Crime Reduction Initiatives, the £80m-turnover drug and alcohol support charity, is restructuring its operations into two distinct divisions in order to capitalise on the government’s new offender rehabilitation agenda.

The Ministry of Justice’s new Transforming Rehabilitation strategy will open up 70 per cent of probation contracts to private and voluntary sector providers and will guarantee 12 months’ support to all ex-prisoners, even those that have served less than a year.

CRI already delivers projects within prisons and communities to help offenders and ex-offenders recover from drug and alcohol problems but has decided that it should aim to separate the two types of services in order to better compete for the new Ministry of Justice payment-by-results contracts.

After canvassing the views of service users and staff, CRI decided to split its operations into ‘Social Care and Health Initiatives’ and ‘Criminal Justice’ divisions. A spokeswoman for the charity said the move would also offer the benefit of reducing some of the stigma for recovering addicts that have not encountered the criminal justice system.

The new Criminal Justice division will be headed up by Mike Pattinson, previously CRI’s operations director for the South.  Two directors have been appointed to lead the Social Care and Health Initiatives section: Kevin Crowley and Mark Moody.  David Royce (pictured) will continue to head the charity as chief executive.

CRI has grown steadily over the last five years.  In 2008 its income was £32m, in 2009 this grew to £42m and a year later to £57.5m.  By 2011 it was £69m and last year it just topped £80m.

The charity currently works with 42,000 people every day across England and Wales, prescribing opiate substitute medication to 15,000 people and psychosocial treatment for a further 17,000.  Last year, 88 per cent of offenders who completed CRI treatment stopped offending.

Last autumn it merged with the volunteering charity Sova to extend its volunteer network. Sova retained its own brand and will continue to operate as a subsidiary, working with CRI on all of its projects across both the new divisions.

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