SWIA Criminal Justice Inspection Findings

1
SWIACriminal Justice Inspection Findings

• Clare Wilson
• Irene Scullion

2
National Objectives and Standards

• Home visits
• Reviews
• Appointments

3
SWSIA Commitment to Protect (1997)

• Conclusions
• Strategic and operational collaboration
• Supervision practice
• Assessing risk is vital
• Clear distinctions
• Decisions about accommodation for sex offenders

4
Lord MacLean (1999)Committee on Serious Violent
and Sex Offenders

• Executive Summary
• Risk Assessment
• Formalised risk assessment should be used to a
  greater degree based on best available
  evidence.
• Structured clinical judgement is the approach
  which presently shows the greatest promise in a
  Scottish context

5
Lord MacLean (1999)Committee on Serious Violent
and Sex Offenders (cont.)

• Executive Summary
• Risk Management Authority
• Sentencing

6
Cosgrove (2001) Reducing the Risk

• As part of their community safety plan, each
  local authority should develop a corporate
  approach to the management of sex offenders in
  the community.
• All agencies involved with sex offenders
  should adopt the structured clinical approach to
  risk assessment . Each agency should undertake a
  regular audit of the use of such tools.
• Criminal justice social workers must receive
  appropriate training in risk assessment
  procedures.

7
Cosgrove (2001) Reducing the Risk (cont.)

• All local authority criminal justice social work
  services should make available specialist
  intervention programmes for those sex offenders
  who are subjects to supervision and are deemed
  suitable.
• Protocols to provide a framework for information
  sharing and joint working should be developed.
• management of social work and other files
  should be improved.

8

• Areas of Strength
• Improved working relationships with police
• Protocols in place between most local authorities
  and police
• Good quality SERs on sex offenders
• Widespread use of RM2000

9

• Areas of Strength (cont.)
• Joint training with police
• Joint piloting of ViSOR
• Offence-focused work taking place with sex
  offenders
• Piloting of C-SOGP

10

• Areas of Strength (cont.)
• Offence-focused work taking place with
  perpetrators of domestic violence.

11

• Areas for Improvement
• Need for a corporate approach
• Need to ensure protocols are up to date, specific
  and implemented consistently
• Need to widen the core group attending risk
  management meetings
• Poorer quality SERs on serious violent offenders

12

• Areas for Improvement (cont.)
• Action plans not sufficiently specific about the
  responsibilities of all agencies
• Little evidence of offence-focused work with
  serious violent offenders
• Need for case managers to play a more active role
• Variable adherence to NOS particularly in respect
  of home visits

13

• Areas for Improvement (cont.)
• Need for better links between prison and
  community-based services
• Delivering Throughcare
• Need to assess risk of harm for all offenders
• Variable quality of case recording

14

• Areas for Improvement (cont.)
• Need for systematic quality assurance

15

• Areas for Improvement (cont.)
• Resource implications of delivering programmes
• Limited availability of C-SOGP
• Lack of funding for partner support work
• Need for a dynamic risk assessment tool

16

• Areas for Improvement (cont.)
• Need to revise NOS to reflect expectations in
  respect of high risk offenders