I think once upon a time, the client walking into the probation office, whether they liked going or not, recognised that they may get some benefit or opportunity from it. The person you went to see had some capacity to assist and offer some support with a range of social issues. Your PO was not seen as the enemy.
That's not true today. The PO can offer little assistance or support, and the client walking into the office is fully aware of the PO's authority to impose sanction or recall to custody. Your PO might not be the enemy, but they do represent a perceived danger or risk to the clients continued freedom. I think that's a very fundamental difference with the operational model of probation, and a very damaging one.
Today's relationship between client and PO is based on fear. Both parties are fearful of what the other might do and of what consequences may unfold from their actions. That's a very unhealthy relationship, making the client far less likely to disclose any issues or problems that may result in an adverse reaction from the PO, and the PO never really gets a complete picture of what's going on in the clients world outside the office. It's corrosive to both parties, and advances very little.
Outsourcing the rehabilitation programmes offenders are ultimately required to attend to private enterprise does nothing to enhance the relationship between client and PO. In fact it could be damaging. The one size fits all approach that the private sector brings, to my mind anyway, is just a waste of time and money, it's jumping through hoops and profit oriented process.
--oo00oo--
TR2 will be a disaster because TR1 was a disaster and all this does is fart about with the goal posts for a bankrupt philosophy, and a bankrupt system. Today spent preparing for an oral hearing. So depressing. I cannot recommend release, but the alternative will be couched in terms of the rehabilitative work that will be done in custody, but IT WON'T.
I have worked with this man for years. He needs individual, proper attention and services offering him grief and trauma counselling, alcohol detox and rebuilding. My heart breaks for him, his children, his victims past and future. But all we have is his recycling through a defunct system and my managers signing off with comments that he cannot be safely managed in the community, thus abdicating any responsibility for managing him in the community, and spitting him out sans support after every sentence.
Just a day or so after we may have seen some of the consequences of the #probation reforms - I have had a five year prompt about the efforts many of us went to in order to prevent the damage - we could not get the media or politicians to take us seriously due, I suspect at least in part to the very determined efforts at public relations of the Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and Ministry of Justice and also so called "think tanks" like Policy Exchange which I believe was set up by Michael Gove.
ReplyDeleteSome of the Civil Servants who designed the so called business model and contracts, won awards before they went on to other jobs.
I am still as angry today as I was in 2014 - when I personally lobbied my MP Priti Patel at the House of Commons, only for her to refuse to consider what I wanted to tell her.
My anger is of little value as we now read they are about to enter into further dubious structures and contracts for the English and Welsh Probation system.
Where have all the flowers gone... repeat ad finitum.
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn!
https://tinyurl.com/tvafe8b
https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/dec/04/we-must-continue-jack-and-saskias-progressive-work-with-prisoners?amp_js_v=a2&_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQCKAE%3D#aoh=15754851147375&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fuk-news%2F2019%2Fdec%2F04%2Fwe-must-continue-jack-and-saskias-progressive-work-with-prisoners
Delete'Getafix
I'm always fascinated by the graph in the margin showing 'pageviews' & I often wonder what it reflects. The sharp incline suggests this blog is a 'go to' destination when Probation hits the headlines, but the gradient of drop-off once the tabloids write a new story is equally steep.
ReplyDeleteWhat were the numbers JB? And do you get feedback about the blog from new visitors at these peak times that suggest the blog & contributors' discussions have made any impact?
A very good question and I'm glad there's at least one person out there reading the blog on something other than a smart phone. The blog has been in steady decline for the last few years and for a number of reasons. However you are quite correct in suggesting that as soon as anything 'kicks off' in the world of probation, the blog becomes an instant 'go to' place. Generally it ticks over on about 1,000 hits a day, but on Saturday, Sunday and Monday we were reaching 3,000 hits daily. I'm used to this now and always try and respond quickly by posting as soon as possible and more regularly.
DeleteContributions from readers have been tailing off sadly and the decision to pull the plug will be difficult, but probably not in the near future due to the impending TR2 disaster.
Thanks JB.
Delete"I'm still diggin' on James Brown!"
Keep going. Yours is the only reliable source of truthful information and discussion
ReplyDeletehttps://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/05/london-bridge-attack-assault-rehabilitation-learning-together-prison?amp_js_v=a2&_gsa=1#referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fcommentisfree%2F2019%2Fdec%2F05%2Flondon-bridge-attack-assault-rehabilitation-learning-together-prison
ReplyDeleteFor those of us involved with the Learning Together community, the deaths of our friends and colleagues Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones have been hard to bear. This has been made even harder by our sense that – amid the cynical politicking, against the wishes of Jack’s family – the values that Learning Together stands for are being overlooked.
DeleteFriday’s attack was reported as an incident of indiscriminate terrorism. But it was perpetrated at a Learning Together conference. The victims worked for Learning Together. It was an assault on the whole idea of prisoner rehabilitation – an attack on education, and the hope for self-betterment that it inspires. Kneejerk calls to “lock them up and throw away the key” by rightwing newspapers and politicians end up reinforcing one of the aims of Usman Khan’s violence.
Formed in 2014, Learning Together has since grown to involve 600 university and prison students during this year alone. The idea of it is simple: bring university students and prison-based students in a classroom to share experiences and learning. Courses have ranged from criminology, to literary criticism, to philosophy and theology. At the heart of every course is a belief that you can’t learn everything from books, that experience is a form of expertise, and that in sharing and understanding the experiences of all we can find fresh insight.
I was a student in the Law, Justice, and Society course at HM prison Grendon in 2018-2019. From practising lawyers, lecturers, and judges, we learned about how the law works in practice, the role of race and class in law, and how the law can be changed. But as I grapple with Jack and Saskia’s deaths, I have returned to Nobody Cares, a published poetry anthology resulting from a Learning Together course on creative writing held at Whitemoor prison. In it Ricardo, a poet living at Whitemoor, writes of “accepting / that together we learn and that by learning together we will prosper and / overcome”. This captures the project’s spirit.
It would be wrong to make all this sound too sombre. The classes were often hilarious, full of larger-than-life characters giving short shrift to over-academic explanations of “stuff that is obvious”. Once, after struggling to grapple with the complexities of an electric tea urn, I was castigated for my failure to enrol for a degree in basic common sense.
In particular, Learning Together taught me to resist easy binaries of “good” and “bad” people, a division that can be encouraged by the media. People in prisons may have done terrible things – but that doesn’t mean they aren’t capable of bringing good into the world. Behind the stories of my classmates were often tales of neglect and institutional failure, making it impossible not to reflect on the circumstances that had contributed to our radically different lives. The discussions also reminded me that people who aren’t in prison have made mistakes too, sometimes major ones, and often it’s chance or our privilege that have kept those people out of prison and on a different path.
This is not to overlook or minimise my classmates’ crimes or the impact on their victims. It is, however, to suggest a shared responsibility to advocate for a justice system that sees the good in people whom some may wish to cast out as being irredeemably bad.
DeleteAt the core of Learning Together is a message of mutual interdependence – how, by learning together, we become enmeshed in others’ futures in ways that can drive positive change. The students at Grendon often remarked on how the project had given them a newfound capacity to build and sustain meaningful relationships. It made many of us see ourselves differently. At our end of course celebration, one student shared that: “I never believed that I could have conversations with people from a university. I’ve shown myself and my family that I can.”
At the same event, founders Amy and Ruth spoke about a “politics of love” that underpins the Learning Together project. Rather than romantic love, I take this to mean what James Baldwin describes as a “state of being” that recognises the inherent worth and dignity of all. In a prison context in which people are defined by, and reminded constantly of, the worst things they’ve ever done this is a radical sentiment. It is no coincidence that it was Learning Together alumni who put themselves in danger to confront Khan. They were defending a community in which they were genuinely valued.
It is all too easy to jump to the rhetoric of “tough on crime” in the aftermath of such a tragedy. Boris Johnson has been especially quick to do that. But a more considered approach – an approach that also honours Jack and Saskia – would be to think about how Learning Together’s values could inform the justice system as a whole. This would require not only more funding for rehabilitative programmes (although that is sorely needed), but also a broader commitment to seeing incarcerated people as more than their worst actions.
Longer prison sentences may soothe immediate, understandable feelings of fear and anger, but that’s only temporary. The better way to go would be to recognise Friday’s attack as one targeting hope. And it is hope – that projects like Learning Together engender – that we must do our utmost to preserve.
Jake Thorold is a university student who participated in the Learning Together programme