New offender team launched in Rochdale

Michael Cross from the Rochdale Youth Offending Team, Sgt Jay Beeken, John Crawforth of the Greater Manchester Probation Trust, Assistant Chief Constable Terry Sweeney, Chief Superintendent John O’Hare, Sgt Paul Walsh, Jennet Peters, Joyce Boyd, Maria Albuquerque-Neale, Caroline Page and Councillor Ted Flynn at the launch of Integrated Offender Management Team.

A new approach to offender management in the borough has been launched today (Thursday 14 January) to improve the way in which information is shared within agencies involved in the criminal justice system.

Teams, from agencies including the Probation Service, the Youth Offending Team, drugs workers and the council, will be moving into one office to form the ‘Spotlight team’ – where they will monitor prolific offenders and manage their rehabilitation more effectively.

The Integrated Offender Management (IOM) approach is already in place in Tameside and Stockport and is designed to change the way organisations within the criminal justice system work together.

John O’Hare, Chief Superintendent for Rochdale Division, said: “The team will help police and our partner agencies improve the management of offenders that pose the greatest risk of re-offending in our communities. This joint management will challenge staff from all agencies and will encourage them to work closer together and share information. It will also mean that when important decisions and actions are made they will be done jointly which will hopefully improve the behaviour of these offenders.

“Sharing the same work space will significantly help us gather more intelligence, streamline our processes and will mean we can catch and monitor known offenders more effectively.”

“We hope to change the lives of not only the offenders but the people around them, their family and their neighbours. The offenders need to indentify their own responsibilities, but that is easy to say and hard to do. Offenders are human and they need our support to get back on track.

“We are not going soft on crime, we are getting smarter.”

Assistant Chief Constable Terry Sweeney hopes that this way of working will make Rochdale a safer place. He said: “We need to work to one agenda, the agencies involved will come together and leave their old worlds behind to venture into this new world, a new way of working.”

Roger Ellis, Chief Executive of Rochdale Council, said: “We’ve been working tirelessly in partnership with the police and many other agencies for a long time to tackle crime and disorder in the borough. It has been a successful alliance built on cooperation, shared information and joint working. But I’m confident that the spotlight team will help address some of the gaps and make us more efficient in catching criminals and preventing crime.

“Now is the time for us to take this opportunity to learn from research into the successful rehabilitation of criminals and evidence of good practice from our fellow colleagues across Greater Manchester. This way we can make sure that the work we put into practice here in Rochdale is the best it can be to create safer communities for the benefit of everyone who lives, visits and works here.”

Ted Flynn, cabinet member for Community Safety at Rochdale Council, added: “I welcome this new way of working in the hope that, by targeting those who are proving to be the most problematic criminals in Rochdale borough, our criminal justice agencies can have a better impact on reducing crime and bringing more offenders to justice.”