Hear from offenders

David's story

David, who had been convicted of burglary, had been supervised by probation for two months and lived alone in a bedsit. Whenever the probation officer had tried to visit him, she had been unsuccessful. He kept all his appointments in the office but always found reasons why she should not visit him at home.

She insisted and finally succeeded. She found that the walls of his room were covered with obscene pornography. The officer felt she should tackle the issues raised by what she had seen. She told him she was concerned about the pictures and why - asking him to think about what she had said and report the next day to discuss it. David’s reaction at the time was one of anger, saying he could do as he liked in his room.

However, next day he had obviously given the matter some thought. He apologised and said he was going to take the pictures down. They then spent some time talking about relationships between men and women, about respect and attitudes to other people. This led them to a discussion of the affect of his crimes on his victims - the first time the officer had been able to get David to think about this.

Edwin's story

Edwin, aged 31, was charged with drunkenness. He was convicted and made subject to an order combining 12 months’ supervision with 100 hours of unpaid work. He had previous convictions for assault, actual bodily harm, and disorderly conduct. There was a clear link between all offences and excessive drinking. Mental health problems, associated with alcoholism, were also evident. He was unemployed.

He made a poor start with the order. His drinking led to warnings from his work supervisor and he also arrived late for appointments with his probation officer, mainly because of his drinking the night before. He was threatened with being taken back to court for being in breach of the order. He then started to improve. He viewed the work, which consisted of painting and decorating a local village hall, very much as a punishment but he completed the required hours satisfactorily.

He became more punctual for appointments with his probation officer, although he would sometimes arrive in a very poor state. Despite his obvious addiction, he was reluctant to agree to be referred to the local alcohol team, and in view of his lack of motivation the probation officer decided to do the initial work herself. He eventually agreed to co-operate with the local alcohol team. They got Edwin to keep diaries to measure his consumption of alcohol, and its frequency.

He then went on to drawing graphs to compare his weekly drinking patterns. This forced him to acknowledge the alarming regularity of his binges and he succeeded in avoiding drink from Monday to Thursday each week. The next step was to deal with the nature of the alcohol he was consuming; he viewed himself as a lager drinker, but admitted to regular whisky chasers. He agreed to cut back on drinking spirits. His heavy drinking over the weekend was more difficult to control, but after some time he succeeded in reducing his drinking to Saturdays.

He was also encouraged him to make constructive use of time.

His anxiety problems eased as his drinking lessened: he was able to see the connection between the two, which gave him added encouragement to stop drinking. He started to discuss and deal with other family difficulties.

Edwin completed the order. He got a fulltime job towards the end (working as a chip shop fryer) and has kept it. His drinking is still under control and he hasn’t committed further offences.

Martin's story

Martin had committed a series of offences involving cars and threatening behaviour, and he had difficulties in relating to people. He had a personality disorder and associated alcohol problems.

He was given a probation order (now a community rehabilitation order) with a condition of residence and a requirement that he attend a specialised treatment programme. He lasted on this for about six months but it became too much for him, so alternative arrangements were made for him to have individual sessions.

With few social skills he had trouble getting on in the hostel; none of the other residents liked him.

Because he had no work skills and little ability to come over positively in job interviews, he seemed unemployable. But after an enormous amount of work and input from hostel staff, he got a job at last in the kitchen of a fast-food chain. Hostel staff were on tenterhooks to see if he would last. And he has!

Martin moved out of the hostel some months ago and he has managed to keep his drinking under control and is living in a bedsit independently. He really would not have reached this point without the kind of intense supervision that could only be provided in a hostel.