Former prisoners no longer “Offenders”
People on probation are no longer to be called “offenders”. Probation chiefs said they wanted to “reset the language” and use a term that would “resonate” with those under supervision.
Instead of being known as an offender, anyone under supervision will be referred to as a “person subject to probation services”. The change reflects the fact that people on probation are expected to have stopped committing crimes. It will affect ex-prisoners on licence and people given community sentences for low-level crimes.
As part of the reform, the term “Offender Manager” will be replaced with “Probation Practitioner”, while “Offender Management” will become “Sentence Management”.
HM Prison and Probation Service announced the new terminology as part of a blueprint for the future of probation, published in March. The report, called “A Draft Target Operating Model for the Future of Probation Services in England and Wales”, sets out how the Government will reverse its failed part-privatisation and reunite probation as a single national service.
It states: “We are using this document as an opportunity to reset some of the language in the probation system so that we can build an inclusive culture which staff from both Community Rehabilitation Companies and the National Probation Service can relate to; utilising terminology that resonates with stakeholders, and best reflects the intentions behind the new model and the benefits that we are seeking to achieve.
“In describing the new probation system, this document will, as far as possible, use individual/individual subject to probation services/person, Probation Practitioner and Sentence Management to denote the formerly-used terms Offender, Offender Manager/Responsible Officer and Offender Management.”
The changes only affect probation, not prisons, so the Offender Management in Custody programme will keep its name.
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I'm going to use this as an excuse to revisit something from 27th October 2013:-
What About Clients?
I suspect there's a danger in all this TR omnishambles to sometimes forget how things are for our clients. By the way I use the description deliberately and regular readers will appreciate I remain rather old-fashioned with regard to such matters, for instance having never abandoned the title probation officer in favour of 'offender manager'.
On this topic, it amused me greatly to read a twitter exchange recently with a manager castigating someone for referring to a 'hostel', rather than 'Approved Premises'. They were told in no uncertain terms that "the Salvation Army does hostels - we do Approved Premises!" It's all so arcane and pointless - as the expression goes, 'if it walks like a duck; quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck', in my humble opinion.
Anyway, I digress. There is absolutely no getting away from the fact that life for most of our clients has become considerably more difficult during this period of austerity. They are suffering the triple whammy of benefit cuts, rising prices for food and utilities and a stagnating employment market. Whether it's the bedroom tax, Atos health assessments, Job Centre harassment or crap minimum wage jobs, it's basically a shit situation and getting worse all the time for this group.
Now I know that this is true for lots of people, but for many of our clients this all comes on top of probably an unhappy and troubled childhood, failure by state education, poor health, an addiction to either drink or drugs and a criminal record. Despite what might be said to the contrary, the climate has become ever less tolerant for our clients, a situation encouraged by many of our politicians wishing to garner votes by pandering to the populist notion of the distinction between the deserving and undeserving within society.
Have you any idea how difficult it is for a person coming out of prison with literacy and numeracy problems and only the £46 made famous by Chris Grayling and you can't sign on for benefits until you've provided a CV at the Job Centre? Claims have to be made online, not in person any more and appointments arranged via phone when you haven't got one. After several weeks living on thin air and you are lucky enough to have got your benefits sorted, it can only be paid via a bank account you haven't got and often proves difficult to get. And the payments are moving from fortnightly to monthly, a move almost deliberately designed to make it impossible for our clients to budget.
If you had a drink or drug problem and used to get Sickness Benefit, that's no longer available due to the Atos work assessment tests and the Job Centre or Work Programme provider will want to see evidence of jobs applied for on a regular basis, or daily attendance will be required. Fail any more than a couple of appointments due to certain chaotic aspects of your life, learning disability or mental health problems and your benefit will be 'sanctioned', ultimately for periods up to 3 years.
Despite all the rhetoric and supposed aspirations contained in the TR omnishambles, I think most people can readily see how the system of 'welfare reforms' is creating a perfect environment whereby rehabilitation is made as difficult as possible and how many clients will simply give up and resign themselves to a return to prison. Others are sadly going to take more drastic action and the arrival of the Samaritans in Job Centres will eventually see them appearing in probation offices I fear.
It's precisely this troubled group within society that the Probation Service was set up to deal with over 100 years ago. It's never been easy, but all those outfits who are at this moment considering whether to bid for our work or not, you must understand that the government is making the task that much more difficult year on year. The task of encouraging a person to change their thinking and behaviour is hardly being assisted by current government policies bearing down most heavily on those most disadvantaged within society.
The fact that, despite this, the probation service has been able to demonstrate reductions in reoffending rates for those under our supervision in recent years is nothing short of amazing and a testimony to our skill, dedication and resourcefulness. I refuse to accept that putting the work out to tender by the lowest bidder will help the situation one jot. Life for our clientele is about to get a whole lot worse and potential bidders hoping to gain from a Payment by Results contract had better understand this. 'Transforming Rehabilitation' it will not be. Scandalously, I hear the 'project' has cost £60 million already.
Despite all the odds outlined, even those clients that obtain work are facing impossible challenges and it's not encouraging news from the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission as reported here:-
For millions of families, work no longer pays enough to provide a route out of poverty, the government's social mobility tsar is expected to warn. A report headed up by one-time Labour minister Alan Milburn will highlight stagnating incomes and rising prices. He is due to call on employers to do more to support low-paid families earning less than a living wage.
Real-terms incomes have stagnated since 2003 but prices are continuing to rise, the commission will point out, meaning employment may not enable a low-income family to escape poverty. The report is likely to suggest that, in the current economic climate, it is unrealistic to expect the government to continue topping up low pay using working tax credits. It is thought the commission may argue that employers need to do more - paying higher minimum wages and offering better training and career development.
I think the language of "offender" and "offender manager' was popped into probation speak deliberately to reinsure that the advise, assist and befriend model, and the social Work ethos was not the probation way any longer.
ReplyDeleteAn enforcement agency dosen't use fluffy wishy-washy terminology.
To some extent I think the language used within an organisation or institution is important, and it can sometimes create quite emotive responses.
This change of language adopted by an open prison a year or so ago led to calls for industrial action. I found the response to the change a little bizarre if I'm honest.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-lincolnshire-45021703
'Getafix
A jail has been criticised for referring to its inmates as "residents" rather than prisoners.
DeleteNorth Sea Camp near Boston, Lincolnshire, introduced the name change as part of a "rehabilitative culture", according to the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB).The open prison houses more than 400 offenders, most serving long sentences. Glyn Travis, from the Prison Officers' Association, described the name change as "ill-thought out".
Mr Travis said prisoners should be treated with respect by staff, but did not agree with the use of the term resident.
"I do believe that the victims of crime and society have to have a reality check on how prisoners are addressed whilst in prison," he said.
"They would be shocked to see that some governor believes they should call them residents."
The IMB report said the name change "seems to be working well with a polite and calm atmosphere being created. It is noticeable that residents and staff always greet one another and converse with one another politely."
A recent report by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons said that most inmates at the prison "were serving long sentences of more than four years, around half were serving indeterminate sentences, and about 60% were sex offenders". Inspectors described it "as a safe and decent prison".
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HMP North Sea Camp has always been a bit special, lying as it does in the back and beyond of Lincolnshire. It was a Borstall and built by lads who marched to the site, living in tents originally as they set about claiming extra land from the sea using an extensive narrow guage railway system. I very nearly got snowed in there on one memorable occasion. The very antiquated central heating system relied on skilled prisoners to keep it going - a reason I remember one member of staff gave for not granting parole!
North Sea Camp should be in Royston Vasey, not Boston.
DeleteCurious cognitive dissonance at play in MoJ. The MoJ argument for the "Strengthening Probation" re-reforms including the re-marketisation of interventions and unpaid work is that Offender Management and Rehabilitation are two discreet functions. (Or maybe that Risk Management and Rehabilitation are discreet functions). On the other hand, this change in language proposed, trauma informed practice the new kid on the block, the importance of the supervisory relationship acknowledged as key factor.
ReplyDeleteI guess they haven't got the gall to just come out with it: its cheaper to sell off what you can, let the privateers screw down the wages, staff conditions, and staff numbers, resulting in a shit-show of misery for everyone but some boxes in a contract ticked.
Its also classic aspirational glossy mission statement with eff all underneath that follows it through
"Offender management and rehabilitation are two discreet functions".
DeleteRehabilitation is a word that's definitely lost its way in life. It's become conflated with punishment, i.e prisoners should serve longer to make sure they're properly rehabilitated. Is someone therefore serving 10 years going to be better rehabilitated then someone serving 3 years?
There's a pretty good debate on the language used in the CJS, why its used, and the impact and consequences of using certain language in the CJS can be found here.
https://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/publications/cjm/article/debating%E2%80%A6-bad-language-criminal-justice
'Getafix
Using language in practice
Deleteby Mike Nellis
When the term ‘offender’ was popularised by Nacro (the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders) in the 1960s it was talked up on the understanding that it was less moralistic and less stigmatising than ‘criminal’ or ‘delinquent’, less portentous than ‘lawbreaker’ and less condescending than ‘probationer’. It wasn't new, but of the limited range of words around, it was relatively neutral in its connotations. It has remained surprisingly serviceable in this respect, relatively immune to the infusions of loathing and contempt that can indeed poison our penal vocabularies. The tabloids rarely use it; except when prefaced by ‘sex’, it's not a term that's easily freighted with outrage or hate. Like ‘prisoner’ (which has never been fully displaced by the euphemism ‘inmate’) ‘offender’ has retained a simple literal meaning – someone who has committed an offence. As such, it provides minimal linguistic justification for the formal, court-ordered involvement of a probation officer in a person's life, in a way that both the old term ‘client’ and the newer term ‘service user’ shy away from.
From a probation standpoint, no one is ever an ‘offender’ and nothing more. It denotes what people are, not just what they do, but it's not a totalising identity. Other facets of their lives and personalities can remain in play around and alongside it – father, daughter, partner, comedian, mate, cook, dancer, builder, whatever – all as much if not more important than the often temporary status of ‘offender’. To consider, or even call, someone an ‘offender’ does not intrinsically preclude thinking of them as a complex and vulnerable person or feeling warmly or respectful towards them. It does not necessarily impede empathy or limit one's capacity to imagine what it might be like to be them, or even to imagine doing what they have done – though that does depend somewhat on what the offence was. It need not mean that someone who has offended may not also be, or have been, a victim or survivor.
Treating people with respect and dignity regardless of what they have done, and finding words to match, is always important, but not necessarily straightforward. Sentimentality and the anodyne, sanitising language that goes with it is as much to be avoided as the moralism which insidiously humiliates and imprisons people in roles and identities from which they need to distance themselves if they are to live good lives. There are probably no words that are entirely immune from debasement in some form or context – and some words that probation has toyed with, like ‘perpetrator’, were doomed from the start – but for now ‘offender’ retains its utility in the complex ‘identity work’ that probation officers do with people who have committed crimes.
Different people need different responses. Some who come the way of probation shamelessly disavow criminal identities – rapist, for example – and need pressing to accept that aspect of who they are, as a precursor to taking responsibility for harm done. Others spend lifetimes sombrely regretting that they once committed murder, indelibly stained in their own eyes. Yet others may never have had – or had and rejected – conventional familial or occupational identities, and actually draw strength and purpose from an overriding criminal, sometimes violent, identity, preferring to be more feared than loved. They may resent and disdain the efforts of well-meaning probation officers to get them to think differently about themselves, and even if they do desist, may never fully repudiate what they have been in the past – anymore than the rest of us can. One can be an ‘ex-offender’ (or even an ‘ex-con’) without losing self-respect.
Labelling people as offenders is demeaning and counter-productive
Deleteby Frances Crook
A summer article in The Guardian reported on recent research from the UK Drugs Policy Commission that the use of stigmatising terms such as ‘junkie’ was a major obstacle to recovery for problem drug users. This can hardly be a surprise to anyone who has worked with people with any sort of health, mental health, or social problem, however, it may be a revelation to politicians. For too long it is has been easy for politicians to treat certain sections of the population as ‘other’, implying that they are less than human. Insulting labels that define the action or illness as if it defines the whole person inhibit that individual from confronting the problem and moving on; just as importantly, the label prevents us from understanding as it becomes all we see.
The Howard League conducted in-depth interviews with young adults in prison a few years ago, and they told us clearly that the first step towards a crime-free life was no longer to be labelled an offender. They had to see themselves as something different, and other people had to help them make that transition.
Someone who commits an offence is not an offender; they are someone who has done something. The action does not define the whole person. They may also do good things and they will certainly fit into other categories that can offer a different definition like parent or friend. By insisting that the offence overcomes all other parts of the person we are condemning them to a sub-human category for whom there is no hope.
The last government created a whole industry of services for offenders. There are skills for offenders, education for offenders, and work for offenders. Huge numbers of people are employed to deliver services at these unfortunate people. Of course, it was part of the scheme of things that offenders are not deserving of having any say in the quality or style of services, as they have had their citizenship diluted to the point of abstraction.
It is time to move away from this so that the criminal justice system itself and its terminology are circumscribed. People who have committed offences have just the same right to education and employment as anyone else, and whilst they do face additional and sometimes extraordinary challenges, redressing that should simply be built into all mainstream provision.
Just as the language about disability has been transformed and services have been adapted to include people with disabilities, so our language about people who have committed offences must change. It is up to the voluntary sector to lead the way.
“The action does not define the whole person.”
ReplyDeleteIf this were truly believed then the National Probation Service (NPS) would not be subjecting it’s staff to police vetting and penalising them for past discretions.
“As part of the reform, the term “Offender Manager” will be replaced with “Probation Practitioner”,”
ReplyDeleteProbation Officer would have worked fine. At least PP is better than OM, RO and all the other silly titles that replaced PO when it became a dirty word for the MoJ.
Indeed - trouble is there is the not inconsiderable issue of 'Probation Services Officer' to deal with.
DeleteIn CRC we do the same role as all pos. At much reduced pay. When I get to NPS as I am a case manager they can call me what they like but I want the same pay as the po sat next to me doing the same job.
DeleteYou will be paid at band 3 and the PO will be paid at band 4.
DeleteThat's as maybe but we do the same work and the same pay follows. I am fed up watching some staff claim a lot of difference that amounts to nothing for band 4 pay while many of us suffered threatened pay cut under E3 fiasco. Still some friends report the pay issue as the most unfair incompetence and it must be sorted. Equal job title is fine pay me the same band 3 or 4 as long as we get the same for the work.
DeleteYou will probably find there will be a differentiation between a band 3 probation practitioner and a band 4 probation practitioner. The job title will not be equal as Civil Service is very good at differentiation between grades / bands. This may not be necessary as already the PSO role is disappearing in the NPS except for in Courts.
DeleteHistory, or the benefit of hindsight is a wonderful thing.
ReplyDeleteMany PSOs were only too happy to erode role boundaries and take the money at the time of job evaluation. (Remember that) They only balked when they realised that responsibility came with the role and they realised that they were no longer PSAs
NAPO were at the forefront of pushing PSO progression and leaving POs floundering at the time and this in part, lead to many POs coming into conflict with their own union.
Pay the rate for the job by all means but recognise that you are being used and manipulated by your employer, not by your PO colleagues
POs crc do the same work that's all I see day in day out. The risks are the same we have the same duties and different title. Job for job we are the same. I remember Job evaluation but that opening up of duties were already there in the role drift rubbish. The fact is there was devolved work as POs passed on what they either didn't like doing or there were not enough Pos in the system. The manipulators those in control are all the qualified Po structures. Not a lot of PSO ACEs around unless your qualified PO and that's the same. Its the PO centric self interest where the difference in role just no longer exists
DeleteForget what happens in CRCs as they are dead in the water. NPS now rules the roost and therein PSOs may do similar work but cannot formerly hold high risk cases, but are expected to support POs. It’s an abuse of PSOs, and unification means PSOs will remain band 3 ‘probation practitioners’ and POs band 4 ‘probation practitioners’.
DeleteTo become a PO in my day you had to do a degree, some already had one with the student loan to pay back, hence why there should be a professional distinction. There are many PSOs with years of invaluable experience and more than capable to do high risk work and the right training perhaps more important than formal qualifications which aid report writing for one, however I resent POs being considered as precious which happens a lot. I don't want to handle only hugh risk it's been forced on me, but the responsibility of a PO is higher and should have a role distinction. The employer should not impose high risk work on PSOs in my view as not reflected in the pay or role, but then in prison Poms albeit on lower salaries are recruited from case administrators, same title just different salary. Its a nightmare all round and POs help training them which is essentially helping Hmpps to get rid of our jobs eventually and replace with those on much less pay and no professional qualifications as such.
DeleteI think you'll find there is now a scheme which will enable experienced PSO's to qualify within a year
DeleteIt makes a mockery of having a degree in the first place if they keep reducing qualification tine
DeleteWhat's having a degree got to do with anything? The necessary skills can be taught
DeleteI agree necessary skills, can be taught but to be a PO you had to do a degree, some already had. With that the responsibility of the trained for role is extra. Why should degrees count for nothing if a short training period allows the same job role. A degree takes a lot of time and is at a cost. Hence the job role it leads to should reflect that.
DeleteWith the coronavirus restrictions which are coming into place, it is only a matter of time until supervising ‘persons subject to probation,’ is abandoned or suspended for a considerable period.
ReplyDeleteThis will undoubtedly coincide with a reduction in the rate of reoffending.
How long before the spinmeisters put two and two together and come up with exactly the result they want?
Very unlikely. Probation bosses are too weak to close probation offices and APs. CRCs will close as it’s an opportunity to save a bit of cash, but NPS will not.
DeleteIt was reported in the Times last week that concerns over Coronavirus in prisons may see the early release of thousands of prisoners serving short sentences or nearing the end of longer sentences.
DeleteGuess it's good cover for reducing an over crowded prison estate?
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/coronavirus-covid-19-prison-preparedness-lucy-frazer-statement
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