Working with sexual and violent offenders

Sexual and violent offending affects lives in a way no other crime does. It causes suffering to victims, their families and heightens levels of public concern in local communities. For this reason, Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements, more commonly known as MAPPA, was introduced across England and Wales as a process that supports the assessment and management of such offenders.

The level of risk in individual cases can be reduced; however, it can never be entirely removed. Locking up people and throwing away the key, is not a solution. Of the current prison population, of over 80,000 only a very small percentage will never be released and the vast majority of sexual and violent offenders, at some stage, will be released back into the community. It is the responsibility of MAPPA agencies to work with these offenders to help reduce the likelihood of re-offending.

Most of what MAPPA does you do not see, however we hope that having logged on to the website you are interested in knowing more about MAPPA and who is involved in MAPPA processes. We have also incorporated into the information some real case studies that help illustrate the work of MAPPA and the journey MAPPA offenders make.

North Yorkshire, which includes the City of York, is one of the safest areas in terms of crime to live. MAPPA by working in partnership with key agencies is playing its part to keep it that way.

Related Documents

The Victim's voice

The safety of victims and the avoidance of re-victimisation are central to the work of public protection.

The Probation Victim Contact Scheme has a duty under the Victims Charter to contact the victims of all offenders sentenced to 12 months or longer in custody or detained in hospital for sexual or violent offences in their Area.

In North Yorkshire and the City of York, the Trust employs Victim Liaison Officers (VLO) to work exclusively with victims. Probation also works in partnership with Victim Support who can offer victims of serious crime support and counselling.

The VLO contacts victims of crime within eight weeks of the offender being sentenced and many are surprised and pleased to know that they do have the right to certain information. Some want the VLO to keep in touch with them, some for a variety of reason choose to have no contact and no information and others want to make a decision of contact with the VLO at a later stage. Of those victims who do choose to have contact, many are anxious to know more about the custodial process the offender will be subject to and when the offender is likely to be released.

The victim also has the right to put forward views about the conditions that could be placed on the offender when he/she is released. Conditions may include preventing the offender from going anywhere near the victim and if the risk is seen as too great, placing an exclusion zone on the offender to stop them causing any further worry to the victim.

The victim’s involvement with this service is voluntary, and victims may change their mind about having contact with a VLO at any point during the offender’s sentence.