“To add to the mess, the availability of community sentences depends on where the offender lives, as do the rules governing when offenders are deemed to have breached their orders”.

“Early signs are that community orders could be an effective alternative to prison for some offenders but until Ministry of Justice raises its game and gets the right information, it will remain impossible to say whether or not community orders are working”.  

Mr Bacon was speaking as the Commons public accounts committee published its report into the supervision of community orders in England and Wales.  The report finds that sentences served in the community offer the courts a credible alternative to custody.  Ministry of Justice figures showed that the reconviction rates for community orders were 3.6 per cent below predicted rates, as opposed to 3.1 per cent below predicted rates for custodial sentences.

However, the report also finds that the Ministry of Justice does not have basic information on the effectiveness of community orders, such as national data on whether offenders have completed their community orders.   Additionally, the most widely used measure of reoffending, the reconviction rate, does not include all offences committed in the two year monitoring period and is not comprehensive enough to be a useful measure of sentence effectiveness.

Although courts should be able to require offenders to complete alcohol or drug treatment programmes, these are not available in all local areas. There are also marked differences between probation areas in their interpretation of acceptable and unacceptable reasons for an offender breaching their community order.

4 November 2008

See also:
PAC REPORT: The supervision of community orders
PARLIAMENT: Community order waiting list ‘absurd', says MP
PARLIAMENT: MP wants fined offenders to pay on time

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