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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 11:05 pm
Time: 11:05 pm
Results for costs of criminal justice (u.k.)
5 results foundAuthor: Marsh, Kevin Title: An Economic Analysis of Alternatives to Long-Term Detention Summary: The objective of this research was to determine the cost savings associated with the timely release of migrants pending removal who are currently detained for long periods only to be released back into the community. The UK Border Agency (UKBA) recommends that detention only be used for the shortest period necessary, pending resolution of immigration cases, i.e. removal or the determination of outstanding appeals (Home Office, 2011a). However, in practice, a significant number of individuals are held in detention for long periods before, ultimately, being released back into the community without resolution of their cases (Home Office, 2011b). Around 26,000 migrants enter detention per year. It is estimated that nearly 11 per cent of individuals entering detention spend greater than 3 months in detention, and 2 per cent spend greater than a year (Home Office, 2011b). Almost 40 per cent of detainees who spend more than 3 months in detention are eventually released into the community with their case still outstanding (Home Office, 2011b). The UKBA currently carries out a risk assessment of ex-offenders prior to the decision to detain (UKBA, 2011a). The scope of this risk assessment could be extended in order to identify those individuals who cannot be deported within a reasonable and lawful period of detention, and who will, therefore, eventually be released back into the community. Early identification and timely release of these individuals would save the cost of their protracted and fruitless detention. This more efficient use of detention space would mean that the same numbers of removals could be achieved using a reduced number of detention spaces. The analysis summarised in this report estimates that an improved risk assessment could result in cost savings of £377.4 million over a 5-year time period. This estimate comprises: £344.8 million in detention cost savings over 5 years. £37.5 million in avoided unlawful detention payments over 5 years. Minus £5.0 million in the extra cost of Section 4 support, including housing and living costs, for the additional time that migrants spend in the community. When analysing the savings over time, it is estimated that improved risk assessment could result in cost savings of £71.5 million, £81.2 million, £78.1 million, £74.9 million, and £71.6 million in each of the next 5 years, respectively. This amounts to average savings of £75.5 million per year, which could result in cost savings of £377.4 million over a 5 year time period. To contextualise these savings, it costs roughly £20 million per year to run a detention centre (UKBA, 2011b, Home Office, 2011b). Based on these costs, the analysis indicates that, by providing timely release for migrants, the UKBA could save the equivalent of the cost of running at least three detention centres over the next 5 years. A proportion of the expected savings could be reinvested in more intensive community-based support, which can be expected to generate increased rates of case resolution and voluntary return. For example, in Australia, migrants who would in the past have been detained are provided with case management support to resolve their immigration cases. The evidence from Australia suggests that case management is effective in increasing uptake of voluntary return. Currently in the UK, interventions are being piloted that replicate elements of Australian case management, although they have not been used as alternatives to detention. The analysis suggests that providing case management in the UK to all the migrants who would be released promptly in the above analysis would cost around £164.2 million, about 44 per cent of the savings made as a result of avoided detention. However, as voluntary returns are far cheaper than enforced removals, this could lead to further savings as well as increased overall numbers of returns. Details: London: Matrix Evidence, 2012. 26p, Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 26, 2012 at:http://detentionaction.org.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Matrix-Detention-Action-Economic-Analysis-0912.pdf Year: 2012 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://detentionaction.org.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Matrix-Detention-Action-Economic-Analysis-0912.pdf Shelf Number: 126465 Keywords: Costs of Criminal Justice (U.K.)EconomicsIllegal AliensImmigrant DetentionImmigrants |
Author: Hough, Mike Title: Intelligent Justice Balancing the Effects of Community Sentences and Custody Summary: The debate over whether ‘prison works’ seems interminable. The Howard League for Penal Reform has well established views on this topic, but political realities make revisiting this question, and perhaps deconstructing assumptions on both sides of the argument, both timely and valuable. The prison population in England and Wales has more than doubled since the mid 1990s. While the latest projections over the coming six years suggest that this growth may be slowing, there is no suggestion that the number of men, women and children incarcerated on any one day will drop below 80,000. Statisticians’ most optimistic assessment suggests numbers could at most drop to the level first reached in 2007 – an increase of 86 per cent compared to the prison population in 1991. At the same time, the realities of running a justice system during an age of austerity are becoming ever clearer. The Ministry of Justice must achieve £2bn annual savings by March 2015 and the failure to deliver sentencing reforms originally proposed by Kenneth Clarke has meant that around £130m of potential savings have been lost. A recent report by the National Audit Office found that the agency in charge of prisons and probation is now projected to overspend by £32m in 2012-13 alone. If that is the difficult context for policymakers, then this paper provides a framework for new thinking that might provide an escape from the current prisons crisis. The Ministry of Justice does not have the funds to build its way out of the overcrowding in the system, and there is little scope for further efficiency savings without endangering key principles of security and giving up on any pretence of a ‘rehabilitation revolution’. As the Chief Inspector of Prisons wrote in his most recent annual report, “if a rehabilitation revolution is to be delivered, there is a clear choice for politicians and policy makers – reduce prison populations or increase prison budgets.” This paper begins by examining the perennial arguments around the efficacy of community sentencing over short spells in custody. An even-handed analysis concedes that the picture is not a simple one, and that indeed it is the very complexity of the problem that necessitates a value-based approach to penal policy. It suggests that any cost-benefit analysis must take into account the long term impact of dramatic increases in imprisonment, which bring with them increases in a number of social problems that themselves sow the seeds for future crime: be it family breakdown, drug and alcohol addiction or poor physical and mental health. In the United States for example, this has seen the creation of a system “that feeds upon itself” and which has left many individual states near bankruptcy. 4 The authors conclude by asking for a new emphasis on not simply the prevention of reoffending through deterrence or incapacitation, but on constructing a penal system which seeks to encourage compliance with the law. This idea that people respond best when buying into behaviour such as abiding by the law, rather than being constantly compelled or cajoled into doing so, has powerful implications for future policymaking. It suggests, for example, that a narrow focus on paying providers by their results using the limited picture of reconviction rates may not be the best way to structure prisons and probation. It also suggests that an overweening focus on containing risk, essentially basing a system on a fear of failure, precludes redemptive narratives that promise more success in changing lives and reducing crime. Is the penal system to be based on unaffordable expansion and a fear of failure, or shall it live within its means and celebrate success? This is a question that must be answered sooner rather than later. Details: London: Howard League for Penal Reform, 2012. 22p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 8, 2013 at: http://www.sccjr.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Intelligent_Justice.pdf Year: 2012 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.sccjr.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Intelligent_Justice.pdf Shelf Number: 127550 Keywords: Alternatives to IncarcerationCommunity-based CorrectionsCosts of Criminal Justice (U.K.) |
Author: Mulheirn, Ian Title: Paying for Results? Rethinking probation reform Summary: In May this year the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) produced the blueprint for its planned reforms of probation. This briefing note examines the detailed proposals for the payment by results element of the scheme. Payment by results, by which non state providers are supposed to be rewarded according to how much progress they make in cutting re-offending, is an essential part of the Ministry of Justice’s plan to improve the effectiveness of rehabilitation services as they face deep budget cuts. We use a financial simulation to examine the MoJ’s proposals as they look to an investor considering the chances that they will make a return on their investment in rehabilitation services. This demonstrates the problems posed by statistical uncertainty around measured levels of reoffending. Our results, using generous assumptions, show that: • Under the MoJ’s proposed payment structure, providers risk making losses if they spend money on rehabilitative services. • Providers can only be confident of being rewarded for their efforts if they achieve reductions in reoffending that are larger than the available evidence suggests is achievable, even with greater resources than are likely to be on offer under the new scheme. • The payment mechanism encourages providers to cut spending on services and allow reoffending to drift marginally upwards. • The proposed regime therefore creates strong perverse incentives: the opposite of how a PbR scheme should operate. • As they stand, the plans would offer poor value for money for taxpayers and should be radically revised before the scheme is rolled-out. We propose a number of solutions that would resolve the problems identified, improve incentives on providers, and offer much better value for money to the taxpayer. • The reward scheme should be simplified to pay (or penalise) on a per-person basis for any observed reduction (or increase) in re-offending below the baseline level of reoffending. This would ensure that providers have unambiguous incentives to invest in services that cut reoffending. Details: London: Social Market Foundation, 2013. 16p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 12, 2013 at: http://www.smf.co.uk/files/7413/7603/8981/20130808_PBR_paper_FINAL.pdf Year: 2013 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.smf.co.uk/files/7413/7603/8981/20130808_PBR_paper_FINAL.pdf Shelf Number: 129621 Keywords: Cost-Benefit AnalysisCosts of Criminal Justice (U.K.)Criminal Justice ReformProbation |
Author: Disley, Emma Title: Phase 2 report from the payment by results Social Impact Bond pilot at HMP Peterborough Summary: At a time when government finances are stretched there is growing interest in finding new ways to fund public services. One new funding model currently being tested is a Social Impact Bond (SIB). A SIB is a form of payment by results in which funding is obtained from private investors to pay for interventions to improve social outcomes. If these interventions are effective, this should result in savings to government and wider benefits to society. As part of a SIB, the government agrees to pay a proportion of these savings back to the investors. If outcomes do not improve, investors do not receive a return on their investment. In September 2010 the first ever SIB was launched in the UK. Approximately L5 million was invested by private individuals and charities is being used to pay for interventions for offenders discharged after serving short prison sentences (less than 12 months) at HMP Peterborough, a prison in eastern England. RAND Europe has been commissioned to evaluate the development, implementation and operation of this first ever SIB. This report is the second from the independent evaluation. Details: London: Ministry of Justice, 2014. 62p., app. Source: Internet Resource: Ministry of Justice Analytical Series: Accessed April 23, 2015 at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/phase-2-report-from-the-payment-by-results-social-impact-bond-pilot-at-hmp-peterborough Year: 2014 Country: United Kingdom URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/phase-2-report-from-the-payment-by-results-social-impact-bond-pilot-at-hmp-peterborough Shelf Number: 135370 Keywords: Costs of Criminal Justice (U.K.)InterventionsPrisoner ReentryRecidivismSocial Impact Bonds |
Author: Disley, Emma Title: The payment by results Social Impact Bond pilot at HMP Peterborough: final process evaluation report Summary: Between 2010 and 2015, an intervention called the One Service operated at Peterborough Prison. This service provided 'through-the-gate' and post-release support to adult male offenders released from HMP Peterborough who had served prison sentences of less than 12 months, with an aim of reducing reoffending. The through-the-gate support provided by the One Service involved contacting offenders before release in order to introduce case workers, assess needs, and plan resettlement activities. The One Service then implemented these plans by working with offenders for up to 12 months following their release. If an offender returned to prison within this period, the One Service aimed to ensure that support services continued back in prison. The One Service was funded through a financing mechanism known as a Social Impact Bond (SIB), a form of payment by results. This is where private, non-government investors pay for an intervention, and if certain results are achieved, are paid back their initial investment plus an additional return on that investment.1 In the Peterborough SIB, the Ministry of Justice, supported by the Big Lottery Fund, entered into an agreement to pay a return to investors if targets for reducing reconvictions were achieved. This pilot was the first SIB to be established worldwide. The Peterborough SIB pilot was originally intended to operate until 2017, funding the delivery of the One Service to three cohorts of around 1,000 prisoners released from the prison. Support from the One Service was available to cohort members for a period of up to 12 months post-release, and engagement was on a voluntary basis. While the pilot operated on a payment by results basis under the SIB model for the first two cohorts of released prisoners, a third cohort received One Service support under a 'fee-for-service' arrangement, rather than under the original SIB funded payment by results model. This change to the model was due to the roll-out of Transforming Rehabilitation reforms to probation, which introduced mandatory statutory supervision for short-sentenced offenders - the target group for the Peterborough pilot - and also included a payment by results funding mechanism to incentivise providers to reduce reoffending. This meant that while the pilot was concluded early in order to avoid any duplication in services to the same population, the alternative fee-for-service funding arrangement for the third cohort enabled the pilot to continue operating until the new Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) providers implemented their approach to rehabilitation. This report presents findings from a process evaluation of the Peterborough pilot, commissioned by the Ministry of Justice in 2010. It is the third and final output from the process evaluation, and addresses the following five research questions: 1. How, if at all, did the pilot lead to better outcomes of reduced reoffending (including the role played by voluntary and community sector organisations and partner agencies)? 2. What wider costs and benefits, if any, do stakeholders feel were incurred through the implementation of the SIB? 3. To what extent did stakeholders feel that the SIB led to greater innovation and/or efficiency? 4. What were the strengths and weaknesses of the SIB contractual model as implemented? 5. What key messages can be taken from the Peterborough pilot that offer useful learning points for future payment by results models and SIBs? Details: London: Ministry of Justice, 2015. 73p. Source: Internet Resource: Ministry of Justice Analytical Series: Accessed February 2, 2016 at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/486512/social-impact-bond-pilot-peterborough-report.pdf Year: 2015 Country: United Kingdom URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/486512/social-impact-bond-pilot-peterborough-report.pdf Shelf Number: 137742 Keywords: Costs of Criminal Justice (U.K.) Interventions Prisoner Reentry Recidivism RehabilitationSocial Impact Bonds |