Post Sentence Assessment - The Verdict

Here's some of the best comments from yesterday on West Yorkshire's award-winning flagship innovation 'Post Sentence Assessment'

"As Chief Executive of the DTV Probation Trust, Russell [Bruce] is charged with running a business". There's the rub. Nowt about working with clients. Its about a profitable business model with people as widgets to be processed in as cost-effective means as possible. Won't be long before we have the introduction of Japanese industrial 'just-in-time' techniques, CRC sponsorship by Toyota in Derbyshire? By Nissan in the Teesside? By Honda in Wiltshire? Court to Induction to Activity to Completion.

Efficient use of public funds is not criminal, but using that as a means to effect de-humanisation of the client group is. Informing people about ways in which they can improve their lives and behaviour and reduce the impact upon others is invaluable, but it will not be achieved by simply processing groups of 'assets'.

My caseload is not a collection of credit notes waiting to be cashed in. It is primarily a collection of variously damaged, disenfranchised, disturbed and dysfunctional men and women who have never been listened to, never been shown any respect, never had more than ten minutes with another person without being abused physically, emotionally, or verbally. The fact that they self-medicate with (variously and/or collectively) adrenalin, alcohol, opiates, amphetamine, benzodiazepines, legal highs should not come as a surprise.

Most of them don't like me because I am part of the system. Many don't want to talk to me because they don't trust me. Some have been in our system for almost ten years (due to back-to-back Orders), others are just starting a lengthy relationship, and yet others are taking what will be their first and only glancing blow with our service. This in addition to those with lifetime requirements of contact.

This is the joy of my caseload, and my professional experience is richer as a result. I am not an accountant. I am not an administrator. I am not a production operative. I am a Probation Officer. As of very soon I will no longer be employed as such. I am sad, I am angry and I fear for the impact upon everyone.

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I'm friendly with a PSO who now works in West Yorkshire. She says that Post Sentence Assessment is used by some practitioners to good effect (especially where other agencies are involved but this requires good knowledge of local resources) and in principle it was a good idea. She says it is a mess though because the expectation is that most offenders do a group to cover their days. The groups are untested, they invite 20 or so to the first group (this is 20 people who may not have been seen for many weeks or even months because of waiting lists so are not motivated) in the hope that some might turn up, and the groups complete with only a small handful still attending. As a result most finish their orders without attending many times and without any meaningful intervention as staff are told not to see people while they are waiting for groups, and the orders are very difficult to breach. Word has quickly got out that people just need to be a bit difficult - eg have GP appointments, sick notes for depression, or claim that if they don't attend JobCetre they will get sanctioned - to avoid groups, appointments and breach.

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Of course, all the evidence suggests 1-1 - face to face working/therapeutic relationships are the most helpful and productive means by which to encourage, achieve and sustain change.................which is why all these tin pot projects are doomed, Capt Mainwaring!

They rely heavily on group work, and whilst I have always been a supporter of group work, it has always been as an add on, not the be all and end all. This way of working, lacks any need to build relationships or to get inside the head and lives of clients, because 'someone else delivers it and it's a template, it has no soul'. It could be delivered by a volunteer, a private company, an 'old lag' a charity, or other organisation....of which we know very little - about their motivation, their ethical base or in some causes their legitimacy. The 'OM' - PO or PSO becomes an administrator, nothing else. Just as with the introduction of conducting key milestones in the lives of prisoners, by video links, phone conferences and through 3rd parties, bollocks, all of it.

I was always excited by the term end to end management, i.e. you wrote the report, and saw out whatever the court imposed, offering continuity and knowledge and hopefully, the trust which began to emerge at the Report stage. Also, because it trumpets the relationships we form with people, it supports the idea that a single person, appropriately trained and qualified, yes those dirty words, can have a significant, neigh humongous impact on a client. TR, like PSA and similar plots, dispense with this in favour of sound bites, without any substance. TR is doing a fine job, assisted by Trusts who say nothing, in transforming our clients into commodities........and the results will be disastrous for clients and painful for those of us, who continue to try to derail TR, but whose voices are largely ignored.

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I'm prepared to accept that there are a range of motivations for bringing in approaches like PSA. Among these, though probably unspoken, will be the possibility for earning reputation, and money. Along with this I think there is a genuine desire to improve the standard of practice of some staff (and maybe rein in those who went native some time ago) - but this very quickly slipped into standardisation and levelling down skills, not enabling practitioners. In my trust the roll-out of SEEDS came with desistance fanfares and dewy-eyed treatises about the importance of individual skill, but the counter-revolutionary tanks of "you do this work with everyone, all the time, or you'll answer to us" have now rolled in. Any good intentions have just fattened up the goose for the privatisation Christmas.

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Your all making the assumption that 'Activity Requirement' = accredited programme ! Oh no it doesn't . . .it means x no.of days of "meaningful activity". . this can be any old shite delivered by absolutely anyone, it is the model for CRC. Please don't get me started on 'Action For Change' !. . . non - accredited piffle delivered to any size groups where s.u.'s (yes I'm brainwashed) can all have different offences; be of different ages; different sex and be serving a community sentence or be on Licence. Get this, the content can be made up as you go along . . .would you believe a trip to the local theatre was deemed a days 'meaningfull activity' . . I kid you not.

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Current programmes open to and offered by probation services are not under question as they stand. They're delivered and foucused on effecting change to offending behaviour and helping to change lives for the better. The concern being raised is when the private sector have responsibility and access to these tools, where the focus changes from changing lives and assisting people, to profit margins and shareholder dividends.

Probation is no longer going to be a service, it's an industry. The private sector will take everything they can and gear it towards profit. That is it's primary focus. Social values, public safety, clients development will all come a very distant second to happy shareholders.

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This is utter bloody madness. Staff are overheads and clients are collateral, the bottom line ie profit is king. Let's hear it for the Tories and Lib Dems!!!