Any offender who misses an appointment or fails to comply with a community order is taken back to court and can be re-sentenced and sent to prison, which is known as a breach.
As soon as their community sentence begins, probation staff clearly set out the rules to offenders. Offenders must not:
- Miss appointments or sessions without a valid reason
- Attend under the influence of drink or drugs
- Re-offend
- Be offensive, violent or unco-operative.
To break any of these rules constitutes a breach. To breach a court order is an offence in itself which can result in a separate sentence.
Effective enforcement reinforces the message that community orders are not a "soft option".
Suffolk Probation Area also supervises offenders released on licence from prison. The offender is effectively serving the rest of their sentence in the community under licence to a probation officer.
Licences have a number of standard conditions relating to being of good behaviour, not committing further offences, reporting to the probation officer, notifying any change of address and so on. Depending on risk levels posed by the offender, further conditions may be imposed such as residence restrictions, bans from certain areas and an obligation to complete specified programmes.
The conditions of licences are strictly enforced. At most, offenders are allowed only two contraventions of the rules - although they might not even get one chance and could be recalled to prison straightaway.
There are a number of checks and balances in place to ensure accountability for the decision to send an offender on licence back to prison. The initial recommendation is made by the probation officer, who discusses it with a senior probation officer, who then makes a report to an assistant chief officer. The report is sent to the Early Release and Recall section of the Prison Department, which makes the final decision.
There are two types of recall:
- Emergency recall - the process is completed within two hours.
- Immediate recall - the process is completed within 24 hours.
When the process has been completed, the Early Release and Recall section notifies the local police who arrest the offender. Once arrested, the offender has a chance to appeal against the recall.
Once the offender is back in jail, he or she either completes the prison sentence, or may be considered for re-release on licence.
