Questions to the Mayor of London – answered at on 22 March 2019.
To ask the Mayor what he believes the impact has been of the part-privatisation of the Probation Service in London on violent crime?
I was opposed to the fragmentation and part-privatisation of the probation service from when it was first announced.
The most recent London violent reoffending cohort shows increases in all reoffending indicators since 2014. These indicators include number of offenders in the cohort and number of reoffences. There has also been a significant shift towards violent offences in the IOM cohort in London, from 16 per cent of offences in 2015 to 29 per cent in 2017/18.
It is not possible with the data available to directly link the rise of violent crime in London to the introduction of the London Community Rehabilitation Company, but the Government’s botched probation privatisation has done little to reduce reoffending rates in London. The HMIP report on the effectiveness of probation work by the London CRC in 2018 found significant improvements in practice since 2016, but services were still judged to not sufficiently support rehabilitation.
Without fully effective probation services in London, the rates of reoffending, including violent offences, will not be reduced.