Public protection unit

Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA)

Police officers in our public protection units manage the risk posed by sexual and violent offenders on release from prison back into the community. We do this in partnership with probation staff, prison staff and others such as representatives from social services, housing and health. This is known as the Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements or MAPPA.

How does MAPPA operate?

These arrangements enable agencies to:

• Identify who may pose a risk of harm 
• Share relevant information about them
• Assess the nature and extent of that risk
• Find ways to manage that risk effectively, protecting victims and reducing further harm

The vast majority of sexual offending is committed by people who are known to the victim, either as family members, friends, or acquaintances. Central to all risk management is the need to consider the protection of previous and possible future victims.

As part of any risk management strategy it may be considered necessary for information about offenders to be disclosed directly to others by the police in order to prevent harm, such as new partners, landlords or even school head teachers. Information is not disclosed to the public unless we are in a position to better monitor and manage the offender or unless they are potentially at risk.

What type of offenders are managed by MAPPA?

• All registered sex offenders
• All offenders who receive a custodial sentence of 12 months or more for a violent offence or for one of the small number of sexual offences which do not require the offender to be included in the Sex Offender Register
• Any offender whose previous offending and current behaviour suggests that he or she may pose a serious risk of harm to others.

Sexual and violent offenders live in all communities and are of no single age, gender, ethnicity or position in society. What is common is that the offences they commit are unacceptable, often resulting in significant physical and emotional damage. Their identification and conviction is therefore a priority.

Once convicted, not all offenders go on to commit further offences. However some do. We therefore need to identify those offenders posing a high and very high risk of further serious harm and to take action to prevent them ruining the live of others. Currently 99.6% of those offenders monitored under MAPPA arrangements DO NOT commit any serious further offences.

Multi-agency public protection panels

Those 'critical few' offenders that pose the highest risk and are referred to a multi-agency public protection panel, and are regularly scrutinised by senior representatives of local agencies.

These panels are powerful and have a wide range of options available to them including the power to make particularly dangerous offenders reside in probation hostels.

Who checks it’s all working?

A strategic management board monitors and reviews how these public protection arrangements are working in each local area. Each board includes two members of the public appointed by the Secretary of State, to act as lay advisors in the review and monitoring of the arrangements and to help improve links with communities.

Other agencies

Other agencies that co-operate in MAPPA include youth offending teams, Jobcentre Plus, local education authorities, local housing authorities, registered social landlords, social services, strategic health authorities, Care Trusts and NHS Trusts, and electronic monitoring providers.