Greater Manchester Probation Trust

In the Community

Community sentences aim to punish, change, control and help offenders according to their needs.

Sentences can include intensive punishment, tight restrictions on freedom, close focus on rehabilitation and making amends to the community.

Community sentences are not a soft option. Offenders punished with a community sentence do not walk free from court, but face up to three years of restrictions on their liberty.

For many offenders, being made to face up to the consequences of their crime and the root causes of their offending behaviour are the toughest and most painful parts of their punishment. They are also the most essential.

Offender Management

Judges and Magistrates can sentence offenders to a Community Order. The Community Order will specify up to five requirements from a range of twelve,  depending on the seriousness of the offence and the potential for risk of harm and re-offending.  

The twelve requirements that are available under the Criminal Justice Act are:

  1.    Unpaid Work
  2.    Activity
  3.    Programme
  4.    Prohibited Activity
  5.    Supervision
  6.    Exclusion
  7.    Residence
  8.    Mental Health treatment
  9.    Drug Rehabilitation
  10.    Attendance Centre
  11.    Alcohol Treatment
  12.    Curfew
When an offender has been given a community order, the offender manager’s duties are:-
 
  • to impose obligations and restrictions on the offender to fulfil sentencers' requirements of punishment;
  • to develop more responsible behaviour in the offender;
  • to improve the offender's attitudes so they become less anti-social;
  • to help improve the offender's social circumstances and links in the community;
  • to manage risk presented by the offender so that the possibility of serious harm is reduced;
  • to provide good value for money in the cost of organising and running the order.
 

It is the key aim of Greater Manchester Probation Trust  to manage all offenders given community orders and ensure that they complete their sentence successfully.. If an offender does not comply with the requirements of their order, they can be sent back to court.

Any offender given a supervision requirement as part of a community order is required to attend appointments with an offender manager from Greater Manchester Probation Trust .  The offender manager monitors the offender, assesses their needs and offers them support for areas such as accommodation, substance misuse, and education. 

Every offender sentenced to 12 months or more in prison is required to be supervised in the community for a proportion of their sentence. Probation staff work closely with prisons to help offenders prepare for release. Probation staff also supervise prisoners who have been released on a life licence. It is our priority to protect the public by supervising offenders in the community.

Curfews

This requirement will usually be accompanied with electronic monitoring (commonly known as wearing a tag). Electronic monitoring is managed by G4S.  The offender must remain at a specified place for a period of between two and twelve hours per day. The requirement may last for up to six months.

Tackling alcohol and drug misuse and homelessness
 
Links between re-offending and homelessness are well established.

Drug and alcohol misuse and other problems increase sharply as accommodation difficulties arise.

In partnership with other agencies, offender managers help homeless offenders - or those with housing problems - to get proper accommodation .
 
Drug misuse can create all sorts of problems - personal, health and in committing offences. People may steal to pay for drugs. Enabling homeless or inadequately housed offenders to find suitable housing, with support where necessary, is central to the effective supervision of offenders in the community, and we work to do this in partnership with housing associations, local housing authorities and voluntary agencies.

Greater Manchester Probation Trust also supervises offenders sentenced to a drug rehabilitation requirement (DRR). Offenders are tested regularly for drug taking while undergoing probation-supervised treatment

In addition Greater Manchester Probation provides specialists in basic skills, employment, training and education to help offenders overcome obstacles which bar their way to jobs, change their lifestyle and establish a more stable and positive future.

Integrated Offender Management

The Integrated Offender Management Project - or “Spotlight”, as it is known, has been launched in Tameside. This is a multi-agency project aimed at delivering an integrated approach to the management of all high risk offenders.

It builds on existing work carried out with prolific and priority offenders (PPO) and those subject to Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA).

It involves the probation, police and youth offending services and local authority staff working together to: provide intensive supervision for those most at risk;  share information on a daily basis about high risk offenders; share decision making on priorities, performance management,  tasking; and co-ordinate resources at a strategic level.

Spotlight gives probation and partner agencies a good model to improve the joint management of those offenders who pose a significant risk of harm and re-offending in our communities. The potential benefits to the Criminal Justice System are significant, but the real motivation for making Spotlight work is to reduce the number of victims of crime and continue to provide a quality service to people in our neighbourhoods.  It is intended the project will be rolled out across Greater Manchester following the pilot in Tameside.

Intensive Alternative to Custody (IAC)

The Intensive Alternative to Custody (IAC)  is a new Community Order available in the City of Manchester and Salford from 1 April 2009

Greater Manchester Probation Trust was allocated funds by the Ministry of Justice to develop a credible and effective alternative to custody for offenders who would normally receive a prison sentence of less than 12 months.

This pilot will run for two years from April 2009 in the City of Manchester and Salford and targets 18 - 25 year old males. 

There is evidence that the re-offending rate for those sentenced to less than 12 months is over 70% , The aim of the IAC Order is to offer a robust community based intervention that helps reduce the harm that these offenders cause to the community.

The IAC Order involves an intensive curriculum of activity offering rehabilitation, punishment and reparation through new partnerships between GMPT, statutory, voluntary and private sector organisations.

IAC Orders last for 12 months and most will involve up to five requirements out of the twelve available under the Criminal Justice Act 2003.

A mentor works alongside offender managers to encourage motivation and support compliance. A strong emphasis is given to working towards employment.

The partner agencies who assist in delivering IAC Orders with GMPT are Work Solutions, Partners of Prisoners and Group 4 Securicor.

Objectives of IAC

  • Divert people from short term custody
  • Reduce re-offending with a difficult offender group
  • Control, change, integrate
  • Develop new partnerships to deliver interventions
  • Increase confidence in community sentences

The IAC Programme involves:

  • Tailored interventions for each offender
  • Intensive supervision
  • Enhanced monitoring
  • 30 hours pw week activity + curfew
  • Accredited Programme
  • Unpaid work
  • Court reviews progress
  • Swift sanction for non-compliance

Programmes

Greater Manchester Probation Trust delivers nationally accredited programmes which are designed to stop offenders committing further crimes by challenging and changing their attitudes and behaviour.

Offenders are assessed by probation staff for their suitability to undertake a specific programme. Programmes are mostly run as group sessions and Probation Programme leaders work with a group of offenders in a course of regular sessions (at least two hours each session). Each offender also has individual work before starting the course and afterwards in order to assess progress in changing attitude and behaviour.

In Greater Manchester Probation Trust  we run the following group work programmes:

  • Thinking Skills Programme (TSP)– a thinking skills group programme designed to change thoughts, attitudes and values behind criminal behaviour.
  • Addressing Substance Related Offences (ASRO) – a behaviour programme which looks at reducing substance abuse and preventing re-offending.
  • Drink Impaired Drivers Programme (DID) – for offences of driving or linked offences.
  • Sex Offender Groupwork Programme (SOGP) – for adult male offenders whose victims are children. Specialist assessment is required for this intensive programme.
  • Internet Sex Offender Treatment Programme (I-SOTP) – for male offenders with convictions for internet only sex offences.  It is designed to reduce the risk of future internet offending and progression to contact sex offending.
  • Controlling Anger and Learning to Manage it (CALM) – a programme for male offenders to reduce aggressive and offending behaviour.
  • Control of Violence for Angry Impulsive Drinkers - primarily for young men who are binge drinkers and who get into trouble when drinking socially
  • Intensive Domestic Abuse Programme (IDAP) – to reduce the risk of re-offending of male domestic violence offenders.
  • Women’s Programme  - specifically for women offenders, to build their skills and their ability to appreciate their own potential.
  • Cognitive Skills Booster Programme -  for offenders who have completed a general offending behaviour programme. This aims to consolidate and practice skills learned in the earlier programmes in order to increase their ability to avoid further offending.
Work with Victims
 

Providing care and support to victims is of the utmost importance to Greater Manchester Probation Trust. We employ highly skilled victim liaison officers across the area who contact all victims, survivors and next of kin of serious sexual and violent criminal offences where the offender has been sentenced to 12 months or more imprisonment.

Our officers provide a sympathetic approach when making contact with a victim of crime. The contact will initially be by letter and will offer the victim a face to face appointment at their home address. It will also explain the victim's right to decline contact and the right to change their mind and decide to take up contact at a later date.

At the interview the Victim Liaison Officer will:

  • Explain the rights of the individual and the information they can provide to the Criminal Justice process.
  • Respond to the strong emotions which the victim has about the offence, sentence, and court process.
  • Provide information about the sentencing process, for example, the type of sentence, prison category A-D, sentence length and key dates of sentence.
  • Provide information about the likely timescale for considering release on licence or temporary licence
  • Provide general information about the custodial process for the offender and supervision after release
  • Explain the individual's right to confidentiality.
  • Assess the risk of re-victimisation.
  • Seek to obtain views for inclusion in the preparation of parole reports
  • Offer the opportunity of being contacted at stages when the offender is in custody and for having a say about the arrangements for release from prison.

In addition to the above in Lifer cases, the Victim Liaison Officer will:

  • Inform of the Tariff / Minimum sentence.
  • Inform of Reviews.

Victim Liaison Officers maintain contact and will  respond to any requests for information during the sentence period. Repeat contact will be arranged as and when required.