The Key Housing Challenges faced by Prison Leavers - Research Proposal Example

Describe the key housing challenges faced by prison leavers, a particular group of vulnerable people. Examine the extent to which these challenges are addressed by UK housing policy and practice. Introduction Housing has been a very critical and challenging segment of the criminal justice system. Its importance for the prisoners’ welfare and overall society’s benefit can be appraised from the statement of the ex-Prime Minister, given in his foreword to the 2002 SEU report, stating that, ‘Public safety is not safeguarded when prisoners are released into homelessness, with no prospect of employment’ (Shelter, 2006, p. 4). Government Policy As per the government policy (Criminal Justice, 2009) on prisoners’ homelessness, they are supposed to fulfil a Housing Needs Initial Assessment (HNIA) for 90% of new prisoners within four days of their entry into the prison to facilitate attention to any of the offender accommodation issues, on keeping or closing tenancies. It was envisaged that at the minimum, 80% of the offenders should opt for housing after acquittal. The 2002 Homelessness Act added the groups of homeless people with a preferential housing requirement for vulnerable prisoners. What is required from Government and Private Entities? Various policy-related issues such as housing appraisals after prisoners’ custody have been highlighted for designing an action plan to tackle a number of prisoners’ housing issues. Prisoners need to be provided housing advice in prisons through voluntary agencies to facilitate increased regularity in housing advice. Both prisoners and prison staff should be informed well in advance of prisoners’ release to arrange suitable housing. The offered grant needs to match with the concurrent housing costs. Any blanket ban on ex-offenders by the local government or the housing associations should discontinue. The new housing developments need to consider the housing needs of ex-prisoners in the formulation of local and regional-level accommodation planning and strategies. Temporary suitable arrangements for prison leavers need to be envisaged by the local authorities. It may include cross-borough arrangements and commissioning in relatively smaller areas. Alternate long-term housing options such as rent deposit schemes (RDS) may be examined (Criminal Justice, 2009). There is reduced connectivity between homelessness and criminal justice areas. Increased cooperation between prison and probation services and housing and homelessness can bridge the gaps of communication. Local-level settings offer possibility for increased collaboration towards strategic planning of ex-prisoners’ housing needs. More resources need to be devoted for prisoners on probation for planning their release and resettlement into the community. Not-for-profit sector can play an important role if additional resources are provided to them to ensure early releasers. Local government should rank high the housing issues of ex-prisoners to devise strategies for secure communities (Criminal Justice, 2009). Literature Review Prisoners’ accommodation after their release from prison can help in decreasing their level of recidivism, as revealed in a number of reports, for example, a report by the Social Exclusion Unit has argued that guaranteed housing decreases the risk of re-offending by 1/5th. Additionally, a homeless prisoner can be problematic due to not finding any employment. Latest literature has revealed deficiency of suitable housing interventions (Mackie, 2008). Housing interventions need to begin early during the undergoing of the sentence of prisoners. It is found that at least 1/3rd of prisoners don’t have permanent houses before booked to be jailed. They need help, therefore, before going to the prison (Allender et al., as cited by Mackie, 2008). There are other prisoners who undergo major problems when starting their prison time, as they had entered into tenancy agreements or own houses at that time. They don’t get enough backing to sustain their tenancies or close them. The accommodation of such approximate 1/3rd prisoners is lost when they are in custody while a number of other prisoners’ rents go on accumulating. Prisoners are unable to clear their debts or resolve their housing issues, as they are not even permitted to make a phone call or inform through a letter. Problems get aggravated for the sentenced prisoners, undergoing imprisonment for more than 13 weeks; their housing benefits become non-existent. A prisoner without a family cannot claim the housing benefit. As a result, new housing search becomes essential after 14 weeks of sentence. A lot of paper formalities need to be completed by prisoners in many cases with regard to under-13-week rule for making a new claim within four weeks of prison sentence. Prisoners not having access to the required documents stand increased possibilities of losing their homes. An intervention at the start of the prison sentence can help prisoners on remand from losing their home and also benefitting long-termers in reducing rent arrears (Mackie, 2008). Various reports have found the housing intervention support provided to prisoners inconsistent. As per a latest report by the Citizen’s Advice Bureau (CAB), procedures have been laid out for induction on housing issues of prisoners but they are not standard procedures as subservient on the arrival time of prisoners and duty timing of the relevant prison staff. The CAB report finds the interventions ‘patchy’, not equipping prisoners to look after their after-release housing needs (Mackie, 2008). A 2005 report presented by the Centre for Justice at Coventry University finds that only below-33% prisoners could be helped in prison on housing issues and only below-20% prisoners were genuinely helped. According to Shelter, another reason of prisoners’ non-housing is the lack of interest to provide accommodation to prisoners by housing providers or they are not provided with applications from prisoners before their release. Additionally, intentionality legislation is reducing prisoners’ housing options. A sentence plan is lacking for remanded prisoners, as concluded from CAB (Mackie, 2008). Maguire et al. (2006) have reviewed the transitional support schemes (TSS) in Wales for those prisoners who have been released after being remanded. Homelessness has been one of the prisoners’ problems. TSS mentors were supposed to boost prisoners’ motivation through the use of cognitive/motivational tactics. Two schemes, G4S and DAWN, were launched under the TSS umbrella for aiming to resolve the housing needs of prisoners among various other prisoner issues, according to which G4S attended 40% of the housing problems of prisoners while DAWN aimed at resolving 58% of the housing problems of prisoners. Table1. Accommodation status before sentence (and expected after release) scheme Permanent prior to custody % N *Transient prior to custody % N NFA prior to custody % N **(Expecting to go to permanent on release) % N Total % N G4S 55 33 8 5 37 22 (47 28) 100 60 DAWN 42 16 11 4 47 18 (34 13) 100 38 Total 50 49 9 9 41 40 (42 41) 100 98 * Transient means bail/probation hostel; supported accommodation; and temporary accommodation. ** Refers to expectations before TSS interventions. As the above table on housing position before sentence and expected after released from prison shows, the housing issue has been the most severe due to non-availability of sufficient permanent housing and unemployment, thus projecting them to be a very challenging group for mentors (Maguire et al., 2006, p. 34). Another review of the Table 2 given below compares the housing status before entering prison with expectations on entering custody and reality position after release, offering critical insight on the success of both schemes. The table below compares pre and post imprisonment housing and employment position from the CMRs of 57 participants who were covered by the scheme up to three months after release. The comparison also facilitates finding of offenders’ expected position at the time they were appraised by mentors in prison with their real position after they were released (Maguire et al., 2006). Table2. Comparison of pre-prison housing position with expectations on entering custody and reality position after release Site Permanent % ________________ Pre| Expected| Actual post release| Post Temporary % _____________ Pre| Actual Post NFA % _________ Pre| Actual Post In custody % ______ Post G4S 51| 49| 37 9 37 40 16 9 DAWN 50| 36| 36 21 50 29 - 14 Both schemes 51| 46| 37 12 40 37 12 11 Table 2 indicates that the ratio of participants in permanent housing on arrival to prison was almost same over both the schemes (near to 50%). Nevertheless, participants in the DAWN scheme were more insecure regarding increased possibility of losing their housing relatively to those qualified for the G4S scheme. The reason of this possibility was partly due to the big demographic region included in the North Wales scheme and the rehabilitation issues erupting from the shortage of prisons in the North Wales region. This could impress negatively upon prisoners’ family relations and the later on possibility of them going back to the family home (Maguire et al., 2006, p. 71). Appraisal of the Welsh Assembly Government 10 year Homelessness Plan The WAG 10 year Homelessness Plan can be an indicator of how the UK policy and practice has managed the challenges related to prisoners’ housing need in particular. As per the Welsh Assembly Government 10 year Homelessness Plan response of WLGA Consultation, enough growth has been realised after the publication of the first Homelessness Strategy for Wales, specifically in the context of controlling homelessness. The formulation of a plan for the approaching 10 years provides a genuine reason to build on this valuable work but there is a gap between stating and actual performance, as the plan does not provide a comprehensive vision or preferential path to follow (WAG, February 2009). Nevertheless, certain highlights of the plan are that it has zeroed-in recognising the housing requirements of various stakeholder groups, bearing risk of losing homes and has outlined the Welsh Assembly Government’s views on suitable measures to be devised for various groups. The Welsh Assembly Government has formulated the homelessness plan in sync with the new National Housing Strategy and the first accommodation related support strategy, which provided a distinct opportunity for Wales to be guided from structured strategic direction on prisoners’ accommodation. Sadly, this opportunity has not been capitalised and the discussion has proceeded on the draft homelessness strategy, ignoring the other two important strategies, which would help in deciding the robustness of a homelessness plan. This line-up arrangement over critical strategies will surely hinder the possibility of envisaging a complete vision on accommodation and homelessness (WAG, February 2009). The WAG plan (2009) attends to the issues of housing related to criminal justice and the significant role of good quality housing in addressing reoffending. The criminal justice agencies presently have very high and unfounded expectations of the provision that Local Authorities are capable of making, specifically for high risk and intellectual offenders. The 10 year homelessness plan should attend better the prisoners’ housing problems and project the need for better service offering and housing by criminal justice agencies. The two major fields of the WAG plan, hugely cornered away, are resources and housing supply. Although it can be argued in favour of this deficiency that the national strategy has taken care of these, nevertheless, it is important that the homelessness plan admits the significance of housing supply and the need to provide strategic direction by the Welsh Assembly Government to fulfil the region’s housing need. The WAG 2009 plan also ignores to pinpoint the strength of resources to enforce the strategy. It has been taken for granted that more resources would be mobilised by the local and other Welsh Assembly Government policy divisions (WAG, February 2009). Steps required for resolving Homelessness It requires collective efforts by various stakeholders for providing robust solutions of the homelessness problem of prisoners in particular and other partners in general. Involvement of all interest-holding segments is critical in the formulation and inspection of an action plan materialising. Led by the Welsh Assembly Government policy divisions, criminal justice needs to be given due weight and importance for providing housing to released prisoners. An effective 10 year plan needs to distribute resources in a balanced way from the very beginning to realise its impact (WAG, February 2009). Measurement of Plan Success Collaborative approach is required to enforce and ensure the success of WAG 2009 plan. Any enforcement of the housing plan needs to be shouldered majorly by the Welsh Assembly and the local administration, which are the leading stakeholders. Criminal justice department is one such local and regional level stakeholder, keen to look after the interests of its prisoners. It is very critical that thematic sub-groups are formed to formulate a comprehensive action plan and check progress. Again, it is critical that the process is result-oriented (WAG, February 2009). Overall, policy planning leaves much to be desired. Regular appraisal of related policy planning needs to be made to make adjustments and fill the gaps in the housing policy and practice. Regular monitoring can ensure better outcomes from the guided policy procedures. References Criminal Justice (April 2009) Homeless Link. Available from: http://homeless.org.uk/sites/default/files/Criminal_Justice_briefing_FINAL_0.pdf [accessed 15 May 2013]. Mackie, P.K. (2008) This time round: exploring the effectiveness of current interventions in the housing of homeless prisoners released to Wales. Available from: http://wales.gov.uk/dsjlg/research/thistimeround/report.pdf;jsessionid=73D03C5A8AF24A27739E57B888740673?lang=en [accessed 15 May 2013]. Maguire, M., Clancy, A., Lane, J. & Morgan, B. (2006) Moving forward with mentoring: an evaluation of the Transitional Support Scheme in Wales. Available from: http://hass.glam.ac.uk/media/files/documents/2010-01-07/Moving_Forward_with_Mentoring.pdf [accessed 15 May 2013]. Shelter (2006) Barred from housing: a discussion of the barriers faced by prisoners in accessing accommodation on release. WAG (2009) 10 Year Homelessness Plan. Read More