Access to resources and support

• Why resources are needed?


  Resources are needed for rehabilitation of offenders. This is particularly important to those who committed the most serious offences.
• Resources and support inside prisons

  Prisons aim to rehabilitate offenders but they often fail to do so due to:1. Short sentencesdo not give enough time to address problems an inmate might have (e.g. low literacy, anger).2. Inadequate resources for education and training.In 2018 only 2/5 of prisons were delivering "good" or "reasonably good" progeammes compared to 2/3 in 2010.3. A 15% cut in the number of prison officers -there are fewer officers to supervise inmates, meaning that they are often locked up until 6pm and do not have access to educational facilities.4. Release on temporary licenceused very rarely due to staff shortages.
• Resources and support in the community

  Upon their release offenders may face difficult circumstances:1. Lack of money.Offenders earn little in prison and receive only £46 upon their release.2. Lack of a job.Only 1/4 of offenders have a job to go to on their release.3. Homelessness.According to NACRO 1 in 9 prisoners has an accomidation to go to upon release. Prisoners lose entitlement to housing benefit if they are spending more than 13 weeks in prison, this means that they usually would lose any tenancy they had.
• The end Friday releases campaign


  Over 1/3 of all releases hppen on a Friday, meaning that offenders might not have enough time to access accommodation, drug medication and benefits before the weekend shutdown. This means that some have to sleep rough and survive until Monday. This makes them vulnerable to reoofending. Some released prisoners quick breach their licence and return to prison.

  Charities and pressure groups such as NACRO and the Howard League campaign to end Friday releases.
• Community sentences

  Community sentences are more effective at rehabilitation. For example, only 34% reoofend within 12 months of starting their sentence, compared to 64% among those serving sentences of less than 12 months. Those who reoffend might do so due to:1. Inadequate support for complex needs -often too few places on specialist programmes to addres those (e.g. drug addiction treatment, anger managment).2. Inadequite supervision by probation services -probation has been too lax allowing offenders to miss appointments.3. Failures by CRCs -have been failing to meet their targets.