High-risk offenders could reportedly be released early from secure government-approved hostels. Shortly before before the election in July, the Ministry of Justice reduced the typical period people spend in an ‘Approved Premises’ from 12 weeks to eight. But what are Approved Premises, and does this matter?
‘Approved Premises’ – or ‘APs’ – are a little-known part of the justice system. We should be more aware of them, since they’re badly, badly damaged. They exist to house people who have been released from prison but are considered to be ‘high-risk ex-offenders’. APs are also used when prisoners approaching release are granted ‘home leave’, but either don’t have a home to go to, or Probation have decided they aren’t comfortable with sending them to a family home.
The theory is that people who pose a high risk of further offending are required to live in supervised housing, with a curfew, as well as regular drug and alcohol testing. This is supposed to protect the public and aid rehabilitation.
As is usually the case in our broken justice system, the reality is very different. One significant problem is caused by the mix of people they house. Many long-term prisoners and ‘lifers’ (typically those convicted of murder) will be released to Approved Premises. After decades inside, they often have nowhere else to go. In many ways, these are some of the most careful and rule-abiding residents of APs. For a lifer to navigate their way through the prison system, mandatory training and therapy, open prisons and eventually convince a parole board to release them, they have to display exemplary behaviour. Their struggles after release are often about adapting to a changed world and finding a way to move on from years of institutionalisation.
We know that having a stable home makes people 50 per cent less likely to reoffend
In APs we house these people with violent, often addicted, repeat offenders. As ‘Manny’, a man who served 11 years in jail before being released to an AP, told me, ‘the facilities were diabolical – a breeding ground for drugs and alcohol misuse, and full of men who hated being there and didn’t care if they were recalled’. I know of a lifer who lived in an AP after release, leaving every day to work. They would come back in the evening to find their property and food stolen. It made them want to give up because it felt as though the whole structure was trying to make good behaviour impossible. Manny told me that the ‘very negative attitude’ of most men in an AP was hard to deal with, particularly for people like him who’d served long sentences and were trying to rebuild normal lives with work and stability.
Staff in APs have a really tough job, but their attitudes can sometimes make things even worse. Manny said ‘their attitude was terrible, continually threatening people with recall’. While it might be tempting to think ‘so what?’, people who’ve served these long sentences are often seriously traumatised, and their rehabilitation is best served by creating a supportive environment, not a hostile one.
The Ministry of Justice has said that ‘these changes to Approved Premises apply only to carefully assessed lower-risk offenders in the Approved Premises cohort, considered on a case-by-case basis’. While this may be true, risk assessment can often be crude and inaccurate.
So, assuming they aren’t recalled to prison, after eight weeks in an AP, these people will have to find somewhere to live. This is often very difficult in the private rented market as criminal record and credit checks will often be a barrier for ex-prisoners. This means many will have to rely on Community Accommodation Service Tier 3 (CAS3), which will offer up to 84 days’ accommodation for homeless prison and AP-leavers.
We know that having a stable home makes people 50 per cent less likely to reoffend. APs, full of negativity, hostility, drugs and alcohol, are the opposite of stable, and in many cases getting lower-risk offenders out of them as quickly as possible is likely to reduce their chances of reoffending.
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