There has been speculation in the press that the National Offender Management Service, brought into being only three years ago, is going to be scrapped in an attempt to insulate the newly formed Ministry of Justice from the incompetence of the past. NOMS is a fairly typical example of government failure: costing billions of pounds and barely making a dent in Britain’s obese re-offending figures while antagonising public service unions for no good reason.
Of course, three years is not very long to get a criminal justice system directed towards preventing re-offending but one suspects that failure was built into the institutional DNA of NOMS at its inception. Despite the rhetoric of delivering an entirely new style of management to offenders, one that tracked the path of individuals through the justice system and tried to tailor sentences towards specific objectives, the scheme has never really been about the nuts and bolts of reform. In many ways, the service’s model was conservative: seeking a new language to describe, and retrospectively justify, the fairly arbitrary non-evidence based policy inflicted on offenders and the general public for years.
This situation seemed demonstrated in one graphic in The NOMS Offender Management Model (p10). It described an example of one correctional pathway.
As you can see, it is a series of situations a normal offender goes through under the current system. Having committed a crime, they receive a sentence that directs them towards unpaid work a community punishment. Having committed another crime, they are next remanded in custody, sentenced again to another community punishment. Caught in the act once again, they finally receive a custodial sentence before being allowed out on licence. Clearly, this isn’t a very satisfactory experience since the offender has been interacting with the criminal justice system for some time while still committing crime (and being caught on three occasions). The general public only receive a brief respite from this criminal behaviour during the custodial sentence and the offender doesn’t appear to be improving his behaviour.
How would the (then new) Offender Management model of NOMS change this?
As you can see, the situation under NOMS is remarkably similar, except that the process has now been obscured somewhat by the (mis)label, ‘Offender Management’. So while the same things happen in the same order, the whole thing now has a new meaning and purpose. Chaos, supposedly, has become order and the reform a success.
The NOMS model has only ever really been seen as an additional layer to a system already in place. And it is this system that many people are finding unsatisfying and which is delivering high numbers of re-offending. NOMS has never been designed to tackle or replace this system.
Comments (2)
I happened to glance at the Civitas Blog on the future of the much derided Noms & was pleasantly amused by the facts & figures that featured in the blogs. As a front-Line Probation Officer i can attest to its wasteful extravagance( at a time when the Probaton Service is being salami sliced & budget cut) that appears to have gone largely unnoticed until recently on the setting up & continuing purpose of this unwieldly & costly leviathan. Professor Rod Morgan (ex -Youth Justice Board-removed for speaking his mind) called the expenditure on Noms 'scandalous'.. The Brennan review was established by Mr Straw to examine possible replacement to Noms..staff at the coal face await with interest .. just who will carry the can for his failed creation & who will say its alright Jack but we told you so?
Posted by mike guilfoyle | January 2, 2008 4:12 PM
Posted on January 2, 2008 16:12
NOMS has brought with it confusion and stress. NOMS was forced upon the Probation Service and took most of its funding away. Now Probation is overstretched and understaffed in its bid to balance its books. Yet still we have more High Risk Offenders being released from prison to be managed by Probation. Probation does not have the resources to do that effectively.
Probation budget for year £850million to manage 250,000 offenders. NOMS budget £950 million to run its office in London. Something is amiss.
Posted by D3 | October 12, 2007 12:23 PM
Posted on October 12, 2007 12:23