Importance of Strengthening Prisoners' Family Ties to Prevent Reoffending and Reduce Intergenerational Crime Review

Lord Farmer’s 2017 review highlighted the importance of family and supportive relationships in rehabilitation and reducing re-offending. Since then, His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) has taken extensive action to put those recommendations into practice, with the majority now completed. All prisons are required to publish local family and ‘significant other’ strategies, to seek and respond to the views of families in supporting people in custody, including in relation to release planning, and to identify and support prisoners without family or relationship contact. These principles are now embedded within HMPPS Family Services and continue to inform practice across the prison estate.

HMPPS has also implemented recommendations on the positive role of prisoner-to-prisoner relationships, strengthening peer support and mentoring through existing roles such as peer mentors, Listeners, wing representatives and learning tutors. Work is under way to develop a common set of standards for peer support and mentoring, using an evidence-led approach to testing, evaluation and potential future scaling up, to improve quality, consistency and safeguards.

The Ministry of Justice and HMPPS continue to work with Lord Farmer and delivery partners to monitor and strengthen delivery through inspection and performance frameworks. Further work is planned to build on this foundation, particularly to strengthen family engagement and pro-social peer relationships as part of a wider rehabilitative culture informed by desistance principles and psychologically informed practice.