Staffordshire’s IOM Programme uses ECINS to case manage priority offenders across Staffordshire. Stafford Prison agreed to sign up to ECINS so that it could be used to update the IOM Programme directly in relation to the offenders it had in custody that were subject of IOM supervision.
The IOM Team already had a healthy relationship with Stafford Prison but access to ECINS’ shared case management system meant that information in respect of individual offenders could be shared across partnership boundaries and in real time.
The IOM Police Team consists of ‘Field Officers’ who have day to day contact with offenders whilst in the community, ECINS is used to record any contact between those officers and the offender. This contact results in a detailed personal profile of the offender which includes information about their general attitude, response to interventions and anxieties. Sharing relevant elements of this profile with prison partners means that prison staff have a much better understanding in terms of how the subject might respond to imprisonment, engage in rehabilitative interventions and what risk they pose.
Whilst in prison, prison officers will update ECINS at agreed periods with details of the offender’s progress and behaviour in prison. This can include adjudications, interventions and again any anxieties the subject might have whilst serving their sentence. The latter is particularly important close to an offender’s release and the Field Officers in IOM can look to address these anxieties.
What results from this two-way conversation through ECINS is a seamless approach to managing offenders and the risk they pose in the community and in prison. ECINS has provided a platform where the right information can be shared at the right time with the best people likely to have an influence on an individual in question and, ultimately, their offending. Furthermore it is helping us achieve the IOM vision of the journey continuing whilst a person is in prison and not for it to end at the gate only to be picked up again when they come out.
