Zara Aleena, a law graduate from Ilford, was walking home from a night out last June when she was killed in a brutal attack. Seven months later, the chief inspector of probation concluded that Jordan McSweeney, who raped and murdered Ms Aleena, would not have been free to attack her that night had it not been for a series of blunders. McSweeney had previously been convicted 28 times for assaults on police and civilians, theft and racial harassment, yet his risk level was only classified as “medium”. The concern is that dangerous offenders are being let out with minimal supervision because the probation service in England and Wales is unable to cope.
Reports from the probation inspectorate point to a creeping internal malaise: officers feel overwhelmed and overworked, with large numbers of people off sick and inexperienced staff taking on complex cases. Most of the service is working beyond its capacity. Some officers have workloads twice as large as they should. Planning for the release of sex offenders has been described as “nowhere near good enough”. It is alarming that figures from the Ministry of Justice since 2010 suggest that one person is murdered by someone on probation every week. Higher-risk cases are supposed to receive more resources, but one whistleblower recently told Channel 4 they faced pressure to lower the risk rating to offload work.
