Community care: 'honeymoon is over’

Press, 19 June 1986, Page 21

Community care: 'honeymoon is over’

How would you feel if the people who stole your car, or your wallet, or your washing, bumped into you on the street just after they had been sentenced to jail? That is a quite probable scenario under community care sentencing that came into effect in the Criminal Justice Act last October. The act suggests that prison is to be punishment of the last resort, reserved for violent offenders and others for whom a community sentence is inappropriate. The Minister of Justice, Mr Palmer, has said that community sentences such as community care have made a successful start, especially in the Bay of Plenty, where it is being integrated into Maori tribal communities. Yesterday, Patricia Herbert reported on the work that has been done in the North Island area; today, PETER LUKE looks at the effects of community care in Christchurch.

Community care has made a successful, but cautious start in Christchurch. Sixty-eight such sentences were handed down in the first eight months. Almost half of these programmes have included alcohol or drug treatment on a residential or non-residential basis. One of the organisations to have taken many community care cases is the Salvation Army’s Bridge Programme at Addington. “But the honeymoon is over as far as community care is concerned,” says Major John Irwin, the Bridge Programme’s superintendent. Since the Criminal Justice Act came into force last October, the Salvation Army has accepted a dozen community care cases. The honeymoon is over, adds Major Irwin, not because community care has failed, but because a more realistic attitude has developed about the suitability of people for community care programmes. "When community care started we were swamped. Everyone wanted to get their clients into the scheme. We have met probation officers and set down criteria for admitting patients.”

Some people turned away

Even so, since the scheme began the Bridge Programme has had to turn people away for the first time since it began in Christchurch in 1971.

The term “Bridge” signifies the passing from one state to another — from insobriety to sobriety. The Bridge is a 26-bed treatment centre, registered with the Department of Health, for patients requiring treatment for chemical dependency. The Bridge Programme is not for hard drug users. Major Irwin says the primary addiction of most patients is alcohol, but this is often compounded with marijuana and prescription drugs. Motivation is the key to the programme’s success for all patients and Major Irwin is very careful about the community care patients he accepts. “We try to bring them out to the centre to meet the staff — and as much as possible to ascertain the question of motivation.”

The real problem is right at the start. “Who is really motivated to come to terms with their problem and who is only motivated to escape the consequences of their offending.” This judgment is not easily made. Anyone facing a jail sentence is going to put up a good story. "There is a tendency for some

people to see this as an alternative to prison. They just come and sit here for the period of time in their community care contract,” says Major Irwin. But even this attitude can change, and one or two patients who entered the programme to go through the motions have listened and learned by associating with more committed patients. The initial screening process is important because once a patient enters the programme under a community care agreement, “we are more or less stuck with him.”

The alternative is to return them to court, and possibly to prison. Major Irwin is adamant that prison is no place for anyone with a drug or alcohol problem. He says the prison environment will not reduce addiction because drugs can still be obtained in most of them.

One community care patient has not completed the Bridge Programme, but Major Irwin had no choice in the case. The patient absconded and the probation service had to be informed. This patient ultimately committed another offence and ended up in court again. Drug and alcohol problems are an easily understandable factor in offending and an obvious target for community care programmes. Other programmes, at first glance, are more loosely related to rehabilitation or treatment. One offender has been sent to a relative’s farm and another to learn work skills at the nursery run by the Wai Ora Trust in Harewood. Other programmes involve such life skills as parenthood, anger management, marriage guidance, and budgeting. What all share is the goal of dealing with a key area in a person’s life — an area that could be a root cause of their offending.

One social worker, commenting on the lack of basic life skills among many young offenders, says that her community care, charge must keep two appointments with her a week (and another with his probation officer) and learn how to budget to make the most of his benefit. The social worker sees her role as offering guidance and support as he client learns to cope with job-hunting, flat-hunt-ing, and spending his money wisely. He will soon have to leave his hostel and find a flat because an aim of his programme is to put him, better equipped, into the private sector. Community care, this social worker believes, is particularly suited • to such young offenders who lack the skills to survive on a long-term basis in the private

sector. She believes her client has a good chance of succeeding in spite of him being “a difficult young man” who committed further petty offences while on remand.

He was very lucky not to be sent to a corrective training institution, and his scare probably helped him keep to the terms of the contract — "a big thing” for this particular young man.

The first eight months of community care have not been easy ones for community sentencing in Christchurch. A heightened awareness of crime in the city has included criticism of community sentencing as being a soft option whose only effect would be to place offenders in a position where they could again commit crimes.

Probation officers, who play the pivotal role in community sentencing, reject the analysis. They agree that public demands for punishment are legitimate and natural, and that some offenders must inevitably be locked up. But they also point out that all prisoners must one day leave prison to face re-entry into the community.

Rehabilitation into the community must be carried out in the community itself, not in the isolation of a prison, they argue. To maintain the public credibility in community sentencing breaches of court orders are not tolerated. “An offender who fails to meet the conditions the court imposes is always returned to court. There is no question about it,” says one officer. Allen Rogers, a Christchurch probation officer who has been involved with community care, does not accept that the sentence

is an easy option compared with prison. Only a minority, of community care clients would have received a prison sentence, he suggests. More importantly, community care makes demands on an offender which are unknown in the prison system. It means the offender must be prepared to face up to the problem areas in his life and make fundamental life-style changes.

Call for more resources

Of the 68 community care cases in Christchurch only half a dozen have breached their contracts. Mr Rogers knows of only seven cases in which a community care application has not been accepted by the court, although some successful applications have required tightening. The long-term success of community care could depend on the resources made available to the Probation Service and the community. Within three months of the Criminal Justice Act being introduced, probation officers warned that more resources were needed to cope with the increased workload it entailed. The threat of industrial action brought the promise from the Justice Department that 44 new probation officers would be appointed by the beginning of the present financial year. Probation officers point out that the community emphasis of the act increased the number of reports they have to write by adding the new sentences of reparation and community care, and making prisoners eligible for half-date release.

Community care, they say, is particularly time-consuming because it involves treatment as well as punishment. It calls for highly trained staff who are able to isolate problem aspects of an offender’s life style, numerous interviews with offenders and community groups, and ultimately a recommendation to the court.

Some probation officers suggest that workload strains are one reason for the small number of community care applications brought to the courts. As one officer suggests, it is much simpler and faster to place an offender on supervision. The president of the Association of Probation Officers, Eric Coyle, says that the probation service has been characterised recently by high staff turnover and the lack of trained staff in some localities. There has also

been a hardening among their clients, including some who would have been sent to a psychiatrist five years ago. Mr Coyle says that the Public Service Association, in conjunction with the Justice Department, is preparing a national workload survey to be carried out within a month. A Justice Department spokesman has said that this survey is a routine study of workloads and that the increased workload caused by the Criminal Justice Act is one of the many factors being considered. A related problem is whether there are sufficient resources of time, money, and goodwill in the community to expand the community care concept.

One man who doubts whether there are is Dave Robinson, who spent a decade in the probation service, and is now a counsellor and chairman of the Salisbury Street Foundation, which offers a residential programme for released prisoners. Mr Robinson has suggested that the Criminal Justice Act was dumped on the community with little preparation. “Community care involves trying to fit a concept on to a community that is resistant to it. You have to prepare for it. The Justice Department did not do this.” He also doubts whether Christchurch people are sympathetic to the idea of helping offenders. He decribes as “hysterical” the public reaction to crime which followed an anonymous advertisement in “The Press.” This hysteria, he suggests, did not address the problem in a constructive way. Part of the problem is that Christchurch lacks real communities and has instead collections of individual houses grouped into suburbs. In such an environment, Mr Robinson adds, fear of crime and lack of any

sympathy for offenders is natural. In the 19605, people left food out for George Wilder, an escaped prisoner, but that would be unthinkable today because of the changes in New Zealand society. A community sympathetic to community sentencing may be an impossible ideal, he

suggests, but this should have been realised when the act came into effect. Community groups involved with community care share Mr Robinson’s belief that there was too little preparation for the act, but most have a more optimistic view. The Rev. David Morrell, the City Missioner, says there are

similarities between community sentencing and the trend towards de-institutionalising mental health. Another community worker at the City Mission agrees, and says that community services and resources for mental health patients were minimal in the 19705, but had grown rapidly as the community perceived a need for them. A similar pattern could follow for community care. Probation officers in Christchurch say that the public has responded well to the new sentence, with half-a-dozen individuals as well as community groups running programmes. It is noticeable, however, that most of the groups are those which offered similar services in an informal way before the sentence was introduced. The key to expansion of community care could be money. Mr Coyle argues: "The change of emphasis from institutional to community care has yet to be accompanied by a substantial transfer of money from the Justice Department to the community,” he adds. At present $lO a day can be claimed for each community care patient or client, but Mr Coyle says that more money is vital. Community sentencing is saving the community thousands of dollars for every offender not sent to prison, and in the last five years offenders on community service have given the community thousands of hours of unpaid labour. On that basis, spending money to treat offenders is not unreasonable, he says. Uncertainty over resources is a long-term problem that could yet be settled as the Justice Department analyses the early response to the sentence. Meanwhile, community care is proving to be a valuable addition to the sentencing powers of the court.