New sentencing reforms will fail without a whole-system response to repeat offending
Revolving Doors calls on Prime Minister Andy Burnham to take the Greater Manchester approach to repeat low-level offending nationwide.
New sentencing reforms intended to reduce the use of short prison sentences will not succeed unless government tackles the addiction, homelessness, poor mental health and poverty driving repeat low-level offending, Revolving Doors has warned.
The Sentencing Act 2026 introduces a presumption that prison sentences of 12 months or less should be suspended rather than served immediately. This is a welcome and necessary reform. Adults released from prison sentences of less than 12 months have a proven reoffending rate of 66%, rising to 68.4% among those sentenced to six months or less.
But replacing a short prison sentence with a community sentence will not be enough on its own. For the reforms to reduce crime and create safer communities, government must move away from fragmented services and provide a coordinated response to the people repeatedly cycling through police stations, courts, prisons and probation.
Research published by Revolving Doors last year in Preventing the Revolving Door identified a group of between 30,000 and 50,000 people caught in this “revolving door”. Together, they are responsible for at least 130,000 offences each year, including shoplifting, assault, drug offences and criminal damage. The annual cost associated with each person can exceed £100,000, with lifetime costs of more than £1.4 million
Many are not unknown to public services. They are frequently in contact with police, probation, drug and alcohol treatment, homelessness services, mental health provision and local authorities. The problem is that these services too often respond separately to different parts of the same person’s life.
Greater Manchester’s Whole System Approach to Diversion demonstrates what a different model could look like. The approach identifies a clearly defined priority cohort and brings together police, probation, health, housing, local government and voluntary sector support around them. Its first pilot in Wigan is designed to intervene earlier, address the causes of offending and stop people returning repeatedly to the justice system.
Revolving Doors is calling on the Prime Minister to make three commitments:
- Recognise the revolving door cohort as a shared cross-government priority, with a common definition used by the Ministry of Justice, Home Office, Department of Health and Social Care, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, Department for Work and Pensions and Cabinet Office.
- Bring together the policies and services already working with this group, including prolific offender programmes, drug treatment, Changing Futures, probation reform, homelessness support and diversion from the criminal justice system.
- Test and scale the Greater Manchester model, beginning with the Wigan whole-system approach in a small number of places and building in shared data, lived experience leadership and cost-benefit analysis from the outset.
This would not require another national programme or a new layer of bureaucracy. It would give coherence, focus and accountability to work that is already taking place across government and local public services.
Pavan Dhaliwal, Chief Executive of Revolving Doors, said:
“The presumption against short prison sentences creates a genuine opportunity to reduce reoffending. But changing the sentence without changing the support around the person will simply move the revolving door from prison into the community.
“People caught in repeat offending are too often treated as a collection of separate problems: an addiction for one service, homelessness for another and offending for a third. Greater Manchester is showing how services can instead organise themselves around the whole person.
“The Prime Minister has seen that approach being developed first-hand. We now need government to identify this group clearly, bring departments and services together around them, and test the Greater Manchester model in other parts of the country. That is how the new sentencing reforms can deliver less crime, fewer victims and a genuine route out of the revolving door.”
The opportunity for the new government is clear. The next step should not be another disconnected criminal justice initiative, but a prevention-first approach delivered through places, shaped by lived experience and focused on the relatively small group whose repeated contact with public services carries the greatest human and financial cost.
Read more in Beyond the Cycle: Two years on.
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