Maybe it's all to do with the science of 'nudge theory' even though I gather it's neither a science nor theory. Anyway, it seems to work and as I've already remarked, regular reader 'Getafix is very adept at supplying 'Twitter-ready' soundbites such as the following, 'liked' and retweeted many times yesterday:-
"The large numbers of prisoners that are now being released homeless reminds me just how vague and abstract the concept of rehabilitation has become. Building more prisons to help with rehabilitation. Reshaping probation to help with rehabilitation. How? Where? When? The word rehabilitation has become an insert into a verbal phrase designed to sound positive, but has no real meaning or context anymore. It's become a soundbite. I think it's time the State defined what it actually means when it talks of offender rehabilitation, because I for one haven't a clue anymore."
--oo00oo--
Not a 'soundbite' as such, but I want to highlight the following heartfelt contribution on the subject of housing which certainly reflects my own thoughts and experience over the years. I well remember being outraged when my local Housing Authority proudly announced in the 1990's that police officers were being seconded to their allocations team in order to ensure only 'suitable' people were offered housing. I would remind readers that in those days an independent Probation Service was able to set up its own housing projects in order to address such social policy failures. Of course this is not possible nowadays under direct civil service command and control:-
"The UK takes a capitalist approach to housing, and that saddens me; in the UK if you cannot "afford" a house, then frankly you can't have one. Landlords, second home owners, people renting rooms have all profited - the system is so skewed in favour of landlords who ask for ridiculous sums of money up front, incentives, rent deposits, month up front, and when they sell the house having done nothing to earn it, they throw the tenants out, who have to start the whole cycle again.
In my world housing would be a basic human right - in the UK we have voted in countless Tory majority governments and this is the price of that.
Housing service users has been the biggest bane of my probation life from the start, i.e. for decades. Legislation only requires local authorities to house those "in priority need" and the rest scrabble around trying to get what they can, with immense pressure put on the probation officer who has no access to houses and no money to pay for them. If an AP manager asks me again "what have you done about X or Y's move on" once again I swear I will throw the phone across town into their face. Local authorities use risk as a get out clause all the time NOT to house people (who are not priority need), whether it be they are "too risky" or "not risky enough". The single young men who have no family are usually in the most dire straits.
The Probation service whether it be the Trusts or NPS have known about this problem for years. It is by far and away the BIGGEST issue as reported by service users themselves in countless "offender surveys" year after year - they don't advertise the results of this, despite putting immense pressure on us to get near 100% completion rate of that damn survey year after year.
And yet despite this the MoJ wasted vast amounts of money on a "through the gate" service which essentially gets armies of staff filling out the OASYS BCS identifying issues with housing, benefits, lack of ID, lack of bank account, with little time/incentive and certainly no money to actually sort the issues out.
If the MoJ gave that cash to the probation officers/service users to pay for deposits/rent in advance, it would free up SO MUCH time, create far less stress, and lead to outcomes - but nope, for the past 7 years it has preferred the Through the Gate staff to spend their time form filling. I'm disgusted and yet know in my heart of heart the service can’t or won't listen because we have a government that does not think that anyone, let alone someone who lost their housing due to their own offending, should have a right to the basic human right of a place to live."
"The UK takes a capitalist approach to housing, and that saddens me; in the UK if you cannot "afford" a house, then frankly you can't have one. Landlords, second home owners, people renting rooms have all profited - the system is so skewed in favour of landlords who ask for ridiculous sums of money up front, incentives, rent deposits, month up front, and when they sell the house having done nothing to earn it, they throw the tenants out, who have to start the whole cycle again.
In my world housing would be a basic human right - in the UK we have voted in countless Tory majority governments and this is the price of that.
Housing service users has been the biggest bane of my probation life from the start, i.e. for decades. Legislation only requires local authorities to house those "in priority need" and the rest scrabble around trying to get what they can, with immense pressure put on the probation officer who has no access to houses and no money to pay for them. If an AP manager asks me again "what have you done about X or Y's move on" once again I swear I will throw the phone across town into their face. Local authorities use risk as a get out clause all the time NOT to house people (who are not priority need), whether it be they are "too risky" or "not risky enough". The single young men who have no family are usually in the most dire straits.
The Probation service whether it be the Trusts or NPS have known about this problem for years. It is by far and away the BIGGEST issue as reported by service users themselves in countless "offender surveys" year after year - they don't advertise the results of this, despite putting immense pressure on us to get near 100% completion rate of that damn survey year after year.
And yet despite this the MoJ wasted vast amounts of money on a "through the gate" service which essentially gets armies of staff filling out the OASYS BCS identifying issues with housing, benefits, lack of ID, lack of bank account, with little time/incentive and certainly no money to actually sort the issues out.
If the MoJ gave that cash to the probation officers/service users to pay for deposits/rent in advance, it would free up SO MUCH time, create far less stress, and lead to outcomes - but nope, for the past 7 years it has preferred the Through the Gate staff to spend their time form filling. I'm disgusted and yet know in my heart of heart the service can’t or won't listen because we have a government that does not think that anyone, let alone someone who lost their housing due to their own offending, should have a right to the basic human right of a place to live."
From inside time 2 weeks ago.
ReplyDeleteEx-prisoners who are released homeless are committing further offences because they want to go back to jail, a watchdog has warned.
A report by HM Inspectorate of Probation (HMIP) cited cases of people who had deliberately got themselves recalled to prison due to a lack of housing.
The report found that 16 per cent of men and 19 per cent of women leaving prison in 2018/19 were released into homelessness. They were more than twice as likely to reoffend as ex-prisoners who had homes to go to.
During that year there were 11,435 occasions on which people were released from prison into homelessness.
One man quoted in the report, who had been recalled repeatedly over a seven-year period, said: “I kept reoffending to get put back inside as I couldn’t get accommodation.”
Another said he had been served at least 15 spell in prison, adding: “I come out for about two months and if I ain’t got nowhere then I just recall myself.”
Probation services do not have a statutory duty to secure housing for those under their supervision. Councils have a duty to prevent homelessness but are not obliged to house any individual unless they as classed as being in a “particularly vulnerable” group, which most ex-prisoners do not.
The report said: “There are many barriers for individuals supervised by probation services to obtaining suitable, settled accommodation. These include a shortage of housing stock, delays in obtaining benefits, high up-front costs of renting, low priority on housing registers, insufficient support services, and providers who are averse to accommodating people with substantial criminal records.”
Justin Russell, HM chief inspector of probation, said: “Many individuals are homeless when they enter prison and even more are when they leave. Individuals need a safe place to call home — it gives them a solid foundation on which to build crime-free lives.
“It is difficult for probation services to protect the public and support rehabilitation if individuals are not in stable accommodation.
“A stable address helps individuals to resettle back into the community: to find work, open a bank account, claim benefits and access local services.”
Almost two-thirds of the offenders released without settled accommodation reoffended within the year, compared to 44 per cent who had a home.
The report said there was a danger to public safety from the thousands of high-risk prisoners released each year without stable accommodation. HMIP found that there was pressure on places at Approved Premises, where some high-risk offenders are required to spend their first few months on licence
The report said: “We were told of examples where individuals left Approved Premises homeless or without settled accommodation. There is at present no published information on the extent to which this occurs.”
HMIP also warned that some ex-prisoners were having to go to unsafe accommodation because of a lack of alternatives and poor safety checks. In one example cited in the report, a woman who was released back into her abusive partner’s home despite expressing worries about her own safety told inspectors: “I didn’t have any other choice”.
Peter Dawson, director of the Prison Reform Trust said: “No amount of good work in prison will achieve rehabilitation if the basics of support after release are ignored. As the evidence in this report of real people facing this challenge shows, not having a safe, stable place to live not only creates more victims, but can put life at risk.”
He added: “If the government is serious about both rehabilitation and public protection, it must take this opportunity to invest in a coherent plan. Spending billions on new prisons, but peanuts on accommodation for the people they release, is obviously futile.”
And likely to become much worse as the economy reopens and the accomodation provided for rough sleepers during the pandemic returns to usual service.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/d1a2fa3b-9d0d-4057-af0f-1d659bf288ad
'Getafix
And now there's the revelation that sex offenders are 'disappearing' by using an online deed poll service to change their names, thus avoiding the register. It seems this is a quick & easy process, one that authorities don't currently check or investigate, can be done as many times as one wishes and it therefore negates the UK's Sarah's Law (child sex offender disclosure scheme) & Clare's Law (domestic violence offender disclosure scheme).
ReplyDeleteChange your name by this deed poll practice & you can legally change your identity in minutes, entitling you to driving licence, passport etc etc in your chosen new name.
Here's where I first heard about it:
Deletehttps://news.sky.com/story/more-than-900-sex-offenders-disappear-from-police-radar-with-many-changing-their-names-and-not-telling-officers-12036341
More than 900 sex offenders have disappeared off the police radar with many thought to have disguised their identities by changing their names and not telling officers, Sky News has discovered.
The simple deed poll process takes 15 minutes online and over 1,300 sex offenders have already done it since committing their offences and have informed authorities.
A Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the 43 police forces in England and Wales found there were 1,349 sex offenders who had notified the authorities they had changed their name by deed poll, since committing their offences. (About half the forces couldn't provide data on this).
Changing their names makes it more difficult for members of the public to do an online check into a person's history.
Advertisement
But more worrying, the Safeguarding Alliance also asked police forces, in addition to this figure, how many sex offenders have gone missing. Only 16 police forces provided data, but it amounted to 913 offenders.
It's thought many of these have changed their names and chosen not to tell the police.
A sex offender called Terry Price conducted a string of sexual offences over three decades and has changed his name five times in an effort to cover up his recurring pattern of behaviour.
Della Wright, 47, was repeatedly raped by Price from the age of six, back in the early 1980s.
After having her own children, Ms Wright recently found the courage to report the crimes - but she discovered her attacker was called Robert McEwan (also a sex offender).
She waived her right to anonymity to highlight this issue in the hope that the laws will change to make it impossible for sex offenders to change their identities.
Ahead of his trial in 2016, Della Wright's attacker changed his name again to Mr Mac, so he was unable to enter a plea because the charges were against Robert McEwan. The process was disrupted for several weeks. Ms Wright believes he did it in the hope she would lose her nerve.
She said: "He was allowed again to have full control, and in that moment, I was a child again because he was full in control."
A Home Office spokesperson said: "We are determined to prevent serious criminals from hiding their pasts and will not tolerate sex offenders trying to evade the justice system."
_______________________________________________
IN the Commons Rees-Mogg dismissed the idea of any change to the law by saying that anyone who changes their name already faces five years in prison if they do not notify the authorities. Well, Mr Streak of Piss, that's all well and good IF you can ever find them again - and there's 900 you've lost already!
Well done, Della Wright. Once again it takes a courageous woman to waive her rights of anonymity to push against a cowardly male-dominated power structure in order to enact common-sense changes to the law to protect victims of (predominantly) male crimes against women & children. I look forward to reading about Della's Law.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-53533809
ReplyDeletePlans for daily televised press briefings from No 10 risk sidelining Parliament, the Commons Speaker warns.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle told the BBC he was worried the idea was "not the way forward" and major announcements should always be made in Parliament first.
Speaking to the BBC's Carolyn Quinn, Sir Lindsay said Parliament should be the place in which MPs and the public found out what was happening.
"You know the worry I've had - that statements should be made to the House first," he said. "Once you've made that statement, by all means go and have a press conference. But do it after, not before."
In recent months, Sir Lindsay has rebuked a number of ministers after details of policies appeared in the press before being unveiled in Parliament.
He said he did not want this to become a habit under the new arrangements.
"Members are elected to hold the government to account and we've got to allow them to do so," he said. "And if you're briefing the press first, that's not the way forward."
Housing policies are deliberately tailored to exclude. They follow trends in local regions, whether that's the gentrification of a particular area or the ghetto-isation of another. Ultimately it always plays into the hands of property developers/landlords who become wealthy all-ways-round - high prices for properties in the smart, cool areas; making a killing buying up cheap in the least favoured areas, only to cash in when the wind changes - assisted yet again by local housing policy.
ReplyDeleteThatcher's garage sale & the subsequent en masse transfer of local authority housing stock to market-driven operators were the two greatest mistakes in terms of housing provision in the UK. But I guess there are a fair number of multi-millionaires who are extremely grateful.
Well said -I recall back in the nineteen eighties (probably also the seventies) in frustration - saying far too often to clients & anyone else interested that probation officers do not have the authority to provide accommodation.
ReplyDeleteEven then our attempts to be directly involved were generally on a very small scale.
It is probably a failing of my generation of trade union members - especially of me - that we did not campaign enough for housing for clients - but then again there was always more campaigns needed than I had sufficient energy with which to engage.
Ultimately the problem is parliament's, but as has been obvious - as far as probation is concerned - parliament has not been fit for purpose since at least 2014 when it passed the Offender Rehabilitaion Bill having rejected the amendments made by the House of Lords that might have at least prevented the worst failings of that legislation.
I'd say Parliament's been unfit for any meaningful probation purpose since 1990 - but don't forget it was Labour's Straw Dog who brought in the Offender management Act 2007 which was the foundation, the keystone, of the ORAct in 2014.
DeleteI pretty much agree with that - Parliament should have stopped the shambles that followed on from mixing judicial services (provision of courts etc) with criminal justice agencies - I personally think had parliament understood the principles of probation from the 1907 Act - it also would have prevented probation orders becoming a sentence - I cannot (yet again) recall exactly when that was - it might even have been the 1991 CJA.
DeleteDaily uk govt covid-19 data mon 27 july 2020
ReplyDeleteNew reported cases – 685: week = 5,283; month = 16,354
New recorded deaths – 7: week = 458; month = 1,853
ONS data released 21 July states: “ The number of deaths registered in the UK in the week ending 10 July 2020 (Week 28) was 9,919; of the deaths registered in the UK in Week 28, 388 deaths involved COVID-19.
Please Note: From next week (Week 29, ending 17 July 2020, released 28 July 2020), the weekly bulletin content will be shortened. The comparison of weekly death occurrences article that gets published alongside the weekly bulletin will also no longer be produced, however, a small section covering England and Wales comparisons will be added to the weekly bulletin.”
No-one seems to have any clear explanation for the current lull in UK covid-19 cases, not for the explosions and outbreaks in other countries. Vietnam seems to have a case appearing from 'thin air'; France is experiencing a sudden & significant rise in cases.
UK govt logic - everyone returning from Spain, including the 'holiday islands', must quarantine. Its 1,500km from London to Barcelona, but 2,500km from Barcelona to Tenerife. Ah, but its Spain innit!!! Fucking idiots.
Napo Cymru in its response to Wales Commission on Justice, also in its response to Strengthening Probation "consultation"
ReplyDelete..."If all the papers produced on strategies and signposting and the like were turned back into trees, and they were used to build log cabins, we might be in a better position regarding accommodation for offenders."
Let alone the industry which is centralised commissioning of schemes and projects.
Hardly sensible comment from Wales.
Deletefrom WHO report for 24 hours to 27 July 2020
ReplyDeleteThe United Kingdom:
total confirmed cases 299,430
total deaths 45,752
new deaths/24 hours 14
***confirmed new cases/24 hours 745***
Spain
total confirmed cases 272,421
total deaths 28,432
new deaths/24 hours 0
*** confirmed new cases/24 hours 0/Nil/Zero***
Hard to know what data the UK is using to make decisions
https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200727-covid-19-sitrep-189.pdf?sfvrsn=b93a6913_2
Could it be that Spain is the 'fall-guy' they need in advance of an expected imminent UK spike?
Just look at the WHO data & then at the FCO advice:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-countries-and-territories-exempt-from-advice-against-all-but-essential-international-travel
Countries exempt from the FCO advice against all non-essential international travel include:
Austria 137 new cases in last 24 hours
Turkey 927
Germany 340
Portugal - ONLY Azores & Madeira - 209
Australia 453
Japan 607
Singapore 481
Canada 350
Dominica 2,012
Italy 254
ONS (England & Wales only) data out today. Important to note that despite the numbers of deaths falling (which is, of course, good) the ONS report:
ReplyDelete"Looking at the year-to-date (using the most up-to-date data we have available), the number of deaths up to 17 July was 362,229, which is 53,148 more than the five-year average. Of the deaths registered by 17 July 2020, 51,264 mentioned COVID-19 on the death certificate" - NB: this is for England & Wales only.
So the UK govt preferred figure of 45,759 covid-19 deaths to date (for the whole of the UK) contrasts with the ONS figure of 51,264 where covid-19 is mentioned on the death certificate for England & Wales only.
The UK-wide figure will be close to 55,000 at present.
As ever, the world seen through the eyes of this govt & the reality for the population are very, very different.
There are all sorts of issues with the data, which is why cross country comparisons are meaningless. After all, if zero tests were carried out then the number of cases and deaths would be zero - regardless of how many people actually had it / died from it.
DeleteThe following blog confirms there is a statistical flaw in PHE's approach - with any death following a positive Covid test being counted, even if that death was unrelated and occurred months later:
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/why-no-one-can-ever-recover-from-covid-19-in-england-a-statistical-anomaly/
You are absolutely right, @11:49.
DeleteFrom my perspective, while the government persists in selecting & using their preferred datasets to justify their incompetence, to self-aggrandise, to apportion blame everywhere but to themselves & to hold the people in contempt - then I will continue to challenge their blood-stained propaganda viz-55,000 lives & counting.
Still, notwithstanding all of the issues, here comes the daily uk govt data for Tues 28 july 2020:
Deletenew reported cases - 581
new recorded deaths - 119
Daily numbers of tests (not necessarily numbers of people tested) remain around 100,000 a day, whilst the govt claim the testing capacity is in excess of 300,000.
If testing is so important, why isn't that capacity being utilised, e.g. at airports or other points of entry?
The European Centre for Disease Prevention & Control is the quoted source of many journos for covid-19 data:
Deletehttps://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/cases-2019-ncov-eueea
Spanish Health Ministry data showing Balearics as having no cases & Canaries as having 2 cases in the last 24 hours. The spikes are clearly in Aragon (357), Catalunya (126) & Madrid (147).
Deletehttps://www.mscbs.gob.es/en/profesionales/saludPublica/ccayes/alertasActual/nCov-China/documentos/Actualizacion_172_COVID-19.pdf
Here comes the late-again cavalry...
Delete"The UK government has been looking at the merits and risks of test-on-arrival checks for travellers... Private testing companies have suggested doing a pilot study in the UK.
The scheme would allow travellers to book a test conducted at the airport on arrival by a trained nurse and processed in seven to 24 hours."
Free tests are already available for those arriving at Munich Airport... Some countries, such as Iceland, offer travellers a choice on arrival if they have stayed in areas with high virus levels. Anyone entering must either self-quarantine for 14 days or get tested for Covid-19.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53567309
A provocative thought - the tourism industry is barely 50 years old. It is a vanity industry with its exploitation of peoples and resources. It has created a dependency culture. It has ravaged the planet, burned untold billions of tons of fossil fuels, led to deforestation, spread of diseases to lands that would never otherwise have known such diseases.
ReplyDeleteMaybe, like cigarettes, its not as good for us as the ad execs, the shareholders and the whitecoats would have us believe?
Wow, you're a barrel of laughs aren't you?! Are you advocating a return to a 7 day working week instead?
Delete1,558 747's built 1968 - 2020; each (present cost) $25m
Delete5,300 Airbus jetliners built 1972 - 2020.
In 2017: "the active global commercial fleet currently stands at 25,368 aircraft".
It was estimated the growth of the market would raise that figure to over 35,000 by 2027.
That's one hell of an artificial market created by ad execs & salespeople in 50 years.
I note Serco, with £multimillion contracts from Government for all kinds services, many justice related, have outsourced 85% of their recently acquired track and trace contract.
ReplyDeleteIt's little wonder nothing seems to work anymore.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/amp/entry/private-firm-serco-subcontracting-almost-all-its-contact-tracing-operation_uk_5f1708aec5b651977c071c06/
'Getafix
Ministers face fresh calls to tear up a £45m contract with Serco to provide elements of its Covid-19 Test and Trace programme after it emerged the firm is outsourcing the majority of the work.
DeleteThe government awarded the lucrative contract to the firm last month to help trace close contacts of coronavirus patients as the UK tries to avoid a second wave of the disease this winter.
But it has emerged the multi-billion-pound firm is subcontracting operations to 29 other companies, and that 85% (9,000 of a total of 10,500) of staff are not employed directly by Serco.
Ministers now stand accused of failing to learn the lessons of the collapse of construction giant Carillion, the so-called “mega-contractor” that folded with huge debts and left taxpayers footing a £148m bill.
The NHS Test and Trace service, which was set up in May and includes a number of public health bodies as well as Serco, last week revealed it was still failing to reach nearly a quarter of people who test positive for the virus.
Serco has been tasked with providing “tier three” contact tracing – where non-clinical call centre staff phone or email the “close contacts” of positive cases, and update public records.
Shadow Cabinet Office minister Helen Hayes said the amount of work being subcontracted out by Serco meant accountability for operations was being eroded.
She told HuffPost UK: “This is astonishing. [Test and Trace] is an essential public service, which should be at the heart of the national effort to prevent a second wave of the coronavirus and to build confidence to restart the economy. It is impossible to see how there can be any meaningful control or accountability under these arrangements.
“The government does not appear to have learned any lessons from Carillion’s collapse and other privatisation failures, where outsourcing companies subcontracted the majority of work.
“Labour has been raising concerns about contracts with Serco for weeks. The [Test and Trace] system relies on public trust and the government’s approach to procurement is placing this in jeopardy.”
Cat Hobbes, founder of the anti-privatisation campaign We Own It, is calling for the government to scrap Serco’s tracing contract.
She said: “This is utterly outrageous – we call on the government to immediately scrap Serco’s contract. Invest these millions in our NHS, local authorities and local public health experts so we can get out of lockdown safely.”
Referring to the 29 subcontractors Serco was using, she added: “We don’t even know who’s actually in charge right now. This would be a joke if it weren’t so deadly serious.
“Local health teams are already successfully tracing seven times more contacts than Serco – give them the resources they so urgently need.”
A government source defended the use of private sector contractors to help speed up the NHS Test and Trace response.
They said: “This is all part of a wider attack on us for using the private sector to help deliver projects.
“The private sector have helped us deliver almost everything we’ve done – whether than be scaling up testing, delivering PPE, or building a mass contact tracing system at scale and at speed.
“We’ll make no apologies for harnessing the best people and the best organisations to help us fight Covid, whether they are from the public sector or the private sector.”
HuffPost UK has contacted Serco for comment.
NHS Test and Trace figures released last week showed that 78.7% were reached and asked to provide details of recent close contacts, up slightly week on week.
In the week to July 8, some 13,807 people were identified as close contacts. Of these, 9,811 people (71.1%) were reached and asked to self-isolate, again a slight improvement on the previous week – but still short of the 80% figure recommended by government scientists needed to make the system effective.
Since the system started, 155,000 people who may have been at risk of unknowingly spreading the virus have been reached by the service and asked to self-isolate.
daily uk govt covid-19 data 29 july 2020
ReplyDeletenew cases reported - 763
new deaths recorded - 83
That is all.
How do I feel about the imminent phased return to working from a probation office with face to face contact with my clients?
ReplyDelete1 I have no faith in this government, and I see the MoJ as a political extension of this government, so I don’t trust anyone in the management structure, however sympathetic I feel towards my immediate boss
2 It is abundantly clear that the impetus behind the easing of lockdown is to boost the economy, at the calculated risk of expected rise in Covid transmission. Which bit of my job done on Probation premises is going to either boost the economy or protect/rehabilitate? That should be the measure by which my attendance is required.
3 Ethical considerations: If we coerce our clients to travel (usually on public transport) to our offices for face to face; if this cant be shown to have contributed to public safety or rehabilitation, and they contract Covid, then Probation is culpable to inflicting public harm and possibly vulnerable to prosecution (should there be a functioning justice system)
Regarding point 2, are you proposing then to take unpaid leave rather than return to an office? Or are you expecting to be paid in full for staying at home whilst your colleagues return to the office?
DeleteRegarding point 3, to use that logic then the whole world would be liable to prosecution.
"Which bit of my job done on Probation premises is going to ....protect/rehabilitate?"
ReplyDeleteIf you honestly believe this then my advice: please leave your current job and get out of the probation service. Read Trotter's research and others....EVERY bit of your job, if you do it properly, needs to be done face to face.