Probation pledge on 'Payback' after secret TV film
DERBYSHIRE Probation Trust has expressed its "utmost concern" about allegations made in an undercover TV programme.
ITV broadcast a show which included footage of offenders in Derbyshire, who secretly filmed their experiences while undertaking Community Payback.
In it, the criminals were shown sitting around drinking tea and smoking drugs. They were also shown boasting that the scheme would not deter them from crime.
Derbyshire Probation Trust said it was given warning of the programme content but was not shown footage prior to the broadcast.
After the show was aired on Thursday, it released a statement which read: "Derbyshire Probation Trust views with the utmost concern the allegations raised by ITV regarding the actions of offenders and staff on an unpaid work project.
"All our Community Payback projects have rigorous requirements and standards.
"Where it is found that standards have not been properly applied, appropriate action will be taken. The trust has already reviewed its arrangements for the monitoring of unpaid work projects. Derbyshire Probation is a high-performing trust and has received positive reports from independent inspection of unpaid work."
In 2009-10, offenders under Derbyshire probation supervision undertook 172,000 hours of unpaid work, with a value in excess of £900,000 to local community projects.
The trust said some of those projects might never have been realised if it were not for the free labour provided under Community Payback.
Its statement said: "Community Payback is a rigorous community sentence contributing many thousands of hours of unpaid work each year to local communities. It is of enormous benefit, and provides offenders with challenging work.
"If proven, the departures from the usual high standards in the one example highlighted are most unacceptable and the trust deeply regrets if, in this case, justice was not seen to be done.
"It would be most unfortunate if the huge benefits derived by all concerned from such unpaid work schemes, were to be undermined by a focus on an isolated incident of this kind."
3 Comments
by judge mental, Littleover
Saturday, September 04 2010, 11:49PM
“Just send them under a subcontracting agreement to a Siberian Camp, where for six months for not a lot of tax payers money (even with the cost of transport), first offenders are subjected to a harsh regime of heartless administration in a harsh landscape.
It will deter them for offending again , particularly if the next sentence is for three or four times as long. It's got to be cheaper than keeping them in UK gaols.
Oh dear do I hear human rights activists screaming?”
by John, Derby
Saturday, September 04 2010, 2:33PM
“Wholeheartedly agree with you Angela. The government have been complaining of prison overcrowding now for years. Simple answer,, Build more. As you say, make them harsh places where prisoners have to work,take away the tv's pool tables etc. Make the criminals realise that crime does not pay. Courts should have powers to impose longer and harsher sentences too.
I know some people will carp on about human rights etc, No one ever seems to consider the rights of the victims though.”
by Angela, Derby
Saturday, September 04 2010, 10:58AM
“Why am I not surprised by ths? The only way to deter these scroats is to make prison a harser place, no games consoles, pool tables, sky/cable TV. Locked up 23 hours a day in a cell or made to work on chain gangs. As it is prison is a holiday camp, so they are happy to return. As for those boasting payback will not deter them from crime, send them to an uninhabited island and leave them to fend for themselves.”