The Changing Futures programme is a £91.8 million joint funded initiative between Government and The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest community funder in the UK. The programme funds local organisations working in partnership in 15 local areas across England to better support those who experience multiple disadvantage.
Over the last two years, MEAM has brought the local programme leads together for regular discussions about key aspects of the work. In this third of six blog posts for this series, we reflect on some of the topics covered, drawing on their insight and input from others in the Changing Futures programme and the wider MEAM Approach network.
At a recent conversation with representatives across the Changing Futures programme, we discussed local work with the criminal justice system, and connections between it and broader interventions to support people experiencing multiple disadvantage.
How does the criminal justice system respond to multiple disadvantage?
The criminal justice system is a complex set of interrelated process concerned with the prevention, detection and punishment of those who commit criminal activities, as well as their rehabilitation to prevent offending in the future. Many people who experience multiple disadvantage will come into contact with the criminal justice system and for some people this will happen multiple times. In addition, individuals may be accessing other statutory and voluntary services to support mental and physical health, housing, and substance use recovery, all of which need to be well coordinated.
Having strong working partnerships with the criminal justice system is vital if services are to work together to support the best possible outcomes for someone experiencing multiple disadvantage.
However, across Changing Futures areas the involvement of, and interaction with, the criminal justice system is often variable – while there are some good examples of working together, these are not consistent across localities. In this blog, we explore why this is happening and where we are seeing examples of good practice.
It is also worth noting that people experiencing multiple disadvantage are not a homogenous group and their experiences of the criminal justice system are not the same. There are significant racial disparities within the criminal justice system[1], and next week’s blog on Violence against Women and Girls and multiple disadvantage explores different dynamics within criminalised behaviour in coercive relationships.
Why is it generally challenging to work with the criminal justice system from a multiple disadvantage perspective?
- While police and probation are generally active partners in Changing Futures areas, interaction with courts and prisons is limited
When speaking with areas, many reported good working relationships with the police, with many police forces seeing the benefit of working with local partnerships to reduce the ineffective use of police time on low-level acquisitive crime or anti-social behaviour and offer people support as well as enforcement. Working with the court system was seen as more challenging, particularly to inform pre-sentencing reports to make better information and options available to the court. Working with(in) prisons and supporting people as they get ready to leave the prison estate was also seen as difficult in some areas. Once someone is released from prison, Changing Futures partnerships generally have very good relationships with probation services.
Many of the transition points in and out of the criminal justice system were seen as places of particular risk for people facing multiple disadvantage with housing, work and wider support relationships at risk of being lost due to periods of remand (whether or not there is a criminal conviction) or short sentences. In addition, much of the support associated with leaving custody (i.e., probation and employment support) is not available to someone released after being on remand (despite the lack of a criminal conviction) or a short prison sentence.
Prisons were also mentioned as being challenging to work with as part of a local, area-based partnership, because often people are sent to serve sentences far away from their local communities, breaking relationships with families, support and opportunities. This distance adds further challenges to resettlement support. Being placed far away and for substantial periods of time also functions as an “out of sight/mind” marker for many statutory responses in the community, and trigger points for intervention once back in the community vary between organisations (e.g., housing will potentially be preparing for someone 56 days before release, but adult social care may not be involved until a need arises once someone is in a new property).
- Mixed-scale geographies can make policy and practice alignment challenging
The regionalised geographies of the probation service and the police service mean that they are often operating at a larger scale than many Changing Futures areas, creating challenges for the alignment of practice. For probation, there are multiple interactions with local authorities particularly in two-tier counties, meaning that Changing Futures provision is not always known or understood from a police / probation geography. The major exception to this is Essex, where the local Changing Futures delivery partners deliver significant elements of probation provision.
In addition, while some commissioners of probation services might be willing to purchase support related to multiple disadvantage, it was felt that governance and procurement rules were more rigid than in other sectors, limiting local discretion in innovation and creativity.
- How we see offending behaviour as a society, and the role of the police in emergencies
In our discussion, areas reflected that as a society, we approach our consideration of offending behaviour with simplistic good/bad person dynamics and fail to think about context, history, trauma and intent. People can be both victim and perpetrator of crimes (with particular dynamics for women experiencing multiple disadvantage, explored below), but the stigma of a criminal conviction remains high, and practical considerations for employment post-custodial sentence are difficult. The group also acknowledged in some circumstances, when behaviour is particularly challenging, that the only response available to public services is a police response, which may be one which is low in situational context, (re)traumatising and potentially violent.
In this “emergency” response, there is little systemic expectation and real practical challenges to working in ways that we know best work for people facing multiple disadvantage. Instead, the emergency response focuses on de-escalating immediate risk and/or arrest. We need to acknowledge that there will likely always be this cultural divide, but that there are good examples in Changing Futures areas where this divide is being bridged.
- CJS overlaps in times of mental health crisis
There is also a challenge that many mental health crises result in behaviours that break the law (i.e., the crisis may catalyse criminal behaviour and the mental health aspect of the crisis is not always recognised at the time). We also heard how people may commit crime out of desperation to provoke a response by the mental health system. This can leave people with criminal records and the stigma associated with them.
While the recent “Right Care, Right Person” model seeks to reduce police interaction with most forms of mental health care crisis, this has not necessarily been met by an increase in resource by other parts of the system nor necessarily an improvement of crisis outcomes. Also, due to a lack of space in specialised mental health care settings, unsuitable locations such as police cells (for a short period of time) and prisons (holding people on remand for much longer periods of time) can be deemed as a place of safety. This is a particular challenge for women and are spaces that are unlikely to positively contribute to improving mental health and addressing the underlying issues.
How are areas positively interacting with the criminal justice system?
Hull reported a good relationship with partners that need to be involved in the prison release process. For example, during the recent SDS40 policy large-scale release from prison, they were able to set up a one-stop shop “departure lounge” facility through the Changing Futures provision, so that all processes associated with prison release could be managed in one place, significantly reducing risk of homelessness and recall for newly released prisoners.
Leicester has two seconded police officers embedded in the local Changing Futures team, one is focussed on sex working, and the other has a focus on people leaving prison. Police are the leading referral agency into the local programme. Some programme co-location takes place in the local police station, but there is some distrust of the police by beneficiaries, and other delivery partner community spaces (like “Dear Albert”) retain importance for beneficiary engagement.
Nottingham has probation officers embedded in its multi-disciplinary team. These embedded practitioners support communication back into probation more widely, and have developed a toolkit to try and upskill probation staff in trauma-informed working and understanding of multiple disadvantage. They also support development of practical skills among probation staff to refer clients into appropriate support. Nottingham also talked about Operation Brandberg, the new pathway by Nottinghamshire Police to support people involved with offending behaviour driven by multiple disadvantage, and their prison pathways workstream which looks to make connections to primary care and mental health support
Stoke talked about their work with beneficiaries with a “revolving door” relationship with the criminal justice system. They conducted an exercise to map multiple release-day appointments for someone leaving prison, drawing out barriers to attendance due to travel times, access to transport, other priorities. Over the course of the programme, relationships have improved with prison/probation to share data about releases, and they have particularly been able to work on the issue of women being released without housing. The local team have built their credibility with probation to the point where Changing Futures are recognised as a valid agency to manage post-custody MAPPA risk.
Stoke are also about to publish a good practice guide for accommodating people with fire-setting and arson histories, helping reduce barriers to housing access for people with this kind of criminal justice history. This has involved working with the insurance concerns of housing providers. The guidance explores static vs dynamic risk, and the team worked with probation and mental health leads to devise a new risk matrix and explore how insurance relates to that.
For women, the “Whole System Approach” which was adopted in the criminal justice system by the MoJ a few years ago is apparent in some Changing Futures areas’ service provision .
One area has seen the appointment of a new liaison officer with a whole system approach remit, focused on women and girls leaving prison. This is to look at how trauma underpins the criminalisation of women, where assaults against staff in previous settings seem to be trauma-driven, and why a high proportion of women are coming through the system with prior experience of violence and abuse.
One group also observed that the majority of women with criminal offences had theft offences, often related to poverty, suggesting that crime reduction in this space may go hand in hand with family support measures and income maximisation through the welfare benefits system.
[1] Institute of Race Relations – https://irr.org.uk/research/statistics/criminal-justice/#content (accessed September 23, 2025)