07 November 2008
By Julie Read
Confidence in the use of community sentences is being eroded by a lack of data about their effectiveness, senior MPs have said.
A Commons Public Accounts Committee report published on November 4 cited the paucity of data on how successful community orders were in preventing reoffending, and even how many orders had been completed.
PAC chair Edward Leigh said: 'It does nothing for confidence in community orders, among both sentencers and the public, if no-one knows how many have been completed by offenders.
'Confidence is undermined by the fact that offenders are treated differently in different local probation areas.'
The introduction of community orders under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 gave courts the ability to impose a range of 12 possible 'requirements'.
These included accredited programmes (such as anger management courses and drug and alcohol rehabilitation), unpaid work in the community and supervision by the National Probation Service.
The committee also said that the system for recording reasons for an offender being absent from the community programme varied among the 42 probation services.
Harry Fletcher, assistant general secretary of Napo, the probation officers' union, said: 'We also need consistent statements from ministers – not “lock up” one month and “use community sentences” the next.'
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