According to a recent report, 70% of victims of domestic abuse and their children are being put at serious risk of harm by their abusers, because of poor probation work. In the worst cases, accredited programmes to address offending behaviours, are being stopped so that perpetrators can take up childcare duties, or even move back in with their victims! Poor training has been cited as the root cause, but this in turn has led to simplistic – even dangerous – ‘cross your fingers’ type strategies being deployed for offender management.
The problem has been exacerbated by probation officers’ high volume and often complex caseloads, but also because of the Government’s failure to ensure contract compliance. Private Community Rehabilitation Companies have been described as being “nowhere near effective enough,” often failing to understand the danger to victims of abuse, and even failing to act on new information that a victim might be in ‘grave danger’.
Victims’ safety is not a commodity that can be treated like a luxury. Just as well that CRC’s are being abolished in 2020.
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