Compass has more than twenty years’ experience of working with substance misusing offenders at all stages of their engagement with the criminal justice system. Our pioneering work has been a major influence on national policy and the treatment models for tackling drug-related offending.

Our experience encompasses interventions for offenders in custody and the community. We have successfully delivered High and Low Intensity DIP services in urban and rural settings, including Hull, York and inner London. Our staff routinely work with all types of offenders, including Prolific and Priority Offenders and young offenders, and in all categories of prison.

Our knowledge of prison-based interventions predates CARATs and extends across the whole prison estate. Between 1986 and 1998 we developed a groundbreaking throughcare service in Yorkshire and the Humber that became the template for the national CARAT model. From 1999 to 2005, Compass was the UK’s leading provider of treatment services to prisoners, delivering CARATs in 45 prisons nationwide.

Each of our services seeks to tackle offending behaviour as well as the treatment needs of offenders. We have delivered offender management programmes for drug users since 1991 and managed Breaking the Chain, the forerunner of the DTTO and DRR programmes, in 1995. Today, our criminal justice services include structured day programmes for offenders, throughcare services for DIP clients and individuals on drug or alcohol rehabilitation orders and specialist criminal justice prescribing clinics.

A significant component of all our services is focused upon the criminal justice system, irrespective of whether or not our work has a specific criminal justice focus. As a result, Compass services throughout the UK work with large numbers of offenders and in close co-operation with criminal justice agencies to improve the safety of our communities.

What We Deliver

• All aspects of the Drug Interventions Programme including through the gate work, aftercare and housing services, delivered in partnership with social landlords.
• Working in partnership with criminal justice agencies to deliver assessment and referral services in courts and custody suites and providing Assertive Outreach in support of police operations.
   
• Training including developing to accreditation by CSAP rehabilitation programmes for drug using offenders for operation in prisons which we have adapted to work in the community.
• CARAT services including experience within all categories of prisons and with all types of offenders.
• Specialist criminal justice substance misuse clinics that provide rapid access prescribing, treatment in support of DRRs and access to continuing care.
• Day programmes for offenders, supported by progress2work teams, which provide the core treatment component for DRRs and DTTOs and offer an exciting range of service-user led activities that tackle the individual’s addiction and offending.
• Case management and throughcare services for individuals on Drug Rehabilitation Requirement or Alcohol Treatment Orders.
• Criminal justice services for young people including arrest referral schemes and testing requirements for Youth Offending Services.
• Offender-specific peer mentoring programmes which are fully accredited and demonstrated to improve the retention of offenders in services.