the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) previously within the Home Office but since 9 May 2007 within the [[Ministry of Justice (United Kingdom) |Ministry of Justice]], and comprises 42 probation areas which are coterminous with police force area boundaries, served by 35 Probation Trusts. Trusts are funded by NOMS and employ all staff except the Chief Officer; they are accountable to their Boards (comprising up to 15 members appointed by the Secretary of State) for day to day operations and financial management, and to NOMS via a Regional Offender Manager, with whom they have service level agreements, for performance against the targets for the offender management and interventions services for which they have been funded.

The work of Probation Trusts is scrutinised by NOMS, which reports independently to UK Government Ministers; and by HM Inspectorate of Probation.

The Service, at the start of 2004, had some 18,000 staff. Statistics for the year 2002 state that it supervised just less than 193,000 offenders and provided 253,000 Pre Sentence Reports to courts in England and Wales, advising them on the background of and proposing appropriate sentences for convicted offenders. In addition, it has responsibility for ensuring that victims of violent and sexual crime resulting in prison sentences of over 12 months are consulted before offenders are released from custody.

The advent of NOMS in 2004 changed the pattern of correctional services delivery in England and Wales. The Offender Management Bill, introduced in Parliament late in 2006, was intended to enable probation areas to become trusts as part of wider Government policy to open up the provision of correctional services to greater competition from the voluntary, community, and private sectors. This was one of the recommendations of the Carter Report (2003): others were to introduce a system of end-to-end offender management, with one named offender manager having responsibility for an offender throughout his or her sentence (be it in custody, the community, or both), and to rebalance sentencing in order to redress the drift towards less and less serious offences resulting in imprisonment or community sentences. Carter saw the need to improve public and sentencer confidence not only in community sentences but also in the fine as credible sanctions for appropriate offenders and offences.

The Bill completed its passage through parliament in July 2007, and the first six probation trusts came into being on 1 April 2008 (Merseyside, South Wales, Humberside, Dyfed/Powys, West Mercia and Leicestershire & Rutland). Lancashire Probation Trust achieved Trust status on 1 April 2009.

History

The Church of England Temperance Society and other voluntary societies appointed missionaries to the London Police Courts during the late nineteenth century. From this developed the system of releasing offenders on the condition that they kept in touch with the missionary and accepted guidance. In 1907 this supervision was given a statutory basis which allowed courts to appoint and employ probation officers.^[1]

Probation Trusts

35 Probation Trusts provide the operational elements of probation in England and Wales. They are:

• Avon & Somerset Probation Trust
• Bedfordshire Probation Trust
• Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Probation Trust
• Cheshire Probation Trust
• Cumbria Probation Trust
• Derbyshire Probation Trust
• Devon and Cornwall Probation Trust
• Dorset Probation Trust
• Durham Tees Valley Probation Trust
• Essex Probation
• Gloucestershire Probation Trust
• Greater Manchester Probation Trust
• Hampshire Probation Trust
• Hertfordshire Probation Trust
• Humberside Probation Trust
• Kent Probation
• Lancashire Probation Trust
• Leicestershire Rutland Probation Trust
• Lincolnshire Probation Trust
• London Probation Trust
• Merseyside Probation Trust
• Norfolk & Suffolk Probation Trust
• Nottinghamshire Probation Trust
• Northamptonshire Probation Trust
• Northumbria Probation Trust
• South Yorkshire Probation Trust
• Staffordshire & West Midlands Probation Trust
• Surrey & Sussex Probation Trust
• Thames Valley Probation
• Wales Probation Trust
• Warwickshire Probation Trust
• West Mercia Probation Trust
• West Yorkshire Probation Trust
• Wiltshire Probation Trust
• York & North Yorkshire Probation Trust

See also

• Violent and Sex Offender Register
• OASys
• Criminal Justice Social Work Services, probation services are provided by local authorities in Scotland
• Drug Intervention Program
• Lancashire Probation Trust

External links

• National Probation Service
• Probation Statistics 2002
• Managing Offenders, reducing Crime - Home Office paper describing proposals for NOMS
• Excel spreadsheet linked to downloadable National Probation Service Circulars issued 1996 to 2007.
• Rehabilitation versus punishment – judge for yourself press release from the ministry of Justice for an interactive media overview of the England & Wales probation process
  • Judge for yourself website
• Video clip about Desistance and Probation Practice Research by the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research

Notes

1. ^ [1]^{[dead link]}