What we do

The National Probation Service is a criminal justice agency which works with offenders. It is a key statutory service working in partnership with police and prisons, the Crown Prosecution Service, courts, local authorities, health, education, housing and a wide range of independent and voluntary sector partners.

The Probation Service has staff working in courts, in the community, in prisons, and with victims of crime.

Probation staff work with offenders from their first appearance in court to beyond the completion of their sentence. They challenge offenders’ behaviour and attitudes to encourage them to make real changes in their lives.

Their aim is to reduce reoffending and to protect the public. Probation officers also make risk assessments of the potential dangers an offender may pose to the public, and these form part of the information they supply to courts for sentencers to decide which form of punishment is most suitable.

Often judges or magistrates will give offenders a community sentence, sometimes instead of a term of imprisonment, and they will be required to complete one of a number of orders under the supervision of a probation officer.

Offenders who do not keep to the terms of their orders, including attending appointments and programmes of group work, are returned to the courts and risk being sentenced to prison.

The West Midlands Probation Area

Probation West Midlands was formed in April 2001, when the former West Midlands Probation Service was one of 54 integrated into the new NPS by the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2001.

There are now are forty-two probation areas (matching police force area boundaries) throughout England & Wales together with the National Probation Directorate based in London.

There are 1,200 staff who work for Probation West Midlands and are employed by the West Midlands Probation Board.

We have seven geographical districts covering Birmingham, Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall, Wolverhampton and Coventry & Solihull.

There are also specialist divisions including Unpaid work, Programmes, Approved Premises and Partnerships in addition to Birmingham-based HQ Divisions for personnel, finance and other corporate functions.

Each year, Probation West Midlands will:

• Prepare over 17,000 pre-sentence reports (PSRs) for the courts;
• Manage over 8,000 people sentenced to supervision;
• Supervise 2,500 new prisoners released on licence;
• Deal with 4,800 people sentenced to periods of custody;
• Enforce over 3,000 sentences of community punishment.