Challenges of managing the risk of violent and sexual offenders in the community

On 13 November 2007 Andrew Bridges, HM Chief Inspector of Probation governing England and Wales, gave an address to an AllParty Parliamentary Committee on the following topic ‘Dangerous Offenders – What Can Be Achieved?’ (http://www.homeoffice.gov. uk). As the Chief Inspector of Probation one of his main tasks is to review the management of all offenders who, while under statutory supervision in the community, commit a serious further offence (which is referred to under the acronym SFO). A point to raise here is although the term/acronym is drawn from a UK perspective it taps into broader principles which have a universal relevance. Although it is, as Andrew Bridges acknowledges, a debatable point as to what actually counts as a ‘serious’ further offence it would be reasonable to say that the types of crimes under scrutiny would primarily involve those of a violent and/or sexual nature; this would be supported by the examples he cites in his address, e.g. Naomi Bryant, who was murdered by Anthony Rice in August 2008 while being supervised on a life licence by Hampshire Probation Service, and Anthony Monkton, who was a wealthy financier from London who was murdered in 2004 by Damien Hanson and Elliot White, both of whom were under the supervision of London Probation Service. Both of these cases were subject to inspectorate review by Andrew Bridges. In this address, which follows similar themes raised his annual report of the National Probation Service (2007), he raises several points which are of central concern to this chapter and are worth noting as a means of introducing the challenges of managing the risk of violent and sexual offenders in the community. Incidentally, for the sake of brevity, we will use the term ‘dangerous offenders’ from here on to cover both violent and sexual offences.