We've clearly been wasting our time over the years in sweating blood providing what we thought were excellent pieces of work that helped enable sentencers come up with fair disposals; that didn't make matters worse; just might aid rehabilitation; but at the same time offered reasoned advice with regard to appropriate punishments.
I hate to sound like an old record, but the writing was on the wall as soon as PSR's had to be 'generated' by that bloody button on OASys. It effectively began a steady decline in quality in my opinion, but instead of sentencers complaining (or maybe it's true they never read them), they've just decided they're "unnecessary". This from Leveson:-
152. Contributions from practitioners and figures produced by the TSJ programme have led me to conclude that time and resources are frequently being wasted as a consequence of the practice of adjourning the sentencing hearing so that the Probation Service can prepare a pre-sentence report (‘PSR’) for cases that do not require a PSR or when an oral report would suffice.
153. Sections 156 to 158 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (as amended) set out the procedural requirements for imposing community sentences and discretionary custodial sentences. The relevant provisions as regards obtaining a PSR are broadly couched in mandatory terms that require the Judge to obtain and consider a pre-sentence report in these circumstances, although – put broadly – the Judge has the discretion to dispense with this requirement if he considers this step is “unnecessary”. However, in at least one instance the discretion to dispense with a report is circumscribed: for certain offenders who are under 18 a report must be obtained unless there is an existing report or reports.
154. Although greater use can and should be made of the discretion to dispense with reports, and an increased use of oral (“stand down”) or previous reports, consideration should be given to providing Judges with greater flexibility not to order reports. It is at least arguable that the presumption that a report will be obtained should be removed.
155. I note with approval that the practice has developed that when the suitable sentence is considered to be a community order which includes a single requirement that does not necessitate the involvement of probation (e.g. a curfew order), courts often proceed to sentence without the need for a written or oral report. This practice has been endorsed at paragraph 1.1.7 of the Sentencing Council’s document ‘New Sentences: Criminal Justice Act 2003’.
156. For the changes that I propose in this context to be effective, the courts must be staffed by sufficient probation officers to provide oral/stand down reports, thereby removing the need in a significant number of cases for an adjournment. In the circumstances, there should be a reduction in the number of orders that are made for pre-sentence reports (with legislative change considered) and greater consistency in the presence of probation officers at court to ensure that oral and stand down reports can be provided.
Does anyone know what Probation is actually supposed to do now?
ReplyDeletea PO (NPS)
Hit targets and don't ask NOMS (or your own private company) awkward questions.
DeleteOr cost them money
Or be ill
Or have a child
Just strap yourself to your desk, plug in and nutrients will be delivered directly to your stomach via the tube shoved up your arse.
If I've missed anything please feel free to add it :)
Praise be the targets
DeleteI think a lot of people didn't realise quite how far reaching these reforms were going to be. Its scary.
ReplyDeletenow it's started it's like a human form of Japanese knotweed.
ReplyDeleteKnotweed actually has some use, especially for bees.
DeleteI'm not sure what the benefit of TR is to bees.
1-0 to the knotweed!
1-1 crowd are buzzing.
ReplyDeleteOn the scale of uneccessariness, ranging from 1 (crucial) to 10 (we can muddle through without) NOMS must be right up there at 11
ReplyDeleteAnother nail in the coffin of the probation service that I have known and mostly loved for 3 decades plus. What is it about any more? I certainly don't know and pretty much have got to the point that I don't care any more. I'm just going to be a nodding dog type from now on. Do my job to the best of my ability without any hope of things getting better whilst waiting for leave and each weekend. A wholly disillusioned PO.
ReplyDeleteNothing is 'necessary' when you don't give a rat's arse what happens as a consequence of your actions. Justice now seems to mean 'if it meets the needs of the state, it must be o.k.'. I recall many cases where a strongly argued PSR has prevented the imposition of a custodial sentence. Apart from the investment of the individual, the state saved many, many thousands of pounds!!
ReplyDeleteIf this is the direction of travel it won't be long before the report is done away with altogether and falls in to the remit of the defence solicitor.
ReplyDeleteOff topic but brings a smile to my face, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/incompetent-grayling-condemned-by-extory-mp-as-off-his-trolley-9999560.html
ReplyDeleteThat is a brilliant article . I laughed at this
DeleteThe fuckwits have taken over the asylum. Independent opinion in the courtroom has finally been abolished. A long time ago my probation tutor explained how the SER (aka PSR, SDR, FDR, OR) offered the only true independent assessment of a defendant's position. She pointed out how the sentencers already had the starting point of "guilty"; the Clerk was only there to offer legal guidance to the sentencers; the prosecution were there to secure a guilty plea/verdict at the highest possible level; the defence were acting on the instructions of the guilty party. Beyond that the press wanted the best angle for a story & the public were Inevitably biased by virtue of being related to either the perpetrator or victim.
ReplyDeleteWho, therefore, could realistically offer the sentencer an unbiased and truly independent assessment?
Sadly the role of the PSR was systematically undermined by NOMS & a generation of management who hated client contact and hated being in court - the perfect opportunity to build an anti-PSR groundswell of opinion at liaison meetings, in policy documents and in practice.
And now they've more or less achieved their objective after 15 years of chipping away. There's patience & determination for you.
PSRs were already at Asda standard due to Oasys: 'can I have a roll back please'.
ReplyDeleteNow the are deemed to have Lidl value...
I'm here all week....
Tony
But every Lidl helps, doesn't it?
DeleteThe frequency of adjournments has been a downward trend for years. When OASys was introduced virtually every case was adjourned for reports which was ridiculous and too interventionist. Maybe there are other ways of doing things. Most PSRs were formulaic and predictable. There will always be scope for arguing for adjournments.
ReplyDeleteAnon 22:02 '...If this is the direction of travel it won't be long before the report is done away with altogether and falls in to the remit of the defence solicitor.'
ReplyDelete...and how many just précis the report instead of doing their own homework? A defence barrister in the Crown once asked me when I was on duty '..how can I mitigate without a report..? '
The long standing lament of the PO. I've just had a Barrister, earning x times my salary, reading my PSR, to the sentencer, who should have read it already, as mitigation!.
DeleteThe arrogance of these people astounds me, even after 30 years. I have worked in a Crown Court - barristers and solicitors who know absolutely nothing about the person they are supposed to be defending, shitting themselves in case there isn't going to be a PSR, however formulaic it is. Judges who don't actually know what sentences they are legally allowed to impose, whose arrogance knows no bounds and who never give a milliseconds thought to the person they have just sentenced. A plague on all their houses, bunch of arrogant, ignorant tosses.
ReplyDeleteSince I joined the Probation Service some 16 years ago as a TPO and then PO, I've seen POs removed from courts, back in, out again ad infinitem.
ReplyDeleteHeving been thrown to the corporate wolves in a CRC, I now hear about the latest court target for my poor beleagured colleagues in the NPS who have been totally overwhelmed by PSRs whilst 'managing' high risk cases et al.
It seems that the new 'target' for PSRs of all ilks including SDRs is 100% on the day and they are about to put POs back into courts to achieve this.
Meanwhile, in the CRC, we already have 'Oral Reports' that aren't worth the paper they're printed on, FDRs no longer requiring even the most cursory of OASys assessments and all of the essential detailed assessments displaced to the field to meet court requirements of 'swift and speedy justice', whilst NOMS reintroduces a 10 day 'target' for initial sentence plans.(FFS)
To add to this NOMS/MOJ applied fickwittery, I attended a brieffing 'event' on Friday where our new CRC overlords outlined their 'vision' for the future on my very large CRC including new integrated robust simple IT systems by September (yeah right, who remembers C-NOMIS?) to enable us all to move forward.
Very slick, very personable, well intentioned whte folks in suits (no really, every single one of them) with no clue.
And to add to the chaos, we have the new Offender Rehabilitation Act, where magistrates no longer have to consider the impact of short custodial sentences meaning no Probation Service input or supervision because every single sentence of more than 1 day will mean 12 months probation. I wonder what the magistrates will do then?
OK, Rant over.
In my NPS area the bosses are moving resources into the court teams to do virtually every report as an Oral. The PSR really is over.... and given the constant erosion of role boundaries so is the professionalism of our service.
ReplyDeletein our area they are increasing the size of the PSR team. Sounds like its going to be postcode lottery justice.
ReplyDeleteRe ORA- I'm already worrying about all of the released after short sentence but now HOMELESS people with only £46 in their pocket (usually spent by the time they get to our door) who believe we can actually help them to find somewhere to stay. Just watch those re-offending rates rise....(esp when the 'through the gate' people start running for the hills...)
Posted on behalf of a third party:-
ReplyDeleteA few of yesterday's comments resonated with me, particularly Annon 21:23. Yes indeed I understand what you mean when you say you do not care anymore. What I do care passionately about are the people on my caseload and all of my colleagues (I refuse to be divided - us and them CRC/NPS). However in terms of trying to absorb, let alone implement the impossible processes, I have given up and do not care anymore either, because we are on a hiding to hell. I refuse to become a mere functionary, "machine say, me do". I have completely stopped putting in the extra hours, I now go out at lunch and actually walk around talking to people again. I come in each day and do the absolute minimum I can in order to feed the idiot box that sits on my desk, see my people which makes me feel I am doing a "proper" job and basically go home - that's how it is for me and most of my colleagues now.
In my office there is a widening disconnect between the regime and practice. No one has a grip of the process anymore with so much interference and so many people required (when you can finally track them down) to complete a basic task. Where once you could pick the telephone up, talk to someone who knew what you were talking about and could do the task, now you are either left high and dry or shunted all over the place. it is falling apart after being smashed by Grayling et al.
I try to remain positive but there is a growing feeling of uneasy calm before the tsunami finally hits us.
Talking of no one seeming to know what they are going reminds me. I was in Court this week and when I mentioned ORA to the solicitors they looked at me as if I was crazy. They and the magistrates in our Court were oblivious! Feb 1st! I don't think so somehow.
Park's are not meant to be pleas in mitigation. I don't write them to get the punishment reduced. I write them to argue for the sentence I think is most likely to reduce the risk of harm and of recommending. I write them for the benefit of my community. We write far to many pointless reports when custody is inevitable. We no longer have the resourced to do this. Like it or not, and I don't, that avatars grayling has won. We have to operate as best we can in the new environment. In this case that means assessment and intervention after sentence. I believe in nos we'll do a better job that way. Dinosaurs became extinct for a reason. They couldn't adapt when the big rock hit. Wake up people and do good work in the environment we're in.
ReplyDeleteSadly I do not believe I will ever be able to do 'a better job' again. How are you going to tell what is most likely to reduce the risk of harm without assessment? How do you assess what the risk of harm is in the first place without interviewing someone? Already with dumbed down or rushed 'reports' we have people on orders which they cannot complete due to work or mental health issues, we have people who don't have a grasp of what they have been sentenced to, people who should be on sex offender programmes but are not and some who are that shouldn't be. (all on my current caseload in the new NPS- some of my interventions might well be will taking the blasted orders back to court for amendments.) Pity the ones who end up in custody to be assessed afterwards. Too late then- and moreover the content of a report and the level of risk directly affects what happens to people in prison..I could go on...
ReplyDeleteI've always believed that the process of preparing a report, that period when someone is in crisis, who might never have discussed the offence before, is absolutely crucial to how people respond to whatever they are sentenced to afterwards. 'Do good work in the environment we are in..?' It'll be a repair job then given the size of the rock that Grayling and his cronies has lobbed at us.