No Easy Answers

In trying to make sense of what happens next to the Probation Service now that there's wide acceptance that TR has been, as predicted, an unmitigated disaster, a chance comment has caused me to dig around in the Parliamentary archives. Rooting around the third report of the Home Affairs Committee of 1997/8 has been a real eye-opener and to be frank it's uncovered some surprising evidence from a number of sources that serves to confirm just how difficult it is to extrapolate meaningful policy decisions from individual behaviour. 

I note that some of the characters involved are still around, but in different guises. Some would no doubt be comfortable to be reminded of their thoughts and contributions, others possibly not. Here's a flavour from the early Blair years:-

14. The rising prison population caused near-universal concern amongst the witnesses from whom we took evidence. The Association of Chief Officers of Probation (ACOP) thought the prison population was too large, and drew attention to what they considered to be the irony of an increasing prison population at a time of falling recorded crime. Mr Paul Cavadino, on behalf of the Penal Affairs Consortium, told us that his organisation would "like to see fewer people in prison". The Howard League for Penal Reform, referring to the "unprecedented quantum leap in prison numbers 1993", encouraged the Government to "strike a course which heads away from the culture of severity". Mr Tim Workman, a Metropolitan stipendiary magistrate representing the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, also told the Committee that the prison population was too large. Perhaps the most robust evidence the Committee received suggesting that the prison population was too large was from Sir David Ramsbotham, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons. In oral evidence to the Committee he stated that perhaps 70 per cent of female prisoners did not need to be in prison; that 30 per cent to 40 per cent of young prisoners did not need to be there; and that 30 per cent of all adult prisoners did not need to be given custodial sentences. It should be emphasised that no witnesses challenged the role of prison in dealing with certain types of serious offender.

15. The rapid rise in the prison population looks set to continue. Most witnesses to this inquiry had concerns about this and some, like the Chief Inspector of Prisons, explicitly called for a reduction in the prison population. However, one group of witnesses who gave oral evidence to the Committee felt that the prison population should be larger: Mr Peter Coad and Mr David Fraser, retired senior probation officers, and Professor Ken Pease, of Huddersfield University, argued that only prison sentences offered adequate protection to the public and, given the level of crime, more criminals should be given custodial sentences. Professor Pease thought that prison should be targeted more at the most prolific offenders and that the population should be increased by around 10-20,000. Mr Coad's written evidence states that "if the sentencing patterns of the 1950's had been applied to offenders in the 1990's, 300,000 would now be in prison". In oral evidence, Mr Coad and Mr Fraser argued that the prison population should "go as high as is necessary to protect the public from persistent offenders" and that this would entail a prison population of 200,000 "to begin with".

The organisation of the probation service

125. The probation service is comprised of 54 individual probation services, which are each headed by a Chief Probation Officer. The absence of a single organisation has prompted calls for the service to be unified. Sir David Ramsbotham, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons made such a call: "I personally think ­ this is probably a radical thought on it­ that it is time that the probation service was made a national service and came under national jurisdiction like the Prison Service. This is because again there is tremendous unevenness in what is done in different probation areas around the country. That is not to blame the individual probation officers so much. If we are going to stiffen up on what is done as a community sentence...then it ought to be dictated rather more and structured rather more". Sir David went on to explain that following the establishment of a national service, he would like to see the probation service merge with the Prison Service.

126. The National Association of Probation Officers supported the setting up of a single probation service: "there are still 54 separate probation services each following its own local priorities, and in many instances those local priorities are inconsistent with those of their neighbours. NAPO believes that this system is no longer viable, indeed that the structures are anachronistic. NAPO believes there is an overwhelming case for reducing the number of services and for co-terminous boundaries with other criminal justice agencies. Substantial savings on bureaucracy could be made and transferred to frontline services. NAPO is concerned that traditionally there has been no voice as there is with the Prison Service to represent and argue the probation service's case in government and in public expenditure rounds".

127. Mr Graham Smith, the Chief Inspector of Probation acknowledged that there would be advantages in a single service, especially in advancing the Inspectorate's cause of increasing effectiveness, but went on to say: "However, there is something essentially local about crime, that it is different in Powys from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and also people respond to local crime so that the probation service is much more popular in the local community with the local press than, for example, it is with the national press who generally tend to dismiss it and not to be very complimentary. If a national service damaged those local roots, I would have considerable anxiety." He concluded that he would be "cautious" about creating a national service.

128. This issue will be one of a number which has been looked at in the review of the work of the Prison and probation services announced by the Home Secretary last July. The Prisons and Probation Minister told us: "Obviously some people have felt...that probation can suffer from not having a very obvious national voice and often the contrast is made with, say, the national organisation of the Prison Service where the Prison Service tends to have a high profile in public terms and the probation service does not. ...Also, in terms of the 54 areas, the argument has frequently been put forward that very often those boundaries are not coterminous with any other parts of the criminal justice system and that makes communication difficult between different parts of the system and therefore some rationalisation is probably a good idea. What we do need to do...is strike a balance between the need to have good National Standards and a national profile for the probation service on the one hand and yet allow much of the good local and regional partnerships that have been built up to continue. It is self-evident that the probation service needs a good, close working relationship with the Prison Service. We are also very much aware that the probation service needs a good working relationship at local level with the Police Service, with local authorities, social services departments in particular, health authorities, education authorities and so on".

129. We look forward to the outcome of the prison-probation review. We note with interest the requests put to us by the Chief Inspector of Prisons and by NAPO for the creation of a single probation service. We appreciate the caution expressed by the Chief Inspector of Probation concerning the local nature of crime, but we also note that he perceived advantages in the creation of a single service.