There are numerous services, programmes and initiatives operating in the pan-Dorset area that specifically aim to tackle reoffending based on the pathways to reduce reoffending.
The Probation Service
The Probation Service is a statutory criminal justice service that manages offenders throughout their time in the criminal justice system, while protecting the public.
The service is responsible for sentence management in both England and Wales, along with Accredited Programmes, Unpaid Work, and Structured Interventions.
In sentence management their focus is on strengthening the probation practitioner’s relationship with people on probation, using the right key skills, activities and behaviours to achieve the most effective outcomes and enable offenders to make positive changes to their lives.
This includes more consistent management and delivery of sentence plans, better assessment and management of risk and more balanced caseloads and an improved case allocation process to support this.
For Unpaid Work, Accredited Programmes and Structured Interventions they aim to make placements and programmes available locally, with a thorough assessment and induction process, regular reviews of active cases and ongoing professional development for staff delivering interventions.
Other interventions that meet rehabilitative and resettlement needs are delivered by Commissioned Rehabilitative Service providers with cases managed according to the risk, need and sentence type.
For resettlement, they have an enhanced pre-release system.
A community responsible officer leads on all the pre-release activities, undertaking a comprehensive assessment and developing a sentence plan aligned to need, risk, and victim issues.
This applies to offenders prior to release during the final phase of prison, through to transition, and post-release.
Integrated Offender Management (IOM)
Integrated Offender Management (IOM) brings a cross-agency response to the crime and reoffending threats faced by local communities.
The most persistent and problematic offenders are identified and managed jointly by partner agencies working together.
IOM helps to improve quality of life in communities by:
- reducing the negative impact of crime and reoffending
- reducing the number of people who become victims of crime
- helping to improve the public’s confidence in the criminal justice system
The Dorset Combined Youth Justice Service
The Dorset Combined Youth Justice Service (DCYJS) works across the pan-Dorset area to provide statutory youth justice services, including advice to police and courts, and supervision of youth out of court disposals and youth court orders.
The service aims both to prevent offending and to reduce reoffending and protect communities from crime.
DCYJS is a multi-agency partnership between:
- the local authorities
- Dorset Police
- the Dorset Police and Crime Commissioner
- the Probation Service
- NHS Dorset
- Dorset HealthCare University H+NHS Foundation Trust.
DCYJS prioritises building positive, pro-social relationships with children who have committed an offence.
DCYJS is a multi-agency partnership which includes a health team comprising of Speech and Language Therapists, a Psychologist and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) nurses.
Specialist assessments and advice from these health workers enable team members to adapt their work to meet children’s individual communication needs and their experiences of past traumatic events.
The multi-disciplinary DCYJS team also includes education specialists and parenting workers, enabling the service to support the child to access suitable education and to provide support for parents and carers.
Restorative Justice practitioners work with victims to keep them informed, offer them restorative justice opportunities, and pass on their views to inform the service’s work with the child who harmed them.
In recent years DCYJS has been developing its work to build on children’s strengths and to support them into pro-social activities.
This remains a development priority, with plans to strengthen links with community organisations and to develop positive activities and employability activities for children working with the Youth Justice Service (YJS).
The activity of the YJS, including its work to reduce reoffending, is overseen by the YJS Partnership Board, comprised of senior leaders from the YJS partner agencies.
Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangement (MAPPA)
Multi-agency public protection arrangements (MAPPA) are in place to ensure the successful management of violent and sexual offenders.
There is a Statutory Strategic Management Board (SMB) which oversees the joint management of risk between partners. Dorset MAPPA report 2022-2023.
Police, National Probation Service and Prisons are responsible authorities.
Other agencies have a duty to co-operate and can become involved in cases, for example:
- Youth Justice Services in the case of young offenders
- Health, including mental health and Specialist Services
- Housing
- Children’s, and Adults Services provided by the Local authorities
Management of Sexual Offenders & Violent Offenders (MOSOVO)
The MOSOVO Team are part of Dorset Police.
They manage registered sex offenders (RSOs), violent offenders under MAPPA and offenders who are identified by Dorset police as being potentially dangerous persons (PDPs).
The Team works closely with partner agencies, especially the Probation Service.
Out of Court Disposal
Out of Court Disposals (OoCD) allow the police to deal quickly and proportionately with low-level, often first-time offending which could more appropriately be resolved without a prosecution at court.
Using out-of-court disposals allows offenders to be directed into rehabilitative or educational services to tackle the causes of offending behaviour and reduce the likelihood of re-offending.
Youth out-of-court disposals provide the opportunity to assess and put in place interventions to prevent further offending.
Perpetrator Programmes
There are several established programmes working with perpetrators of domestic abuse across the pan-Dorset area. They include:
- Up2u,
- Choose2Change
- Time to Change
Up2u Family Practice Model
Is a therapeutic ‘behaviour change’ programme to support individuals in recognising and managing thoughts and feelings and having healthier relationships.
It is aimed at parents/carers who have unhealthy relationships with children, partners, family members, professionals or other adults .
Up2u Creating healthy relationships
Is a programme for people who use domestically abusive behaviours in their intimate partner
relationships.
This can be tailored to work with both males and females from the age of 16 and can be delivered to people who use domestically abusive behaviours in same sex relationships.
Time to Change.
Is a 1:1 behaviour change programme working with females who are responsible for domestic abuse and/or violence towards their male partners and ex partners.
Choose2Change
Is a group work behaviour change programme working with males who are responsible for domestic abuse or violence towards their female partners and ex partners.
High Harm Perpetrator Panel
Is a multi-agency tasking forum to discuss and share information relating to high risk VAWG offences.
It also consists of management of high-harm offenders, focusing on the most severe and recurrent cases of domestic abuse, stalking, and individuals who have consistently exhibited sexually harmful behaviours (SHB).
Substance Misuse Treatment Services
Local substance misuse treatment services can offer multi-disciplinary interventions to people who use alcohol and drugs involved in the criminal justice system, managing them from the point of arrest (drug testing on arrest / out of court disposals/ arrest referral/ support to probation court officers / pre-sentence planning) to release (assertive support on release from custody and prison/ working with prisons for the smooth transition of individuals back to the local area) and on to specific programmes aiming to reduce alcohol and/or drug related crime throughout treatment.
There are a variety of different options for treatment on offer across the pan-Dorset area, based on substance, dependency, and age.
Treatment services can assist and support family members as well.
Treatment services can offer several specific interventions for offenders (adults and children) with substance misuse issues either through an out of court disposal, via a Court order or on release from prison.
Substance Misuse services will also work with offenders not on orders who would like to address their substance misuse issues voluntarily.
As part of a Community Sentence, courts can impose either a Drug Rehabilitation Requirement (DRR) or Alcohol Treatment Requirement (ATR) instead of receiving a custodial sentence.
If a court order is given, the offender must engage with both the probation service and the nominated treatment service.
Failure to comply with this order results in the individual going back to court to be re-sentenced.
Services also engage with multidisciplinary work such as Integrated Offender Management (IOM) and MAPPA meetings as required and attend weekly meetings with Probation Officers.
The Dorset Combating Drugs Partnership (CDP) co-ordinates partners’ work to tackle substance misuse issues. The CDP has several sub-groups including one dedicated to treatment.
Restorative Justice
Restorative justice brings together people harmed by crime or conflict with those responsible for the harm, to find a positive way forward.
The approach gives victims the chance to tell offenders the real impact of their crime and get answers to their questions.
Restorative justice holds offenders to account for what they have done. It helps them understand the real impact, take responsibility, and make amends.
The Safe Schools and Communities Team not only provides restorative justice interventions but also engages officers trained as restorative justice practitioners.
These professionals actively participate in restorative justice conferences addressing issues such as bullying, shoplifting, and drug possession.
Additionally, they contribute to retail and drugs workshops as integral components of the rehabilitative measures associated with youth conditional cautions.
The DCYJS offer restorative justice to the victims of all offences committed by children who work with the YJS.
The YJS team includes Restorative Justice Practitioners who are trained and accredited in facilitating Restorative Justice Conferences, including for complex and sensitive cases such as offences involving domestic abuse or sexual harm.
Most children working with the YJS also undertake reparative activity to help repair the harm from their offence.
Restorative Justice Dorset (RJ Dorset) operates under the umbrella of Restorative Solutions CIC and have been commissioned by the Dorset Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) to facilitate restorative justice processes for victims of crimes in the Dorset region, involving adult offenders (18+).
In 2022, RJ Dorset effectively managed and processed more than 250 referrals.
The activities encompass both direct and indirect restorative justice interventions.
These interventions span a wide spectrum, including cases associated with out-of-court disposals and post-conviction situations.
They cater to individuals who may be in custody or serving community sentences, ensuring that the restorative principles are consistently applied.
NHSE Non-Custodial Services
The prevalence of health and social problems among those in contact with the criminal justice system (CJS) is high.
Many individuals involved in the criminal justice system have underlying issues, such as physical and/or mental health problems, neurodiversity needs or substance abuse, that contribute to their criminal behaviour.
NHSE non-custodial services aim to support individuals to address these underlying issues, that may otherwise have reduced the effectiveness of other rehabilitative interventions.
Liaison and Diversion (L&D) services.
These services identify people who have mental health, learning disability, substance misuse or other vulnerabilities when they first encounter the criminal justice system, usually in Police custody or at Court.
The service can then refer to, and help people to attend, appropriate health or social care and support services, to reduce the likelihood that people will reach a crisis-point and improve their overall health outcomes, thereby reducing the on-going incidence of reoffending by that individual.
Mental Health Treatment Requirement (MHTR)
This is an adult community order sentenced by a Court that requires an individual to undertake 12 sessions of cognitive based therapy support provided by a specialist delivery service.
This is co-commissioned by NHS England, Dorset Council, BCP Council, the Dorset PCC, and the Probation Service. MHTRs will:
- support a reduction in the mental health inequalities faced by an increasing number of vulnerable people in the criminal justice system
- provide an effective mental health treatment and evidence based sentencing option as an alternative to custodial sentences
- support rehabilitation and the move to a pathway of recovery and reduce reoffending
Reconnect
This is a ‘care after prison service’ providing a referral, assessment, liaison, and support service to improve the continuity of care of vulnerable people (those with physical or mental health needs) leaving prisons in Dorset or returning to the pan-Dorset area after being released by other prisons across England.
Reconnect will work with an individual for up to 12 weeks before they leave prison and support them, for up to 6 months, with their transition from prison to community-based health and support (specifically mental health, physical health, substance misuse, GP registration and dentistry) to maximise the opportunities for an individual to get the help they need to reduce their reoffending.
