Our work with prisons

London Probation works with offenders released from prison on licence, in order to protect the public from harm, reduce re-offending and integrate the offender back into the Community.

Offenders serve custodial sentences partly in prison and partly in the community on Licence. It’s our job to supervise the offender in the community and also link any behaviour work the offender has done in Prison with the community based offender behaviour programmes and supervision.

There are currently seven prisons in London, and we work closely with them all in order to ensure “end-to-end offender management” of offenders in London. This means offenders are managed in a consistent, constructive and coherent way during their entire sentence – from prison through to their release into the community. A single Offender Manager (or Probation Officer) will work with an offender throughout their sentence.

We also work particularly closely with the prison service when supervising dangerous offenders in the community as part of MAPPA.

Together, HM Prison Service and the National Probation Service form the National Offender Management Service (NOMS). NOMS has been in operation since 2004 and brings the two services closer than they have ever been. This will result in a better service provided to the offender, thus reducing re-offending and making communities in London safer.