We Are Where We Are?

I saw this yesterday and it struck a chord with me:-

I sometimes wonder what happens to people. There's a raft of folks who I just cannot fathom. I have a life outside of probation. I always did have, it's just more outside than otherwise now. Some aspects of who I am are fixed while other elements are flexible and I believe they are directly related to aspects of being a person who makes the effort to be a half-decent human being.

Language, honesty, integrity & courage are essential elements that remain with me wherever I am. Writing PSRs, being a court duty officer (mags & crown) and working with sex offenders were the keystones of my probation career.

I cannot understand managerialism, JFDI, it is what it is. I cannot comprehend what it is that makes people feel so good they surrender their integrity. I cannot even begin to get my head around lying.

As far as I could tell from 20+ years' graft, sex offenders & DV perpetrators lived in a fantasy world built on lies & self-deception. It was never their fault, never their responsibility, they were framed, set-up, slighted, seduced, pushed too far, but they could also be charismatic, believable & full of bon homie - until confronted with the dissonance of their situation.

And that is what I see with Grayling, Johnson &, to be fair, most politicians.

Currently they seem to be living in a world where they're managing a fantasy pandemic - one where there's enough PPE, everyone's prepared, the lockdown was timed to perfection, etc etc. Just watch their responses in the briefings when they are challenged with the reality of the situation - Raab, Hancock, Gove, Jenrick have all snapped, snarled & snipped at the person asking the question.

"So how did you get to the child pornography site?"
"So why did you punch your partner in the kidneys?"

--oo00oo--

It seems to me to link nicely with the response from regular reader 'Getafix to last Tuesday's blog post 'A Defining Moment', which of course was itself a reader's contribution:-

I read today's post several times when it appeared as a comment yesterday. To me it not only illustrates the scale and journey of the probation service over time, but also its decline. The Social Work ethos was the foundation stone of the probation service. It's removal was not only irresponsible, it was an act of political sabotage. It allowed probation to become a tool of the state. A service that could be shaped and manipulated in any way that suited the political ideology and Government agendas of the day.

'Prison Works', Tough On Crime, Tough On The Causes Of Crime, were great mantras from polititions like Leon Britton and Michael Howard, but they had little to do with the advancement of our justice services, they were slogans to bolster public support for electoral purposes. They worked, but they badly damaged probation no longer supported by its social work foundations.

We've had years of debate and discussion on the destructive nature and the folly of TR.
TR would never have been possible if probation had still been underpinned by its social work foundations. I really do think the value of the social Work approach within our Criminal justice system is becoming more understood in today's world once again. Police and even prisons are adopting far more of a social work approach then they ever have before. The wheel will be reinvented, but it will be a slow process. There's small pockets reappearing in specific areas now, but their small and very specific. But as its said, 'The longest journey starts with the first step'.

'Getafix followed this up the following day:-

I'm someone who completely believes that probation should be based on a social work ethos. I've had some difficulties this week understanding some of the comments that's been made. I understand that others don't favour the social Work ethos, and I don't dismiss that point of view. Yet I struggle to understand why favouring a social work ethos indicates any particular political view point. Why isn't it be seen as apolitical? A philosophical and pragmatic approach underpinning a service, with no political colour as a pragmatic method to fulfil its remit? Indeed, did the removal of the Social Work requirement in 1997 move probation from a left wing to a right wing organisation? If the social Work ethos belongs to the left, then its removal must surely cede possession to the right? Why does social work define anyone's political identity?

It's a coincidence that Jersey has been mentioned on the blog today, because reading over the last few days to try and understand more why favouring a social work ethos in probation could be seen as a demonstration of political allegiance I stumbled on a research paper from a few year ago relating to probation services on Jersey. It didn't answer my questions, but I found it an interesting and informative read non the less. Maybe other might too.

--oo00oo--

I'll have a layman's stab from deep inside my kevlar cocoon.

1. Did the removal of the Social Work requirement in 1997 move probation from a left wing to a right wing organisation? Yes. More accurately, it anchored the moves that had already taken place.

2. If the social Work ethos belongs to the left, then its removal must surely cede possession to the right? Yes. Its now 'owned' in every sense by the MoJ/HMPPS, a control-and-command led profit-oriented structure.

3. Why does social work define anyone's political identity? For myself, its tied up with whether we regard people as a commodity to be exploited or as part of the social fabric, to be cherished. The 'right' embraces control & command, monetisation, exploitation, profiteering - 'they know the price of everything but the value of nothing'. The 'left' tends towards the nurturing, caring & sharing of peoples' experiences, cultures & lives, regardless as to whether its the fruits or the burdens that are being shared.

There you go, Bamber, there's my starter for ten.

--oo00oo--

Firstly, I wholeheartedly agree with 'Getafix that a social work ethos should be seen as apolitical and it frustrates me how many people on this blog seem to assume that a left wing political preference should be a prerequisite for the job.

As for above, they've tried to set out their position as if commentating from an objective point of view, but clearly the fact they have chosen negative labels for the right and positive labels for the left reveals their own bias.

Ultimately, the right is defined by valuing the individual over the collective. But how is that at odds with the social work/probation value of believing that everybody is capable of change? The right is more likely to believe in the capacity of individuals to change than the left.

--oo00oo--

No, revisionista above, you play with my words. I don't need or want your agreement, but you cannot re-present my piece as something it isn't. I set out *my* position. And there it is in all its simplicity. No attempt to observe from any point of view other than my own, hence I start with "For myself..."

Another right-wing trait I forgot to mention... the readiness to revise history, to remodel the facts to suit the narrative. The coronavirus crisis is a case in point - not enough PPE in stock, delays in ordering it, when it finally arrives its shoddy-as-shit, then they issue out-of-date PPE & refuse to release the test data that proves whether or not the PPE is fit for purpose. Dates on gowns might not be a problem, granted, but filters on medical grade masks might just be a critical issue. I just hope my kevlar cocoon is in-date...

--oo00oo--

That research article from the British Journal of Social Work and referred to by 'Getafix can be found here and I've selected the following:-

Moving Away from Social Work and Half Way Back Again: New Research on Skills in Probation

Abstract

Research on social work in the criminal justice system was well represented in the social work literature until the 1990s. Since then, changes in the organisation, training and research base of probation practice, particularly in England and Wales, have all contributed to a separation between probation research and the mainstream social work research literature. However, recent probation research, by focusing on individual practice skills and on the quality of relationships, is producing findings which resonate with traditional social work concerns. The study presented here, based on analysis of videotaped interviews between probation staff and the people they are supervising, shows what skills are used and the effects of skilled supervision. People supervised by more skilled staff were significantly less likely to be reconvicted over a two-year follow-up, and the most effective supervisors combined good relationship skills with a range of ‘structuring’ or change-promoting skills. In effect, this can be regarded as a test of the impact of social work skills used by probation staff and suggests that a closer relationship between mainstream social work research and probation research could be productive for both.

Background

In recent years, probation has moved away from social work both as a subject and as an institutionalised practice towards what is commonly termed community corrections or offender management, and in so doing has taken on a distinctively different identity. It began its life in the philanthropic and charity movements of the nineteenth century and in particular the early social project (Vanstone, 2004). Although, in one way or another, probation has always been involved in the administration and management of particular non-custodial sentences, it has retained distinctive social work characteristics not only through its involvement in adoption, matrimonial and divorce court functions, but also through practice founded on the traditional social work treatment model. In the latter part of the twentieth century, it shed its family court functions and, in its current, modern form, it focuses exclusively on work with those who appear before the criminal courts and who pose significant risk to the public through their offending, standing apart from social work as a criminological project. At least, this is how it appears. In this paper, through reflections on our study of the practice of probation officers in Jersey (Raynor et al., 2014), we examine this phenomenon and attempt to distinguish between the appearance and the reality. In the process, we reappraise the argument that probation should be seen as social work and reflect on how mainstream social work might adapt to accommodate the roles of social workers in criminal justice. We begin with the relevant history.

Discussion: probation as social work?

Studies such as this, which show a connection between the use of appropriate interpersonal skills and better outcomes for service users, are clearly of interest to probation services, and research on skills has now been carried out in several countries (for some examples, see McNeill et al., 2010). One purpose of this article is to suggest that this kind of research also has implications for mainstream social work, and for the relationship between probation work and the wider social work enterprise. Some of the skills observed in our study, such as relationship skills, are clearly part of the skills repertoire traditionally valued and taught in social work. Probation officers in Jersey, unlike most in England and Wales, are normally qualified in social work; the same is true in other jurisdictions, notably Scotland, where social work in criminal justice is professionally and organisationally a branch of social work. However, good outcomes in our study are also connected with the use of ‘structuring’ skills to facilitate change and to develop new thinking and behaviour. The results are consistent with the idea that relationship skills are a necessary condition for positive influence in individual work, but may not on their own be sufficient to bring about change in problematic attitudes or behaviour. This kind of change often seems to require more structured forms of learning.

Studies of the impact and outcome of professional intervention have been central to improvements in the effectiveness of probation work in the last two decades. Arguably, this has been a less consistent emphasis in broader social work research. Reasons for this include the fact that probation work lends itself to the use of reconviction rates as a (relatively) straightforward outcome measure, since the purposes of probation usually include a reduction in offending, in the interests of both the service user and the wider community. Probation can of course have other valid purposes, such as reintegration into the community, resettlement and the pursuit of a wide variety of individualised forward-looking intermediate goals in particular cases, but most of the time reconviction can be used as a rough-and-ready proxy measure which is congruent with the societal purpose of probation services. Other sectors of social work have more diverse or less standardised goals and more ingenuity may be needed to identify appropriate outcome measures. However, the effort may prove worthwhile. Social work education is under attack both politically and from other professional sectors: Michael Gove, the responsible Minister and a leading figure on the right wing of the current ruling coalition, argues that, if trainee social workers are taught that their service users are ‘disempowered by society’, this makes them likely to explain away and excuse problematic behaviour rather than trying to change it (Gove, 2013). Martin Narey makes rather similar points from a more professional and less politicised point of view in his report on the preparation of social workers for child and family work (Narey, 2014). Essentially, the argument is that commitment to an anti-oppressive stance makes it difficult for inexperienced social workers to challenge problematic behaviour. From such a perspective, probation work may seem too controlling or coercive to be part of an empowering vision of social work. However, such a view, if it exists, rests on a fundamental misunderstanding.

One former Chief Probation Officer with whom both authors worked used to define his job as ‘helping offenders to help themselves to stop offending’ (Sutton, 1996). This has more to do with empowerment than oppression: even if people are not responsible for the problems they face, improvement is likely to require some action on their part. Even cognitive–behavioural offending behaviour programmes, which worried some practitioners who saw them as a form of coercive behaviour modification, are better understood as a way of facilitating change through social learning (Raynor and Vanstone, 1997). The successful probation staff in our study helped their clients by eliciting co-operation and engaging collaborative effort, not by one-sided authoritarianism. This is entirely consistent with our experience of effective probation over many years. Mainstream social work might benefit from a more consistent focus on outcomes, and from probation's experience of trying to use evidence from outcome studies to develop and improve practice. Social work's defence against Gove's attack has so far concentrated on exposing his ideological assumptions and political motivation (for an example, see Social Work Action Network, 2014), but more focus on evidence of positive outcomes would also help to add weight to the argument. In the last century, the education and training of most social workers included some coverage of crime and of social work in criminal justice, but this is less prevalent in the social work degree courses offered since 2003.

Qualitative research alone will not find it easy to provide evidence of effectiveness. As a recent discussion of policy-related research pointed out:

Qualitative research is often advocated as the best way to capture the complexity of social phenomena, but even rich case studies full of insight about how things happen are very limited in answering ‘why’ questions without the systematic comparison of cases that would enable us to understand causation, which is essential to policy intervention (Blackman, 2013, p. 334).

In other words, without qualitative research, there is not much social science; without measurement and comparison, there is not much social science. In our study of skills and outcomes, we have used both approaches, and the results could not have been obtained without doing so.

Finally, we would suggest that probation work itself could benefit from closer integration (or reintegration) with the wider social work profession. This is hardly innovative: any study of the early history of social work will find plenty of examples of work concerned with what was usually called juvenile delinquency (for some examples, see Raynor and Robinson, 2009). Probation in England and Wales is smaller than other welfare institutions and, since coming under the direct control of the Home Office in 2001, it has been something of a political football. Politicians preoccupied with a need to appear tough have obstructed development and made probation more punitive. The current government is in the process of implementing a wholesale privatisation programme (Ministry of Justice, 2013) which virtually all informed commentators believe will make matters worse. Social work may feel itself threatened but has not (yet) faced anything like this. Although several commentators have written about difficulties in maintaining traditional social work commitments and values in the modern social and political environment (e.g. Parton, 1994, 2003), social work has not experienced, as probation has, a political campaign to substitute punishment for welfare (Raynor, 2012). Probation might benefit, as in Scotland, from being seen and defended as part of a wider social work movement for social progress and social justice, which in our view is what it should be. However, this argument strays well beyond the scope of this paper. At least we hope to contribute to a more substantial representation and appreciation of criminal justice social work in the mainstream social work literature.