Criminals cut loose by Probation Service after just four months
Freed offenders who are assessed as medium or low risk are attending between four and seven meetings with their probation officers before that contact is suspended at the 16-week point.
It means that someone sentenced to five years in prison who is released on licence after two years and might have expected to spend the next three years under supervision by probation officers may now be supervised for four months only.
The change in policy, introduced on April 28 without announcement, comes amid concerns that overstretched probation officers are struggling to supervise the 240,000 offenders currently on licence.
There have been high-profile murders after probation failed to accurately assess the risk of freed prisoners, including the murder and sexual assault of law graduate Zara Aleena by Jordan McSweeney in a random late-night attack.
Focus on high-risk freed prisoners
The change was signalled by Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary, in February when she wanted probation officers to focus on high-risk freed prisoners who were more likely to commit a serious and violent further offence.
She said she wanted probation officers to spend more time with lower-risk offenders immediately after their release before being supervised by other agencies or charities which could provide education, training, drug treatment and accommodation.
However, the 16-week cut has only emerged in MoJ documents obtained under freedom of information laws by Inside Time, the prisoners' newspaper.
Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, said: 'Labour have snuck out this announcement quietly because they know this will be a disaster for public safety. Starmer promised safer streets but there's never been a better time to be a criminal.'
Some groups of offenders will be automatically excluded from the 16-week cut-off, including those convicted of sexual offences, domestic abuse and serious violent crimes, as well as under-18s.
Probation officers will have an option to exclude people linked to organised crime, street gangs, county lines or hate crime.
Minimum of four meetings
The guidance for probation officers says that offenders managed under the new system will get a minimum of four meetings with their probation officers: an induction appointment, a meeting to complete assessments and two 'desistance' conversations, one called 'starting with the end in mind' and the other 'my future story'.
They may get up to three further meetings if they require a home visit, a three-way meeting involving another agency, or further desistance conversations.
The new approach appears at odds with the sentencing reforms proposed by the independent review by David Gauke, the former Tory justice secretary, which would see most people handed sentences spending the first third in custody and the next third under intensive probation supervision. The final third would be unsupervised on licence.
Solicitor Laura Janes, vice chair of the Association of Prison Lawyers, said: 'It is unclear how the policy will work with the proposed Gauke reforms, which rely on the very opposite approach of more intensive and robust supervision and support in the community.'
An MoJ spokesman said: 'Our top priority is keeping the public safe. Those who pose a high or very risk will always be subject to robust licence conditions throughout their sentence.
'We are boosting probation funding by 45 per cent, investing up to £700 million more by 2028, and are on track to recruit 2,300 probation officers nationally by March next year.'
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