Integrated Offender Management (IOM) brings a cross-agency response to the crime and reoffending threats faced by local communities. The most persistent and problematic offenders are identified and managed jointly by partner agencies working together. These include prolific burglars and also domestic abuse perpetrators. IOM helps to improve the quality of life in communities by: reducing the negative impact of crime and reoffending, reducing the number of people who become victims of crime, helping to improve the public’s confidence in the criminal justice system.
What we do:
YouTurn co-ordinates and manages the delivery of Bedfordshire IOM on behalf of the multi-agency partners. This includes:
- Co-ordinating operational delivery of IOM programmes.
- Providing facilities for operational delivery.
- Work with partner agencies such as MARAC and the MDAP (management of domestic abuse perpetrators) Group
- Performance and evaluation of the scheme.
- Strategy and continuing development of IOM.
What are the benefits of IOM?
YouTurn brings together staff and resources from over 20 different organisations including The Probation Service, Police, The Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner and the Local Authorities. The work of YouTurn and IOM has resulted in significant reductions in re-offending across the county.
The IOM Team manage offenders who have committed a lot of crime and caused damage to communities. They oversee rehabilitation work which is coupled with strict monitoring such as GPS tagging, drug testing and curfews.
We work intensively with Bedfordshire’s most persistent offenders to address the underlying causes of their criminality. If an offender did commit another crime, they would be swiftly caught and fast-tracked back to Court for sentencing.
New Strategy Implementation 2021
Towards the end of 2020/21 a new IOM strategy was released by the home office. The new strategy outlines that IOM will go back to managing the traditionally named SAC offenders under the new approach including; all burglary offences, Robbery and vehicle crime.
The cohorts have been defined by the strategy as Fixed, flex and free. Defined in the strategy as:
Fixed priority: This group should be the first priority for inclusion in the IOM model set out within this strategy.
- Neighbourhood crime offenders with a high, very high or prolific risk of reoffending assessed using the Offender Group Reconviction Score (OGRS).
- More serious neighbourhood crimes such as robbery and burglary should be further targeted and included even when they have a medium OGRS score. This reflects the level of harm caused by these offences, and the year on year increases in robbery cases.
- The fixed cohort should include a mix of offenders serving community orders and those leaving prison on licence. IOM can help improve outcomes for people leaving prison.
Flex: This group could be included within the IOM model set out in this strategy.
The ‘flex’ surrounding the fixed priority cohort aims to ensure that this IOM
model remains locally driven and that a matrix approach is complemented with professional judgement.
- Local areas may apply additional weighting within the neighbourhood crime cohort – if the need is evidenced by local crime trends. This could mean weighting towards risk of violence or a particular index offence within the cohort.
- Local areas could weight towards people leaving prison if improving outcomes for prison leavers is a local priority.
- Local areas could weight towards young adult offenders to prioritise those making the transition from youth to adult services.
- There can be referrals into this cohort for offenders who have similar needs, reoffending risks or offending types to the fixed neighbourhood crime cohort, and for whom this model may therefore be appropriate. This may include neighbourhood crime offenders who have low or medium risk of reoffending scores but are judged by police and probation to be at greater risk of reoffending; or lower level acquisitive offenders such as shoplifters who are judged to have the potential to progress onto committing more serious neighbourhood crime. It may also include those persistent offenders with non-acquisitive index offences but who have a similar needs and risk profile to the fixed cohort.
- Police and probation may also decide to deselect individuals from the ‘fixed’ cohort who have a high OGRS score but are individually assessed as low risk of reoffending or otherwise unsuitable for the IOM approach.
All referral decisions should be made through shared selection panels. There should be clear referral mechanisms for other parts of the criminal justice system to refer into IOM, with probation and police jointly making final decisions as to whether or not IOM is appropriate.
Free: The home office are aware that some local areas are running IOM schemes for other cohorts of offenders with different needs, risks and offending patterns. This includes schemes focused on serious violence, serious organised crime and domestic abuse. We encourage good practice to continue in line with local priorities, where resources are sufficient. These schemes should be tailored to the specific needs of other cohorts and should ensure their IOM approach is appropriate, and that staff have the correct training. For example, police working within domestic abuse should have specialist training in victim safeguarding. As the aims of these schemes and the approach needed will be distinct, they should be run and evaluated separately to neighbourhood crime schemes.
The fixed criteria are set nationally and are ridged. Within the fixed cohort in Bedfordshire those with 3 months or less remaining on their sentence will not be considered. This is due to there not being enough time to engage and have meaningful impact on the individuals offending behaviour.
The flex cohort will include 20 offenders who have been flagged on the police felonious matrix; this is based on specific crime types and the severity of the offences. The top 20 most harmful suspects will be looked at with the proposal that 10 will be managed north and 10 will be managed south. The majority of these are non-statutory cases that have been flagged as suspects within neighbourhood crimes. They are causing a substantial amount of harm to society, calculated using a crime severity matrix. The flex cohort will also incorporate offenders transitioning from the youth offending services that fit within the criteria of high OGRS, harm scores and neighbourhood crimes; this will be a very small number of individuals. Finally, a weighting will also be applied when making selection decisions to those between the age bracket 18-24 years old and females if they have a medium OGRS score.
The free cohort will include a small number (approx. 10) of domestic abuse perpetrators; this is because the management of high-risk domestic abuse offenders and the safety of victims is a strategic and local priority across the 3 CSP areas, our scheme in Bedfordshire wants to address and assist in the reduction of offending across these perpetrator groups.
Useful Documents
- IOM Information Sharing Agreement 2020
- IOM Refresh Cohorts May 2021
- Beds IOM Service User Deselection letter v1.0
- Beds IOM Service User Introduction letter v1.0
- Integrated Offender Management 2021 Refresh Scheme help sheet v2.3
