Recall - What's the Problem?

Once again the very popular website Prisoners Families Voices has returned to the thorny issue of recall. There's no question that numbers being recalled to prison for missing probation appointments have rocketed over recent years. A quick glance at the website will show just how strong feeling is about the issue, which on the face of it is surprising because it is quite straightforward. You get released automatically from prison part way through a sentence and one of the licence conditions is to report when required to probation. Missed appointments = recall - simples!  

This has always been the case for as long as I can remember, so what's the problem? Well again a quick glance at the complaints on PFV shows clearly that the reason so many appointments are missed is because the experience is viewed as utterly useless. We all know about the '5 minute interview' when the guy's mate doesn't even turn the engine off. Nothing meaningful can happen during this most fleeting of 'tick box' experiences and I think as a result it's quite understandable that clients say to themselves 'sod that for a game of soldiers - I'll not bother'. 

But that's not all. It's about the way clients are increasingly being treated nowadays by the modern probation service. Time after time the complaints on PFV revolve around endless changes of officer. Ever since the transition from the days when probation officers saw all clients, to the current position whereby they only see high risk cases, a lot of the others have been getting a raw deal in my view from a pool of ever-changing probation services officers. It's not their fault, but management have allowed a situation to develop whereby cases are merely seen as needing to be 'processed' in terms of making sure they report so as to achieve targets, but with little or no encouragement as to anything more constructive. 

I know I could be accused of making sweeping generalisations, but there's no doubt in my mind that for many, particularly low risk clients, the quality of engagement with the service is just not good enough. The complaints on PFV speak for themselves. Common sense says no meaningful work can be undertaken if a client keeps seeing different officers and the focus of attention is merely on just getting them to turn up. In such circumstances I can quite see why clients are disinclined to report than engage in a process that seems pointless. I think I'd be inclined to do the same, so angry would it make me feel.

I'm actually going to go a bit further and suggest that some officers actively strive to encourage non-reporting by subversive behaviour. I find it deeply offensive to be suggesting such a thing, but sadly I have rather too often witnessed the glee with which non-appearance is greeted. Of course recall 'gets shot' of a client for a period. 

So, in essence I feel the complaints being aired fairly regularly on the PFV website are justified and as a result deserve a comment from somebody who represents the Service nationally. Unfortunately I'm not at all sure who that person might properly be. That in itself is an extremely unsatisfactory state of affairs of course. But I'm sure senior people read this stuff on a daily basis, so I wonder if we can tempt any to put their head above the parapet for a response?