Integrated Offender Management

With effect from the 1st April, 2010 the statutory responsibilities of CDRPs will extend from reducing crime and disorder to include the responsibility for reducing re-offending. Repeat offending by those offenders already convicted of an offence is estimated to account for at least 50% of recorded crime, and a small number of persistent repeat offenders commit the largest proportion of crime. The Home Office Prolific and other Priority Offender (PPO) scheme has been operating in York since 2005 and seeks to target that small minority of persistent offenders. In 2008, the scheme reduced re-offending by York PPOs by 40%.

Building on the success of the PPO scheme, the Safer York Partnership, together with the police, probation service, local drugs intervention service and other partners is about to implement a concept called Integrated Offender Management (IOM). IOM will bring together a multi-agency team of police, probation and drugs intervention staff to work under the same roof and together intensively manage up to 300 of York's most persistent offenders. Offenders will be offered support to stop offending, but at the same time faced with the tough choice of accepting the support on offer or being robustly enforced against.

Chief Probation Officer, Pete Brown, who oversees IOM in York and North Yorkshire, said, "We already know that many offenders simply need some help and support to break out of a life of crime, and delivery of that support is the main business of the probation service. However, we also know that by involving the police and other partners in working directly with offenders, we can dramatically increase the number of offenders we work with and ensure that if they refuse to accept the support we offer, we can swiftly bring them to justice".

Implementation of IOM in York is also being given a cash boost of £180,000 from the Home Office 'Vigilance' programme, which seeks to reduce serious acquisitive crime such as burglary and vehicle crime. This money is being used to fund co-location of the multi-agency IOM unit and also to fund additional interventions support for offenders under supervision.

Chief Superintendent Ali Higgins, York's Police Commander said, "The criminal justice agencies in York have a long tradition of working closely together to fight crime, but the scale of this offender management partnership is something new to us all. We are confident that IOM will significantly impact on the levels of crime committed by persistent offenders in York".