It seems like someone at The Sun has really got it in for the probation service in West Yorkshire. Why else would you be tempted to put in a Freedom of Information request in order to find out the annual expenditure on snacks for offenders attending accredited programme courses? Anyway it turns out that the answer is approaching £7,000.
Now many reasonable people would feel that such expenditure for a drink and a sandwich is entirely appropriate and only to be expected when attending any sort of course away from home or your usual location. As much as anything it's about showing care and concern for the participants. Here we are talking about a group of people who are not only attending involuntarily, but the expectation is that their thinking, attitudes and behaviour will be altered for the better due to their attendance.
I think it should be fairly obvious that in trying to get the full cooperation of a somewhat unwilling group is difficult at the best of times and involves some significant skills on the part of the staff. In my experience the informal chats between sessions of any groupwork course is often the most productive in terms of building relationships with the clients, which is of course the key to getting them to be receptive to the messages being delivered. It's all about setting a good example, or in the jargon demonstrating 'pro-social modelling' with a group who typically have great difficulties in this area.
Of course the expenditure on refreshments is entirely appropriate, but sadly probation management is so sensitive to attacks from the likes of The Sun and their supporters the Taxpayers Alliance that the budget has already been slashed it seems. That's going to make changing offenders thinking and attitudues that bit harder from now on.
Even bigger scandal is that I believe that the Prison Service pays for three meals a day for criminals in prison. They are getting fed by the taxpayers and housed as well to boot. And some of these criminals are sex offenders, murderers, terrorists and drug addicts!
ReplyDeleteA piece of lazy journalism from the Sun. Instead of conducting some investigation about how the probation service works, interview the probation officers, people on probation, see how effective it is, what the costs are and a cost-benefit ratio. It is cheaper to fire off an e-mail under the FOI and write a story about it. Researching a story requires time and money. An e-mail is free.
ReplyDeletecome on nobody's replying to my blog comment!!!!
ReplyDeletesorry I don't know how to use blog
ReplyDeletethos offenders who are unemployed can pay loads of money for their addictions surely they can fork out 2.99 for a meal deal at tesco's or sainsbury there on every corner these days, or get a kiddy's meal at macdonalds or burger king! for those who are considering making a comment, probation was not formed to subsidised addictions.
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