If Andy Burnham wants to end rough sleeping he must close the revolving door in prisons

Every day people walk through their neighbourhoods and wonder why others in their community who need help remain unsupported and unhoused. This all happens against a backdrop of media mania amplifying another round of emergency ‘early release’ to halt our prisons bursting at the seams, while those prisoners released are left to navigate a probation system creaking under pressure. A committed focus on ending the revolving door of crisis and crime has become urgent. 

Revolving Doors works on behalf of those caught in a complex tangle of unmet health and social needs. Unstable, inappropriate or simply unavailable housing stands out as a core mechanism of this cycle of crisis and crime. For over three decades, our work has laid bare the consequences of unstable housing for people in the churn of the justice system – both for those being released from prison and those in the community.  

This is why last year, Revolving Doors supported the government’s homelessness strategy, with members stating in its introduction the importance of “building a system that understands and responds to people’s needs before they hit rock bottom”. 

So, the prime minister’s commitment to get ‘Everyone In’ this Christmas is very welcome and gives us hope for progress – but Revolving Doors members with experience of homelessness have rightly raised their concerns.  

The current recall rate alone is yet more proof that society is failing those trapped in the revolving door of justice, housing and public health, and those we work with know personally that recovery is near impossible without a safe, stable place to live.  

The data show us exactly how interaction with the justice system further amplifies someone’s homelessness crisis. Ministry of Justice statistics are stark: 17% of people do not have housing on their first night post-release, and 19% are not in settled accommodation three months later.  

Break down the data further, and the picture worsens. Around 30% of people who have served short sentences of six months or less do not have housing for their first night post-release, rising to 37% three months later. This latter figure is a staggering 22.7% higher than the same measurement amongst people who were given non-custodial community disposals. It’s clear: locking people up is not the route to tackling homelessness. 

This crisis, and the explosion of our prison population more broadly, is in part the result of the government’s inability to work cross-departmentally.  

In our fragmented state with its broken public services, health and social issues including repeat offending fall between the gaps – always another agency’s problem.  

Our ineffective system pushes people back and forth between prisons, homelessness and addiction with little thought or planning on how we grapple with multiple disadvantage at a national scale.  

It is clear that we need to start thinking more broadly if we want to break the link between homelessness and the revolving door: never just at prisons, nor simply at justice, but across the entire system, where a joined-up approach is vital to supporting people into long-term change and recovery. 

Here, the prime minister’s commitment to ‘rewiring the state’ and focusing on people and place opens up opportunities which cannot be wasted when it comes to housing, homelessness and the revolving door.

Read more:

• How the criminal justice system is setting people up to fail
• I work in probation. What meeting a homeless man on the street taught me about second chances
• More and more women are being released from prison into homelessness. It’s an ongoing cruelty

His own Greater Manchester heartland is leading the way with the adoption of preventative, joined-up approaches to supporting people with unmet needs in the justice system. This has already had impact: Greater Manchester and the North West have markedly better short-term housing and longer-term stable accommodation outcomes for people in the justice system than any other region.  

Now, Greater Manchester Combined Authority is taking the next step forward as, with Revolving Doors’ support, they pilot and roll out a whole-system approach to diversion. This brings together services including housing, health, justice agencies, local government, voluntary and support organisations and people with lived experience to reduce repeat offending by tackling its root causes in a more holistic way, aimed at sustainable support and prevention rather than simply crisis response. 

It means that local areas will proactively identify the people who are in the ‘revolving door’ group in their area. Often this is actually a tiny cohort of a dozen or so people but they do account for a large volume of local crime such as theft and drug offences. 

Once this group has been identified, individuals will be supported by local agencies (housing, probation, health) working on a joined-up basis via weekly multi-agency meetings. 

The person themselves has a dedicated peer support worker, who helps them to keep track of things like appointments and acts as a point of contact. People are also put in touch with local recovery communities (Rehab Fitness, founded by one of our members in Wigan, is a good example) so they have a touchpoint to help them into recovery in a more holistic, sustainable way focused on community integration. 

These are the approaches which will being ‘Everyone In’ and make more visible change possible: by bringing people and services together at a local level, with the resources and willpower needed to build healthier, happier and safer communities. 

There are up to 50,000 people in the revolving door of crisis and crime in England alone. The problem is rarely that the state doesn’t know them. Indeed, they are often simultaneously known to police, probation, housing, mental health services, drug and alcohol treatment and local government.   

The problem is that the state encounters one person and divides them into a collection of institutional problems. Without a joined-up whole-system approach to low level offending, this government won’t make a dent in the prison population, and it certainly won’t solve the homelessness crisis for people in the justice system. 

If the prime minister wants to prove that devolution can genuinely change how the state operates, it’s time to test that ambition on the people the current system fails most comprehensively. 

Pavan Dhaliwal is the CEO of Revolving Doors

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us more. 

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