The Probation Service in the West Midlands has worked with victims of crime for many years, piloting standards of care which have since been adopted nationwide.

Our Area Victim Unit, which has offices in Coventry, Birmingham and Wolverhampton, provides information to victims of sexual or violent crime, or their families, about offenders given custodial sentences of 12 months or more. This has recently been extended to include the victims of mentally disordered offenders convicted of similar offences who are made subject to hospital orders with restrictions, or who are transferred from prison to hospital for psychiatric treatment.

Victims and families are kept informed about the offender’s sentence, progress in prison/hospital, how decisions are made about release, safeguards available after the offender is released, and help from schemes such as Victims Support and other community-based groups. They are offered face-to-face appointments with Victims Unit staff, where they can express views, raise concerns, and make sure their wishes are known.

Concerns about an offender can be passed on to prison authorities/ mental Health Tribunals and taken into account when release is being considered. When an offender is released on licence from prison or hospital, this can include conditions to keep away from the victims and their home. Failure to comply can lead to their licence being revoked.

The Probation Service works closely with colleagues in the police, Crown Prosecution Service, Courts, Youth Offending Service, and Victim Support through the West Midlands Local Criminal Justice Board to ensure that services to victims are coordinated effectively and that all agencies meet their obligations under the recently-published statutory Victims Code of Practice.

The Probation Service also works with offenders to encourage them to understand better the impact that their crimes have had, and many continue to have, on their victims. In appropriate cases, where both victim and offender are willing to participate, this may incorporate a restorative justice approach.

Such an approach involves mediation between victims and offenders undertaken by members of our Area Victim Unit. It provides an opportunity for an offender to apologise and explain why they committed their crime, and such explanations can help victims to overcome anxieties about why the offender did what they did. It can include the option of victims and offenders meeting face-to-face to talk.

In recent years in the West Midlands restorative justice approaches have only been used in cases where offenders have already been sentenced. However, the Area is about to offer the Magistrates Court in Coventry the opportunity, on a pilot basis, to defer sentence to enable an offender to participate in such a process, in cases assessed as suitable by the Probation Service.