London Probation

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London Probation

• Equal partners

Chitra Karvé Director of Equality and Diversity
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What is probation?

• Historic belief that simply locking people up is
  not enough
• Not all crimes need prison
• Recognising need to
• Protect the public
• Reduce re-offending
• Pay back loss to victims/community

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Reduce Re-offending

• Understand reason for offending behaviour
• Assess needs of offender housing, debt advice,
  family contact, employment
• Assess suitability for
• Treatments e.g. alcohol and substance abuse
• Programmes addressing offending behaviour e.g.
  domestic violence, drink driving
• Education and skills, employability

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Our joint interests

• Diversity and equality considerations are
  embedded and central to all our work
• Employment practices reflect this consideration
• Reflecting the demographics of our city is also
  important

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Embedding diversity in service delivery

• Offender and victim needs in London are
  particularly complex. Disproportionality exists
  in relation to race, mental health needs,
  learning difficulties. Women offenders are often
  also victims of domestic violence. Also issues
  with foreign nationals, drug mules, hate
  crime, gangs and gun culture. Any provider must
  be able to work with all these variables and
  promote equality.

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Equality in probation services

• Innovative, provide services relevant to our
  offenders, our victims and our communities needs.
  
• Active in community engagement
• Meet demanding performance indicators that focus
  mostly on outputs as well as evidence real
  outcomes evidence for example, of offenders
  gaining employment

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Equality in staffing

• London Probation currently has
• 32 BME representation. The city is at approx 28
  29.
• 65 representation of women
• 110 users of Assistive Technology
• As a public service we must show not only that
  we do not discriminate, but that we positively
  welcome a diverse workforce.

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Our Partners

• Our procurement process ensures that
  equality has appropriate weighting
• Our partners will need to show that they can meet
  equality legal obligations and move beyond them
  to make a difference
• New partnerships can be a catalyst for developing
  new and innovative ways of delivering services