What Does a Probation Officer Do? 2

Make an Assessment

I was going to say that having completed the interview with the client either for the first or thirty first time, you move towards making an assessment, but actually it's a continuous process. In reality it's not that much different from what we all do unconsciously as human beings during every interaction. The only real difference is that it very much becomes a conscious process with a whole range of questions running through your mind. Just how open do I think this person is being? Does their story ring true? Are there discrepancies in the prosecution disclosures? Do they have a learning disability? Are they dangerous? What are the risk factors? Are they deteriorating? Do they have a mental illness? Are they psychologically damaged? Are they motivated? Do they have insight? Etc etc.  

Making as good an assessment as possible is probably the most important part of the job because everything else flows from it. In essence it's the diagnosis to use a medical analogy. Get it wrong, or miss something and it can have significant consequences not just for the client, but possibly a future victim or wider society. It's why training and experience are so necessary for the job, although I have always had doubts that the ability to make sound judgements can be taught. A bit like empathy, you either have it or you don't. I've known quite senior colleagues who, rather worryingly, were hopeless at assessing so it's certainly not to do with length of service or age. 

It's the making of assessments that probably lies at the root of much conflict and dissatisfaction between client and officer. In my experience this has increased significantly over recent years and is felt to be a function of the transition from social work agency to so-called law enforcement. I'm not entirely sure why because even when we were all social work trained, we still had highly dangerous and risky people to deal with. Possibly it's because probation officers only deal with this group nowadays and not the wide variety of general offenders we had on our books years ago. Certainly society has changed significantly and clients are just representative of those changes, specifically attitudes towards authority generally.

In rooting around the internet I came across a long piece written for Inside Time by a serving prisoner and these quotes give a flavour of how things can appear from the other side:-

"Although many probation officers claim empirical evidence is an acceptable substitute for that fact-based, what such evidence really boils down to is usually nothing more substantial than an ‘impression’ – a feeling in their water that it’s a bad ‘un they’re dealing with. And what is all the more remarkable is the extent to which other decision makers such as parole panels appear willing to accept unquestioned the professional opinion of probation officers. It’s a gullibility readily exploited by some probation staff."

  
"Why it is that probation staff can so easily invoke professional opinion in their reports without credible supporting evidence whereas professionals in other areas such as criminology, psychiatry, psychology, etc have to state the factual basis of their opinion? And more to the point, why do too many prisoners accept negative probation reports unquestioned? Is it fear that to challenge them will jeopardise their sentence progression (and have risk factors increased as a result)? Or is it because many prisoners’ educational limitations handicap their ability to spot often glaring flaws (especially false premises) in probation reports?"

The whole article is well worth reading as an example, possibly an extreme example, of the negativity felt towards probation officers by some clients. Of course it's understandable in part because of the nature of our respective positions and such views can be all-too-easily explained in terms of 'well he would say that wouldn't he?'  But it's certainly something I've been conscious of over the years. What we do is not a science and never can be, but that just means we have to use all our skill and judgement in trying to make as good an assessment as possible, but always mindful of the potential consequences.

It has become fashionable to talk in terms of officers having to make 'defenceable decisions' and there is an argument that this has made officers much more risk-averse. This is entirely understandable in the current environment where, following a serious further offence by one of your clients, the blame seems to fall upon you rather than the perpetrator. This never used to be the case of course, but possibly explains the tendency towards what are perceived as 'negative' reports, 'lets err on the side of caution' risk assessments and endless referrals to behaviour modification courses.

The astute will notice that so far OASys has not been mentioned. The oh so confidently-named Offender Assessment System. Surely that should do what the name implies and enable all staff, no matter what degree of experience and training they have, to make sound assessments? Surely it introduces an element of dispassionate science and removes any danger of officer bias in producing accurate and fair assessments? Dream on. All it does is take up huge chunks of your time and hinder the very process I've been trying to describe. Making a good assessment is a cerebral process. Filling in OASys is a bureaucratic process.