Reducing re-offending in local communities: an update to the 2005 LGA paper, 'Going Straight'

1. The key to a successful transition from prison to community is an integrated, multi-agency approach drawn from health, police, probation, local authorities and other agencies. 

2. Multiple factors are significant in reducing re-offending, including access to accommodation, educational and employment opportunities, support for mental health problems (including, substance and alcohol misuse and neurodivergent conditions), as well as familial support. Many needs are co-occurring and cannot be treated as stand-alone issues. 

3. Local authorities and community safety partnerships are well placed to contribute to crime reduction and should be viewed as partners and providers of services. They should have a fully funded and clearly delineated leadership role in coordinating the work of local partners in providing support to offenders returning to their communities. 

4. Government involvement needs to be consistent. There needs to be stronger and clearer communication between partners working in the prisoner and probation system – particularly regarding the release of offenders into local authority areas. It would be helpful to have greater clarity from government on strategic ownership of reducing re-offending.  

5. The prison service is struggling to recruit and retain staff whilst the prison population is growing. This will lead to a long-term rise in prison population and exacerbate the pre-existing needs of offenders which local authorities will be responsible for managing upon release. 

6. The government should explore learning from international examples of successfully reducing re-offending, including those in which small, community-based correctional facilities that focus on rehabilitation and reintegration back into society can reduce re-offending. 

7. Government can deliver safe and strong communities by giving councils the right frameworks and resources through: 

• Adequately and directly funding Community Safety Partnerships’ vital contribution to local community safety work, clarifying roles and responsibilities within the complex community safety landscape, and providing clear guidance on effective working and identifying best practice approaches. 
• recognising the contribution of other council services in preventative, early intervention and disruption activity that supports community safety and security, and investing in them accordingly
• More widely, a long-term commitment to funding public health, adult social care, and social housing properly through a co-coordinated government-wide strategy to improve the nation’s health, ensure people have support for complex needs, and that people have access to a safe, secure and high-quality home. 

8. Further guidance should be provided on the data that is required to be shared under the serious violence duty. 

9. Police and probation should be leading on reoffending strategies, with consistent government involvement.  

28. Many who come into contact with

29.The criminal justice system have a history of co-occurring mental health and substance misuse problems, neurodivergent conditions, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and trauma. 

30.Mental health, drug and alcohol reduction strategies and gambling addiction strategies need to be better integrated as well as have stronger linkages with wider public health bodies at a national level. 

31.The role of finance, benefits and debt in reoffending needs to be better recognised in particular in preparing for the day of release, to ensure that prisoners are not released into an impossible financial position. 

32. The 2021 joint thematic inspection of the criminal justice journey for individuals with mental health needs and disorders highlighted the clear need for progress and change for offenders who have mental health problems.

33. Mental illness can trigger criminal behaviour, and affect offenders' ability to understand and participate in the criminal justice process, whilst at the same time, entry to the system can provide a second chance for those who have fallen through the gap in accessing services and treatment.

34. Councils play a key role in supporting mental health in their communities, which entails maintaining good mental health, prevention of deteriorating mental health, and statutory roles and responsibilities. Mental health problems are on the increase, however, with rising demand for services and increasing complexity of needs.

35. A system-wide focus on early intervention and prevention is required. Intervening early to prevent mental health problems from developing, or to treat and support children, parents and families before problems progress is essential. This would help people leaving or within the criminal justice system with mental health problems and could help to reduce reoffending.

36. The LGA continues to call for sustainable funding for local government statutory and non-statutory mental health services, so they are on an equal footing with NHS clinical mental health services, to meet current, unmet and new demands in the community

37. For many drug users, engaging in treatment can be the catalyst for getting the medical help they need to address their physical and mental health problems. Getting drug users into treatment is a challenge but is crucial to saving lives.

38. Findings from the 2021 Dame Carole Black Review of Drugs demonstrate clear links between drug misuse and offending, with many who have addictions cycling in and out of prison. These prisoners are unlikely to achieve rehabilitation and recovery and are likely to re-offend.

39.Investing in drug prevention and treatment now provides benefits for everyone longer-term, including for the NHS, criminal justice and other public services and treatment for drug, alcohol and gambling addiction will reduce the burden on local authorities, NHS, social care, criminal justice and benefits system.

40. Councils want to continue working with government, local NHS, police, community groups and other partners to ensure everyone gets the support they need wherever possible.  

41.There needs to be clearly outlined expectations regarding the support that the Probation Service expect from commissioned substance misuse services to deliver community treatment orders. 

42. Government-funded pilots such as Project ADDER (Addiction, Diversion, Disruption, Enforcement and Recovery) have demonstrated the success of a partnership working with local authorities and other agencies in a ‘whole-system response’, and so should continue to be supported.

43. The impact of drug misuse is felt acutely in the most deprived areas, and so addressing these problems is central to the government's ambition of ‘levelling up’.

44. Sufficient ongoing funding for public health services, including for drug and alcohol prevention, evidence-based harm reduction, treatment and recovery is needed to ensure all councils can continue to meet their statutory public health responsibilities. This shortage of funding has led to a loss of skills and capacity in the recovery sector, not dissimilar from challenges seen in the adult social care sector. 

45. Commissioners should work collaboratively with treatment providers on a cycle of at least 5 years to reduce service disruption and continuity, to bring local authority commissions more into line with NHS practice, where there is a move away from competition in favour of collaboration.

46. A holistic approach to supporting offenders with substance misuse and alcohol problems is needed. Clinical services alone cannot lead to recovery and so extra support and opportunities for drug and alcohol users to gain employment, housing, mental health care and help from other agencies is also required. 

47. Gambling-related harms are now widely recognised as a public health issue which require a broad response. The 2023 Commission on Crime and Gambling Related Harms by the Howard League demonstrated clear links between gambling-related harms and offending, and called for a more strategic approach across government, health bodies and criminal justice agencies to tackle the issue.

48. Whilst councils are not responsible for providing treatment for harmful gambling, there are a range of ways in which different services can support people into the right treatment and support, including embedding knowledge and awareness of gambling within existing services, giving it parity of esteem with other issues- such as alcohol or substance misuse- and setting the tone of how gambling is discussed within a local area.  

49. Gambling may also be driving demand for other council service areas, including children’s, family and adult social services, treatment and early intervention services, homelessness and wider housing services and financial inclusion and debt advice services.  

50. Councils should ensure that frontline staff are provided with training so they can have conversations about gambling harms, raise awareness and support people to access help such as the NHS gambling treatment clinics. Councils can also seek to work with local partners and build links with support organisations to help develop specific local referral pathways and ensure these can be accessed from across the full range of local services. This could offer crucial support to people leaving or within the criminal justice system, and could help to reduce reoffending. 

51. As frontline awareness and identification of the harms that can be caused by gambling develops, councils should ensure they capture data about it, to help understand the extent of harmful gambling, impacts and costs associated with it.   

52. The LGA has produced guidance to help councils to develop a better understanding of gambling related harm and the role councils can play to identify and support residents who are affected by it. This guidance also signposts to examples of effective approaches to screening for gambling related harms in the criminal justice system. 

53. The 2021 Review of Neurodiversity in the Criminal Justice System found that there were difficulties experienced for those with neurodivergent conditions at every stage in the criminal justice process, from their arrest to their release from prison.

54. Neurodiversity is often misunderstood and misinterpreted, and can intersect with substance misuse as well as exacerbate trauma, and make navigating the criminal justice system itself challenging.

55. Neurodivergent offenders may be less likely to comply with their licence conditions, maintain employment and engage in rehabilitation programmes, where most rehabilitation programmes are normed for neurotypical offenders.

56. The patchiness of data, inconsistent assessment and lack of understanding of neurodiversity have led to concerns over meeting the needs of offenders with neurodivergent conditions, and so better assessment, support and treatment can reduce re-offending.

57. The main recommendation from the 2021 Review of Neurodiversity in the Criminal Justice System calls for a more coordinated and cross-government approach, so that the Ministry of Justice with the Home Office, Department for Health and Social Care, the Department for Education and the Welsh Government develop an overarching national strategy, together with people who have personal experience of neurodivergence.

58. The LGA continue to call for a long-term, sustainable funding solution and workforce plan for adult social care, equivalent to the NHS, so that all those who use and work in social care have the support and certainty they need.

59. Whilst there have been significant achievements in the youth justice system, with reductions in cautions, convictions and overall contact with the system over the last decade, these impressive headlines mask significant challenges in policy and practice responses that require urgent attention to divert children away from the criminal justice system. 

60. The youth justice system needs to continue to focus on children in contact with the justice system as children first and foremost, rather than focusing on their offending behaviour. 

61. Many of the children in contact with the justice system have incredibly complex needs, such as speech and learning difficulties, mental health needs, learning disabilities and care experienced young people are over-represented in the justice system. They therefore require a holistic, personalised response so the proposed approach to focus on personalised support for young people is welcome, as is the continued focus on partnerships supporting the young person. If needs are unmet and unrecognised, these reproduce in the adult offender population.

62. Recent inspection reports echo the concerns raised in the Taylor Report (2016), the Youth Custody Improvement Board report (YCIB, 2017) and more recent reviews about the quality of and access to, education in the secure estate, particularly throughout the pandemic. Staff shortages are impacting access and children are also opting out of education by spending more time in their rooms. Secure schools may, in time, offer a solution but more must be done to improve the current offering in custody in order to realise this opportunity to re-engage children in learning. Consideration should be given to how remote learning, now widely available as a result of the pandemic, can be used to strengthen education offers for this cohort. This may assist in re-engagement in formal learning and positively contribute to resettlement efforts for example, via participation in virtual taster courses in advance of release from custody.

63. The youth custodial estate is a significant concern for local authorities and failings in this part of the system will have ramifications for inspections of community youth justice services, particularly for resettlement. 

64. The 2021 joint policy position paper between LGA, ADCS, and AYM outlines 35 recommendations to existing policy or practice to better align the current system with Child First principles, including closer working between the police and Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) and routinely applying rules on vulnerable witnesses to all children appearing in youth courts. In the long-term, the report proposes, that a more sophisticated, multi-agency, multi-disciplinary response is needed to support youth offending teams to deliver early intervention and prevention services that will help meet the complex needs of children in the youth justice system.

65. Tailored services to children of offenders.

66. Authorities use their health scrutiny function to ensure families of prisoners are effectively supported.

67. Authorities should provide parenting, and anger management programmes within families that complement those in prison.