The Offender Rehabilitation Act

This briefing explains the Offender Rehabilitation Act (ORA) which came into full force on 1st February 2015. The ORA accompanies the Transforming Rehabilitation programme, and it makes changes to the sentencing and releasing framework to extend probation supervision after release to offenders serving short term sentences. It also creates greater flexibility in the delivery of sentences served in the community. The ORA is the heart of the reforms which extend supervision to approximately 45,000 additional offenders per year who are released from short prison sentences of less than 12 months.