Compare and Contrast

Seen on Twitter:-

Bronwen Elphick Great joint event with senior leadership teams today. #NorthForce in full flow. Lots of positive discussion around the next iteration of Probation Reform.

Nick Hall Great to start our journey towards a new probation system. Our approach will set the pace but more importantly it will ensure we shape the new system and not just transition to it. We will keep our focus on service users and staff at all times. #NorthForce 

Lynda Marginson CBE Positive and productive NPS NE and CRC senior leaders event today setting the direction for our joint approach to the transition into new probation model. #NorthForce

Seen on Facebook:-

The idea of Probation was simple. Instead of punishment and retribution those who committed crime were placed under the watchful eye of someone who would instead advise, assist and befriend them. This was found to work so well to rehabilitate those they worked with that our predecessors were asked to do more of it. Mind you caseloads were lower, bureaucracy almost non existent and there was no IT. Then bit by bit probation was corrupted and became more and more about compulsion, coercion and eventually punishment and control. When did it all go wrong? David Raho

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From the CJA 91.

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SNOP 1984. First of many attempts to impose centrally generated national objectives and priorities from the Home Office on a then locally integrated and community-focused service. This was still being hotly debated when I joined the service in 1987. Some liked more of a national structure whilst others like me wanted to remain closer to local authorities and independent of the central government. There was a fierce defence of localism and a resistance to the government telling the service what to do and disregarding local stakeholders but this was never really resolved satisfactorily as the service began to expand and from 1988 the management consultants arrived by the busload telling managers they weren't managing and people were wandering around like zombies asking each other where they had left their key output areas. 

In retrospect, I wish we had persisted in that resistance as our failure to unite and reject centralised control more effectively paved the way for the CJA 91 and then managerialism and bureaucracy gained traction biting chunks out of our core values and original purpose as a humanising force within the CJS. David Raho

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We will always be a humanising force as long as we choose to be. Every day that we treat our clients with respect under the most difficult of circumstances, we are that force. They can rearrange our sinking deckchairs all they like, there will always be good people in the service doing a good job and making a difference.

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I think we have to go back to basics and ask questions about what we are actually trying to achieve by our efforts and how we are going to achieve this in an ethical way that will make a positive difference both to the individual and to the community to which they belong. Making a positive difference means that they are better off as a result of having contact with us. At present the vast majority of persons coming into contact with probation, with the odd exception, arguably gain very little from the experience and some might be better off having none at all to achieve rehabilitation. 

Probation used to be about delicately balancing care and control with more of an emphasis on care whilst control as a result of working within a legal framework was there but there was room within this for rehabilitation. Care seems to have been placed on the back burner. If someone is working hard and doing a good job to meet targets in a broken system that isn’t very clear about what its purpose is then are they really doing a ‘good’ job or just the job they are expected to do or directed to do?

There are many jobs that contribute to an outcome that might be defined as not good in terms of humanity e.g. whaling, arms manufacture, military drone pilot etc although these jobs are no doubt done well by those who do them who are probably motivated in their own ways to make a difference and certainly don’t see themselves and what they are doing as necessarily bad or evil. Nevertheless I have seen many colleagues leave Probation because they can no longer bring themselves to do the job they are expected to do in the way they are expected to do it. 

These former colleagues often say that the job has changed so much that it is no longer the job that they signed up to do. One said to me recently that they were not a robot and wanted to do something good with their life that helped people and allowed them to express a greater range of human emotions. Some argue that we should consciously return to being social workers rather than continue to be enforcers and government agents propping up a morally bankrupt and unethical system designed by right wingers to punish and exact retribution on the poor and desperate in our society. Perhaps this is even more relevant given recent political developments. Do people now joining probation see themselves as social workers or something else? Perhaps they see themselves in tune with a government that couldn’t care less about the poor sick and disadvantaged? I hope not. 

Many of those we work with are both victims as well as perpetrators of crime. Many have had few opportunities and belong to communities that already suffer disproportionately from prejudice and discrimination. Do our organisations reflect and respond adequately to the demographic of the clients we work with who are overwhelmingly male and in urban areas in particular disproportionately from minority ethnic backgrounds? When I look around at the newest recruits they are often fresh faced predominantly white middle class straight out of university. Whereas in the past it is older people with life experience mostly gained outside probation (not in the CJS) who formed the backbone of the service and brought much to our work. In any case do we really work with those who commit the biggest and most antisocial and damaging crimes anymore? For instance, how many of us are supervising bankers who knowingly gambled with the future of so many people and lost, forcing the rest of society to bail them out to have another go without repercussions? 

Crime has changed and there are many now committing crimes involving the internet. I don’t see interventions geared to all the thousands involved in this. How many of us now work for corporations that have a shadowy past and are involved in or have been involved in dodgy things? Are we really part of the solution to make things better and more human in society or indeed the world or are we also part of the problem? There are for instance much more liberal criminal justice systems around in Europe or the Far East with probation services that are much more effective at bringing about rehabilitation in an apparently more humane way than ours, whereas we certainly rank near the top for punishment and enforcement (admired by much more controlled and less democratic or equitable societies) and aim to get more efficient at this because doing so will supposedly stop people reoffending. 

Our system seems to be based on a crude behaviourist theory that if you keep slapping someone harder and long enough every time they break a law whether just or not they will eventually become a law abiding ‘good‘ member of their community - a theory that has long been abandoned in the education system as ineffective. The force for and means of achieving rehabilitation in probation is arguably not as strong as it was having been attacked relentlessly over decades by the right wing media who have scapegoated those who care and care about the welfare of others. Those, for example, who suggest that skilled social work intervention might be a much better way of helping those we work with to desist from reoffending, as opposed to those methods and approaches that facilitate bureaucracy punishment and control, are often now viewed erroneously as eccentric. It would however require a strong vision and reaffirmation of probation as a distinctly rehabilitative activity, that is is distinct from the efforts and identity of other players in the criminal justice system, a service primarily concerned with welfare not punishment and retribution, if a real shift towards a less morally reprehensible system is to be achieved. I hope this occurs within my lifetime. David Raho

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Advise, assist, befriend so much more effective than coerce and enforce. We know good parenting is all about positive reinforcement - negative enforcement does not work so why would it work with people who need to be encouraged to change.

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Absolutely right. There is enough punishment, coercion and enforcement in the system that is often disproportionate to the crime that has been committed and pointless in terms of rehabilitating a person or encouraging them to make better choices or desisting from criminal behaviours. If we are about encouraging people on the path to desistance I also disagree with the view that punitive breach assists in any meaningful way. There is some evidence it can increase short term compliance but in many cases it does nothing to build a constructive relationship. 

It is my view that we should return to a more ethical morally defensible system where people give their informed consent to be supervised whether on a Probation Order or undertaking Community Work. In effect they enter into a contract with the court. If consent is not given to what should be seen as positive and constructive ways of dealing with the matter then the court should explain alternatives that may include a range of non consensual disposals that are short and structured. This would cater for all but the most high risk persons who commit crimes. I’d actually introduce a points system whereby once someone had completed particular short programmes, days of Community Work etc then they have completed their sentence. Each activity would have a value and they could follow their progress online or on an app. Idea I’ve been knocking about for a while. David Raho