Ministers should consider cutting the number of probation prisoners by up to 40,000 if they want to ease the prison overcrowding crisis, a watchdog group has told the Guardian.
Martin Jones, chief inspector of probation for England and Wales, said the current model was “unsustainable” and suggested ministers should free up capacity by not asking probation officers to supervise more people released after serving short sentences for offences such as shoplifting.
Coming days after Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced plans to release thousands of prisoners from September due to the prison overcrowding crisis, Mr Jones also suggested the Youth Justice Service could ease some of the workload on the Probation Service by monitoring 18-21 year-olds released from prison.
About 5,500 inmates serving standard determinate sentences are due to be released before Christmas after serving 40 percent of their sentences. Mahmoud said on Friday that prisons would run out of space within weeks unless immediate action was taken.
The probation department will be responsible for monitoring recently paroled offenders, and measures could include electronic tagging and curfews.
In his first in-depth interview since taking up the role of inspector general in March, Jones said the government must find ways to ease the workload at the Probation Service, which is struggling with rising caseloads and overworked, inexperienced staff.
“Let’s not pretend that the Probation Service can manage nearly a quarter of a million people within its current resources. We may have to make some choices about people who could benefit, but really, where do we focus those resources? I don’t think the current model is sustainable,” he said.
The way in which offenders are monitored in the community has come under intense scrutiny since the murder of law graduate Zara Arena in east London in 2022. Her killer, Jordan McSweeney, had a long history of misogynistic and racist incidents and should have been deemed a high-risk offender by his probation officer and recalled to prison after missing meetings. Instead, he was wrongly assessed as medium risk, leaving him free to attack Arena.
The case comes after exposure of failings by probation officers before Damien Bendall killed his three children and his pregnant partner in Derbyshire in 2021.
Outlining a probation system which manages more than 240,000 offenders a year, Mr Jones said:
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He suspects that each of the 12 probation service regions in England and Wales is already struggling to cope with the high number of cases.
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About two-thirds of the cases his staff has tested don’t meet the standards set to protect public safety.
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97% of probation agencies surveyed by the watchdog fell below good practice standards.
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He is developing a programme of inspections of probation offices – halfway houses for high-risk offenders – as there is currently no independent oversight body for their work.
Mr Jones said there was an urgent need to address the workload, particularly as the Government seeks to ask probation officers to take on a new cohort of offenders under the early release scheme.
He argued that people with short prison sentences, such as shoplifters, who were placed on probation under Chris Grayling’s Rehabilitating Offenders Act in 2015, could be put back on the probation system. Previously, offenders with sentences of less than 12 months were released unconditionally after spending half their sentence in custody.
“In 2015, people who were released from short-term prison sentences were not given any kind of supervision. I think what they were trying to do was drag themselves through these cases and end up with a caseload that swelled to a level where they couldn’t be properly supervised. I think we could deal with these people more effectively with some form of community sentence,” he said.
He added that thousands of cases involving young people aged between 18 and 21 who are being assessed by the Probation Service could be transferred to the Youth Justice Agency.
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“Youth justice services are a very robust service. Currently they expire at 18. What if we asked youth justice services to reach out and actually deal with young people up to the age of 21 and actually oversee them in that way?” Mr Jones said.
He said releasing prisoners early would be a “tough” task.
The Guardian reported on Thursday that the Ministry of Justice has reduced the amount of time released high-risk offenders, such as rapists and murderers, must remain under supervision in government-approved hostels.
Until recently, in England and Wales, very high-risk offenders could stay in “licensed institutions” for up to 12 weeks, where key staff closely monitored their behaviour. This was reduced to a maximum of eight weeks by the previous administration.
Mr Jones said there was currently no independent oversight of licensed premises and he had discussed plans with the government to enable staff to carry out future inspections.
“The argument is extremely strong. We need to understand not just the numbers that are published but how that is then put back into the community,” he said.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “The prison system is in crisis, putting huge pressure on the whole justice system. We are monitoring the situation, supporting hard-working staff and will be adding 1,000 extra probation officers to ensure strong oversight and protect the public.”
