Process Overview

Purpose of sentence completion report

The purpose of the sentence completion report is to record the offender's:

• response to their sentence
• compliance with the conditions of the sentence, and
• future relapse prevention or maintenance strategies.

Relapse prevention

It is essential that the offender develops relapse prevention or maintenance strategies that extend beyond the period of Community Probation & Psychological Services (CPPS) intervention.

This is to provide the offender with strategies to minimise the risk of re-offending.

If the offender has attended an intervention programme, a safety plan is likely to have been prepared. This plan should be incorporated in CPPS sentence/order management.

Two tasks

The challenge for the offender is to maintain positive changes without relapsing back into previous patterns of behaviour. There are two related tasks:

• identifying factors and situations that place the offender at risk of returning to abusive behaviours, and
• developing a support system to help reinforce change and provide assistance when difficult situations arise.

Process

The following diagram shows the stages of the sentence completion process.