Criminal damage
Reparative work pilots Q & A
- What is the purpose of these schemes?
- Isn't reparative work merely a soft option?
- What are the benefits of practical reparation to the community?
- How will suitable work be identified?
- Why is there a limit of 20 hours for unpaid work?
- Don't these schemes just replicate community sentences given at the Court?
- How would we differentiate between work carried out as part of a longer commmunity penalty and the unpaid work carried out as a result of the conditional caution pilot?
- Won't this cost money especially, if compared to the cost of giving fines at court?
- Is this an appropriate use of Probation Service resources?
- Won't these schemes put the general public at risk from offenders?
- Conditional cautions are supposed to be straightforward to administer. Won't the proposal to pilot reparative work make the scheme more complicated?
Q. What is the purpose of these schemes?
A. These schemes aim to benefit the wider community which may have suffered as a result of the offender's behaviour. The work given will be proportionate and appropriate to the offence committed. Back to top
Q. Isn't reparative work merely a soft option?
A. No. Reparative work can be more successful at helping offenders to stop offending again, which means fewer crimes and fewer victims. As a response to offending, it focuses on making amends to society and provides a visisble means of offenders doing so. Back to top
Q. What are the benefits of practical reparation to the community?
A. Often communities are blighted by the kind of low level, nuisance crime acommitted in our neighbourhoods like graffiti, vandalism, etc. The Prime Minister's Respect Agenda recognises that problem behaviour can over time create havoc for communities. Practical reparation in the community allows local people to see that graffiti is being cleaned off walls, that litter is being cleared up and that other repairs or improvements are made to community areas. Equally offenders gain an understanding of how difficult it is to repair damage they ahve caused whilst making amends for the offence they have committed. Back to top
Q. How will suitable work be identified?
A. Probation will identify suitable schemes that can be used, drawing on their expertise from involvement in similar schemes. Back to top
Q. Why is there a limit of 20 hours for unpaid work?
A. The unpaid work conditions we are proposing as part of the new punitive conditions must be meaningful enough for the National Probation Service to be able to work with the offender but also proportionate to the offending behaviour. We believe that setting a maximum for conditional cautions which is half the minimum number of hours at the Magistrates' Court is an appropriate balance. Back to top
Q. Don't these schemes just replicate community sentences given in court?
A. No. The reparative work condition is aimed at making good the harm done as a result of low level offending. The pilots will test the feasibility of using this approach. Back to top
Q. How would we differentiate between work carried out as part of a longer community penalty and the unpaid work carried out as a result of the conditional caution pilot?
A. There is a branding issue which the pilots will consider. Unpaid work as a condition of a conditional caution will need to be distinct both from court ordered community penalties and work undertaken to pay off fines. Back to top
Q. Won't this cost money especially, if compared to the cost of giving fines at court?
A. The schemes will of course cost money to operate. We are implementing a pilot study in seven areas to ascertain the resources required to operate short reparative work programmes. This will enable us to assess potential resource implications for the Probation Service against benefits to the community (improved public confidence, reduced re-offending, improved vicitm satisfaciton, etc), and will include an examination of how the voluntary sector might become engaged. The evaluation will then inform the feasibility of further roll-out. The availability of unpaid reparative work will open the possibility of diversion to offenders lacking the means to pay realistic amounts of compensation to their communities.
Overall we expect that the greater use of conditional cautions will prove a cost saving measure to the Community Justice System as a whole (saving court cases) and to the community who should benefit from the outcomes. Back to top
Q. Is this an appropriate use of Probation Service resources?
A. An evaluation of the work schemes will be carried out to assess the costs and benefits of the scheme. The evaluation will also assess different models employed by different areas in the operation of the scheme (including the use of Voluntary Sector Organsiations for delivery) to inform which models yield the best results and the viability of further rollout. Back to top
Q. Won't these schemes put the general public at risk from offenders?
A. The National Probation Service has agreed to provide a basic risk assessment which will not be dissimilar to the level of information provided to courst in a 'stand down' report. Health and safety issues willa lso be assessed prior to commencing work. Back to top
Q. Condition cautions are supposed to be straightforward to administer. Won't the proposal to pilot reparative work make the scheme more complicated?
A. In the pilot studies, Probation officers will oversee the operation of the reparative work schemes and will draw on their exisitng experience from operating similar schemes. An evaluation of the work schemes will be carried out to assess the processes involved, including any additional complexity this brings to the scheme. The evaluation will also assess different models employed by different areas in the operation of the scheme (including the use of Voluntary Sector Organisations for delivery) to ifnorm which models yield the best results and the viability of further rollout. Back to top
Last update: Thursday, June 28, 2007
