CHAPTER 1
Terms of reference
Reasons for the inspection
1.1 Agencies working with sex offenders and serious violent offenders who pose a high risk of harm must take every reasonable step to protect the public, and services must be effectively organised, co-ordinated and delivered. Even when services work well, risk management does not eliminate risk and it is possible for determined offenders to commit serious offences. Nevertheless, it is important that agencies do everything they can to assess and manage risk effectively. The extent to which they were achieving this was the focus of this inspection.
1.2 The main agencies working to assess and manage these risks are the local authorities through their criminal justice social work services, the police, and the Scottish Prison Service. Other services may also be involved, including housing, health, and the voluntary sector.
1.3 The inspection examined arrangements for managing offenders whose past offending meant that they might cause serious harm in the future. Its aims were to identify what was working well, what needed to improve, and to make recommendations to Scottish Ministers and the agencies with responsibility for managing sex offenders and violent offenders.
1.4 The findings are relevant to all organisations and agencies involved in the assessment and management of offenders posing a high risk of serious harm.
The policy and legislative context
1.5 A Commitment to Protect1 led to an increased emphasis on recognising and managing risk in the community. The Report of the Expert Panel on Sex Offending (the Cosgrove Report) 2 led to the 2005 national concordat between relevant agencies to share information 3. The Committee on Serious Violent and Sexual Offenders, chaired by Lord MacLean, reported in 2000 4, and led to the eventual creation of the Risk Management Authority 5 ( RMA) that began operations in 2005.
1.6 More recently, two policy documents, the National Strategy on Offender Management6 and Protecting Scotland's Communities; Fair, Fast and Flexible Justice7, both stressed the importance of agencies working together effectively to enhance public protection. They emphasised the need for better information sharing between services; more robust risk assessment; and strengthened risk management practices.
1.7 The Management of Offenders etc. (Scotland) Act, 2005 placed a statutory function on police, local authorities, the Scottish Prison Service and health services to:
'…jointly establish arrangements for the assessment and management of risk posed [by certain offenders].'
This led to the introduction of the Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements ( MAPPA) in April 2007, which presently relate to the management of registered sex offenders and restricted patients. Further developments were the prison-based Integrated Case Management ( ICM) system (2006), and the granting of controlled access for local authorities and the Scottish Prison Service to the Violent and Sex Offenders Register ( ViSOR) database.
1.8 At the time of the inspection, MAPPA had been running for just over one year and the ICM procedures for slightly longer.
1.9 The Concordat between Local and National Government (2007) and the related Single Outcome Agreements, underlined the importance of building safer, stronger communities by reducing re-offending, and tackling factors associated with crime, such as drug and alcohol misuse and lack of settled accommodation.
Aims and scope
1.10 The two main aims of the inspection were:
- to review the quality of pre-release and post-release arrangements for offenders who posed a risk of serious harm to the public; and
- to identify ways to improve the effective management of this category of offender with particular reference to sharing information and working together.
1.11 The inspection team defined risk of serious harm in the following way:
'A risk of harmful behaviour which is life threatening and/or traumatic and from which the victim's recovery, whether physical or psychological, can be expected to be difficult or impossible.' 8
1.12 We selected a sample of offenders who had committed serious sex or violent offences released from one of five selected prisons during an eighteen-month period between 2006 and 2007. All of the offenders had committed serious sex and violent offences that indicated they presented a high risk of harm. All were subject to statutory supervision on release 9. All the offenders were male. Two were under 21 years of age.
Methodology
1.13 Appendix 1 describes the inspection methodology. In summary, it had three main phases. The first and second phases examined work undertaken with offenders in prison and in the community. Inspectors visited the prisons which had held the offenders, and the local areas to which they had returned after release. We reviewed each case fully, scrutinising case records and meeting with practitioners and the offenders where possible. We identified three local authority areas to meet with practitioners, managers, and key stakeholders in focus groups and interviews. These local authority areas had different geographic and demographic characteristics and were frequently home areas for the offenders in our sample.
1.14 In the third phase, inspectors asked representatives from relevant organisations such as the Parole Board and the RMA for their views on assessing and managing high-risk offenders. We organised a one-day national consultation event to bring together staff from a range of agencies to discuss practice and procedures in respect of high risk of serious harm offenders.
1.15 In addition, inspectors visited every police force in Scotland to meet with operational and management teams to assess progress with the police implementation of MAPPA and to examine police capacity to respond to a missing or wanted offender.
1.16 Scottish Ministers commissioned this report. It contains findings and recommendations for them and for the Scottish Prison Service. We also make recommendations directly to local authorities and police forces, which act independently of Scottish Ministers.
Structure of the report
1.17 The report presents its findings in three chapters: