Transforming Rehabilitation

Assignment Essay Help on Transforming Rehabilitation

An effective criminal justice system focuses not only on the protection of the public from criminal elements, supporting affected persons and punishing the offenders but also reforming the offenders for them to avoid committing any more crimes.. As such, Chris Grayling, the then Justice Secretary in 2013, felt that there was a need to involve everyone rather the national government to improve the rehabilitation programs. Therefore, in 2013, after a series of consultations, Grayling introduced a raft of changes that were aimed at revolutionising how offenders are managed in the society.  Calder & Goodman (2013) explain that the new system was capable of identifying and resolving the chaotic lives of the offenders and the many challenges that they faced daily. Also, Grayling argued that it was the responsibility of everyone: the government, the private sector and the community, to ensure released offenders got integrated into the society appropriately which effectively reduced their chances of reoffending (Calder & Goodman, 2013). Grayling’s raft of changes in England’s rehabilitation programs aimed at ensuring that the private, public and voluntary sectors minise the chances of re-offending and thus improving the societal protection.

The Rationale of Grayling’s Transforming Rehabilitation: Assignment Essay Help

The Justice Ministry noted that though it was difficult to predict the chances of reoffending, factors such as unemployment, chaotic childhoods, accommodation problems and criminal history were directly associated with the rate of reoffending. According to Burke &  Collett (2016), the Surveying Prisoner Crime Reduction report of 2012 estimated that 4% of the prisoners serving sentence terms of between 1 month and five years had no previous conviction or even a warning. The report further concluded that the likelihood of future reoffending was influenced by the seriousness and rate of past offending Ludlow (2014).

Burke and Collett (2016) explain that in response to the challenge of the increased rate of reoffending, the Justice Ministry, under the guidance of Grayling submitted a paper focusing on consultation entitled, ‘Transforming Rehabilitation”. The government responded to the consultation with the paper, ‘Transforming Rehabilitation: A reform strategy’ which was published in the month of May, 2013. Notably, the reforms in the rehabilitation program made significant contributions to the Justice Ministry, ‘Transforming Justice’ program, especially since 26% of the 2010-14 departmental budgets had been cut. Moreover, Teague (2013) explains that the transforming rehabilitation program required expertise from the voluntary and private sector and the emergence of a competing market was expected to enable the Ministry of Justice to make savings as well as freeing up costs directed towards the new rehabilitation support for offenders sentenced for a short period of time.

Ludlow (2014) explains that the transforming rehabilitation program was expected to allow the private and voluntary community to offer supervision services, manage offenders and initiate individualistic interventions to offenders, a job that was previously the sole responsibility of the Probation Trusts, a publicly funded entity. An estimated 70% of the work done by the Probation Trust was to be contracted to the private and voluntary community (Ludlow, 2014). Interestingly, the reforms proposed that under the new system, stakeholders would be paid if only they demonstrated that the rate of reoffending among their assigned number of offenders had reduced.

An Overview of the Aims of Transforming Rehabilitatio: Assignment Essay Help

1.      To expand the provision of the statutory rehabilitation services to 50,000 offenders, which translates to a total of 60% of the total number of inmates, particularly those sentenced to less than one year in custody? Notably, this objective required the adoption of the new legislation that changed the sentencing and releases working framework (Teague, 2013).

2.      To pave way for the rehabilitation and probation sector to be effective and competitive by encouraging the all sectors and the voluntary communities to bid at least 70% of the service. Before the transforming rehabilitation program, the government-operated 35 probation trusts across England and Wales. During the integration of other agencies, the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) was mandated to commission the rehabilitation services in all the 21 Contract Package Areas (CPAs) and were expected to supervise the efficiency and operations of the contracted service providers (Teague, 2013).

3.      To provide incentives to providers by pegging their payments to the results produced when tackling the life management problems of the offenders and a substantial reduction of the rate of reoffending. In this regard, contracted service providers were made free to use any interventions they felt were appropriate to reduce reoffending (Teague, 2013).

4.      To create a new National Probation Service mandated to deliver the remaining 30% of rehabilitation and probation service, especially those involving high-risk offenders and also in the protection of the public. Notably, the public sector was to retain the responsibility of providing the initial risk assessment services, breach decisions after the first warning and also played the role of victim liaison. Furthermore, the Inspectorate of Probation remained independent (Teague, 2013).

5.      To introduce a new ‘Through the Gate’ resettlement service by reorganising the prison estate. The objective of this strategy was to hold offenders in an area designated by the prison service for at least three months before their release. During this time, the offenders were required to receive continuous support provided by a single provider from the custody to integration into the community. The changes abolished the earlier system of individual probation trusts and ended up transferring over 18,000 staff members to newly established organisations. Also, around 250,000 offender cases were reallocated, and a new 22 management teams recruited. More 2,000 existing contract package area were merged, and 70 adult male prisons in England and Wales were noted down as ‘resettlement prisons’ out of the total 130 (Teague, 2013).

The impact of Transforming Rehabilitation in Reducing Reoffending: Assignment Essay Help

The effect of changing and improving Rehabilitation is based on its effectiveness in reducing offending using specific approaches and interventions. While the extent and quality of the program may vary, the number of reduced re-offenders creates a broader understanding of the particular interventions that are working. Also, it explains why some interventions are more or less effective than others. Transforming rehabilitation offers structured rehabilitation methods that are appropriate in both prison and community is done through social learning theory and cognitive behavioural principles. Burke and Collett (2016) add that most of these interventions focus on skills such as problem-solving and management of emotions or in short, skills that support personal development.

Successful intervention under transforming rehabilitation

Offending behavioural programs: This program has reported a positive impact on reoffending, especially in interventions that focus on cognitive skills and anger management for violent offenders. However, for sexual and domestic violence offenders, the intervention has demonstrated mixed evidence (Ludlow, 2014).

Development and enhancement of family relationships: It is evident that the intervention has dramatically reduced reoffending amongst young people. As such, approaches that focus on building family and intimacy relationships can reduce reoffending among adults (Ludlow, 2014).

Restorative justice; the intervention requires all the parties involved in a particular offence to resolve after the consequences collectively. Unfortunately, this intervention has so far sent mixed reactions to its effectiveness (Ludlow, 2014).

            Mentoring; this intervention involves pairing an offender with a person who has made it in life, probably a role model. The role of the good person is to influence the life of the offender and assist them to improve their lives, effectively reducing reoffending. Mainly, the mentoring starts while the offender is still in prison and continues after their release (Ludlow, 2014).

Conclusion

England and Wales have consistently made attempts to improve their criminal justice system from not only during the conviction process but also after the offenders complete their terms. Chris Grayling felt that the probation system needed some changes to ensure that while the citizens remained protected from criminals, the offenders who completed their terms did not commit crimes again. He felt that the centralised system needed to be decentralised and the public and private organisations given their fair share of responsibilities. This idea led to the development of a consultation paper by the Justice Ministry regarding the need for transforming rehabilitation program. In response, the government developed a paper in order to support the concept. Consequently, the private and community sector was invited to bid for contracts in rehabilitating offenders.

The transforming rehabilitation program has made some achievements, especially in reducing the rate reoffending. The involvement of the private and public organisations has allowed the interventions used by the government to get complimented by the other sectors. An offender is not only rehabilitated while in prison but also after their release through the community and private sector. It is with no doubt that transforming rehabilitation has played a substantive role in reducing the rate of reoffending.