‘Reoffending rate even lower if prisoners had place to live’

Guernsey’s chief probation officer Geraldine Martin said that offenders found themselves at the bottom of the pile when looking for somewhere to live.

‘An inordinate amount of work goes into trying to find ex-offenders accommodation, but what we really need is for them to move on from the prison into a structured environment... and people are then supported into living independently,’ she said.

Her comments were reflected in the latest prison annual report, published last week.

Ms Martin previously worked in probation in the Isle of Man, which introduced staffed accommodation for ex-offenders and found it helpful in discouraging reoffending.

‘Our repeat offending rate is low. It would be even lower if we had sustainable accommodation for offenders,’ she said.

Ms Martin said there were ex-offenders forced to live in tents or vehicles and some who even reoffended deliberately to be arrested and accommodated at the prison.

‘We have had a very small pilot here, in partnership with Guernsey Housing Association, but the building is too small to be staffed. So we have to be very careful about the offenders selected to be in there.

‘It has been a success, but that said it is not addressing the wider need, which is those offenders coming out of prison who are going to need ongoing support to stop them reoffending.’

The service is currently helping about 250 offenders, including 59 who are on community service, 117 on community supervision and just over 70 prisoners.

They are currently working on a number of trials, including piloting computer-based cognitive behavioural therapy, and a new partnership with the mental health team working with people who have personality disorders.

Another trial is with electronic tagging of offenders, which the prison, police and Probation are keen to extend.

‘Tags are of benefit because we can we can ensure that if someone goes into an exclusion zone we can respond quickly,’ said Ms Martin, who has previous experience of their use.

‘Not only were we able to establish where offenders were, we were also able to eliminate them from certain crimes. In the Isle Of Man, a woman had something stolen from her flat. The ex-partner would have been the immediate "go to" for the police, but we were able to establish because he was wearing a tag that he was not in the property.’

Before working in the Isle of Man, Ms Martin’s career was in the north-west of England.

‘The difference with here and the Isle of Man is that you know all the offenders and all the offenders’ families.’

‘So we do get the opportunity to build a relationship with our offenders, which I think is much more beneficial than the way that colleagues in the UK have to work.

‘I was in a shop the other day, and up pops one of our offenders, who gave me a big hug and said “I’m doing really well and it’s all because you intervened and got me some help with accommodation”.

‘That daily contact with people is quite unique.’