Minister planning post-prison supervision scheme

Jersey's justice minister is due to bring a draft law to the States to make it a legal requirement for prisoners to engage with probation after release, she says.

Helen Miles said a draft would be brought to the assembly in the first half of 2027.

Jersey is the only place in the British Isles that does not have post custodial supervision legislation. In England and Wales, it is a legal requirement for offenders to engage with probation, but this happens on a voluntary basis in Jersey.

The Probation Service it recognised the potential to improve outcomes but added staff were concerned about unintended consequences, including unnecessary prison recalls "for relatively minor breaches".

One of the key concerns listed in a HM Chief Inspector of Prisons report into Le Moye Prison in 2024 was there being "no mandatory post-release probation supervision for most adult prisoners, which potentially undermined public protection".

States backbencher Deputy Hilary Jeune recently raised this issue, and told the BBC it was concerning Jersey had this gap.

She said: "It really is about supporting those who come out of prison to integrate back into our society.

"So, it is about supporting them to not only re-offend but, also, it's a public safety issue as well. It's really important that we look at the best practices around."

Justice and Home Affairs Minister Helen Miles said: "In the British Isles, you have parole. We don't have parole.

"At the moment, prisoners can be released without any form of probation supervision at all."

She also explained prisoners in Jersey were released at the two-thirds point, subject to conduct in prison, so having legally required supervision from probation would be key for public safety and prisoner rehabilitation.

She said: "I think we've decided that that needs to be a statutory provision.

"It means that we actually have some control over the people that are being released from custody and that their supervision is compulsory so they have to report to the probation.

"There might be conditions attached to their release that they have to meet and it also means there is a recall facility.

"Public safety is our principal concern but also it does fulfil our commitment to rehabilitation."

Chief Probation Officer Mike Cutland said in a statement he recognised the potential of statutory post-custodial supervision "to improve outcomes for individuals, enhance public safety and reduce the likelihood of further offending".

However, he added that the Probation Service was "conscious of lessons learned in other jurisdictions".

He said: "While statutory supervision can deliver significant benefits, there is evidence that overly rigid enforcement arrangements can result in unnecessary recalls to prison for relatively minor breaches of licence conditions.

"In some jurisdictions, this has contributed to increased pressure on prison populations without necessarily improving public safety."

Former prison governor Susie Richardson welcomed the plans.

She said: "It's the more repeat offenders who have probably grown up in institutions all their life, quite likely to have experienced life in care; they're the ones that are least likely to get the help that they need because it's not their will and yet the ones that need it the most.

"So investing in those people with a real framework around them and some statutory responsibilities to ensure that we continue to work through the factors behind their offending is really important."

However, she added a law would not be enough in itself.

"It's about getting the right people, the right resources, the right skills, the right experience and the will to really work on the resettlement pathways," she said.

It is a view shared by Professor Fergus McNeill, who lectures in criminology and social sciences at the University of Glasgow.

He said: "If you're introducing compulsory supervision while a person completes a sentence in the community, you need to make sure your probation service is properly resourced and the effort is properly targeted.

"The key thing is not to intervene more than you need to in the wrong cases and in the wrong ways, but to focus your energies where it can have the most positive effect."

The Probation Service recently said it was struggling with recruitment, but Miles said there were resources in place to successfully implement the law if the States approved it.

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