"The way we deal with those who break the law is fundamental to the health of our society," said the then Home Secretary Charles Clarke in his foreword to the Government's strategy for protecting the public and reducing re-offending in England and Wales, which was published in 2005.

The Cabinet Office has estimated that, in purely financial terms, re-offending costs in the UK amount to £11billion per year.

So how can we reduce the levels of offending and improve the management of offenders in Northern Ireland? On January 16, the Probation Board will host the last in a series of seminars to explore this very important and difficult issue.

Earlier events have tried to establish a common understanding of the facts about the levels of offending and re-offending.

They have also explored the effectiveness of present approaches to tackling the problems and have opened up debate about what we can learn from other jurisdictions.

Senior people from the criminal justice agencies and the voluntary sector, as well as leading academic experts, have attended the seminars and each of the main political parties were invited to participate, though not all took up the invitation.

There is room for debate about the levels of actual and reported crime in Northern Ireland - whether they are increasing or decreasing - and whether public attitudes to reporting crime are changing.

However to those who are victims of crime that is a rather academic exercise. The crime that has involved you, a member of your family, a neighbour or a friend is one crime too many.

The debate about what to do with offenders and how to limit the levels of re-offending tends to become distorted by the raw passions that can be aroused, particularly where violent and sexual crime is involved or where the victims are the young or elderly.

There are few votes for politicians who support lower prison sentences or who welcome hostels for former offenders in their constituencies.

Yet we must try to maintain a focus on the facts and on what actually works. Here are 10 points - some are obvious, some are less so - that should be borne in mind:

• the most certain way of protecting society against the most violent and dangerous offenders is to keep them in prison until they can be shown to be no longer a serious risk or threat;

• just under half of people sentenced to prison will re-offend within two years;

• the annual cost of keeping a prisoner in prison in Northern Ireland is over £85,000;

• a very high percentage of those in prison have significant mental health, literacy, skill and substance abuse problems and around two thirds of prisoners have the literacy and numeracy level expected of an 11-year-old or less;

• recent research suggests that those at most risk of becoming tomorrow's criminals can be identified by the age of five because of the environment in which they are living, with high risk factors being poor parenting, poverty, and criminality in the family;

• most offenders start a life of crime and anti-social behaviour at an early stage and have long criminal records;

• the right early intervention in the life of an offender can be successful;

• working with offenders in the community has a better chance of success for most offenders than short prison sentences;

• there will always be an element of risk in managing offenders in the community;

• there is a significant place for community action in reducing the levels of crime, both through specific services provided by the community and voluntary sectors and in well-run community restorative justice approaches.

What do we need to do to improve the situation? We should start by recognising the enormous amount of first class work that is already being done by those in the public and community and voluntary sectors who work with thousands of difficult and very challenging individuals who are offenders.

The public or the media tend to pay attention only when someone re-offends and the effectiveness of the arrangements for managing that person in the community are then criticised.

There is no single magic answer. High profile increases in levels of sentencing or, as in England and Wales, regular structural changes in the institutions which deal with offenders, may help to satisfy some public and media demands for tougher action.

However, they may not have a genuine and lasting positive impact. Indeed, they may only serve to divert attention from the real challenges.

But complex problems require complex solutions and there must be two broad lines of action.

First, there must be a determined and sustained attack on all the factors that lead people, and especially young people, into a world of crime.

In Tony Blair's famous words, we need to get "tough on the causes of crime".

A more effective joined-up approach is required across all the public agencies concerned. This must include those in the health, education, training, employment and housing areas as well as the criminal justice area.

One initiative might be the establishment of a forum on offender management that would draw together the leaders of the relevant public, private and not-for-profit organisations into serious discussions about cross-agency and cross-sector thinking and partnership action that would help to reduce re-offending.

Secondly, there must be investment of the necessary resources to deliver much better management of offenders. As quickly as resources allow, we should introduce "end-to-end management" of offenders.

Each offender should be managed by a member of the probation service throughout the entire process from entry into prison to completing the community supervision element of a sentence and in some cases, beyond that point.

It means also enabling the not-for-profit sector to make a growing contribution, for example in providing well run accommodation for ex-offenders and in developing community restorative justice approaches that can command public confidence in managing those involved in low level crime and anti-social behaviour.

As a society, we pay a heavy price for not getting all this right. There is, above all, the terrible cost to the victims of crime.

High costs are also involved in pursuing and prosecuting offenders, keeping them in prison, and managing them in society. And there are the offenders themselves, whose lives contribute so little that is positive to the community.

In Northern Ireland, we must strive to develop more effective and imaginative ways of managing offenders that are based on evidence about the success or otherwise of present approaches, that learn the lessons from what has worked better in other jurisdictions throughout the world, and that are properly tailored to the circumstances here.