Up For The Challenge?

Yesterday, in an ominous presage of things to come, the heavens opened and a new even darker chapter began. Undoubtedly the defenestration of Priti Patel and Dominic Raab is good news, whilst the arrival of Brandon Lewis as Justice Secretary must surely be cause for hope?

 

As we wait to find out, I thought I'd mention that viewing figures for the blog are still high averaging 2,000 a day and the post about the pay offer has been viewed nearly 3,000 times. Along with pay, it's clear there's widespread concern regarding the future of probation both as a distinct enterprise and as to its ethical basis. This is heartening for anyone who 'gets it',  cares for its survival and in particular seeks to revisit our famous mantra of 'advise, assist and befriend'.

In the course of this evolving discussion I'm always intrigued by historical perspectives, one being an editorial in the British Journal of Community Justice by Prof Paul Senior and as probation marked its centenary in 2007. I hadn't seen this before and I think it's worth reflecting on as part of a continuing discourse:-   

1907–2007 – PROBATION: WAKE, CELEBRATION OR RE-BIRTH? 

The history of the probation service often reads like a continuous roller coaster moving with the changing winds of political demands, research findings and/or policy innovation. 

It has rarely stood still and this year, one hundred years on from its inception as an ‘official’ service in the 1907 Probation of Offenders Act its capacity to adapt and survive may be under terminal threat at least in England and Wales. At a time when the concept of probation is impacting positively on penal reform in such diverse areas as Eastern Europe, South America and many other jurisdictions the changes being fashioned by the government's agenda for offender management and in particular its unbending desire for contestability processes to govern service delivery options might sound the death knell for probation as we know it. 

The National Probation Directorate only created in 2001 to run the then new national service - seeking to bring coordination and centralisation to the previous diversity of 50 + individual services - is to go out of existence. The creation of Probation Trusts with new governance arrangements could spell the end of the Probation Boards and the ending of the influence of the Probation Boards Association which, alongside Napo, has been crucial to probation’s survival in recent years. Does this matter to community justice? Has probation lost its direction and maybe its right to oversee community provision for offenders and to support resettlement processes? The answers may be partially located in the past, but also in the space the present uncertainties create and, maybe, there is a future still to grasp. 

Whatever else you level at probation over the past century it has been an organisation whose capacity for innovation and inventiveness, indeed re-inventiveness, has never dimmed. Often attracting practitioners of singular commitment and creativity, if within a maelstrom of philosophical differences, it has never stood still in trying to respond to the seemingly intractable problems people in trouble with the criminal justice system face. In 1978 David Haxby amongst others posed the question of what kind of agency probation might become. Could it hold on to its community orientation, would it become more driven by the needs of the court or would it transform itself into an agency of community control. This ‘care/control’ dilemma was seemingly always regarded as a driving feature of probation practice, though its interpretation and execution continually shifted as new ideas, approaches and values impacted upon its practical application. 

The control and enforcement perspective gathered political weight in the last two decades of the 20th century alongside a growing recognition of the role of victims. Probation practice retreated to the office, developed stylised programmatic responses using cognitive behavioural techniques, governed by risk assessment procedures which sometimes seemed to be followed to justify actions post-hoc rather than as a pragmatic response to need. Outside agencies, mainly, initially, from the voluntary and community sector, were engaged ever more readily to undertake the more community-oriented aspects of traditional practice and probation managers seemed to buckle under any demand to change their practices as government control under a penal populist bandwagon became more and more insistent. Indeed what is remarkable amidst all this is that probation, at least in terms of audit, seemed to reach most of the targets the Home Office has set. Yet this has not dimmed the political mission to make further changes. 

What conclusions can be drawn about this recent history? Has probation failed to be brave and should it have shown a more resistant attitude to the demands of Blairite modernity much as the police have attempted to do? Or is it its comparatively weak structural position which would always make resistance ineffective? Has it lost its influential parliamentary friends which protected it until the 1980s and has it, as a viable organisational structure, simply had its day? These are contested questions which in this year, the centenary of probation, we must explore. We need to draw once more on that spirit of creativity and innovation to continue to find a meaningful role into the next century. This means looking back to learn from some of the successes of our past history whilst shaping a modern probation service which can be a relevant and vibrant part of the criminal justice system. 

A consistent message from research is that the services which both support and rehabilitate and supervise and control offenders are essential and complementary elements to both a public protection, community safety, rehabilitation and restorative agenda. If probation did not exist we would have to re-invent the services. Our next issue will be focussed on a Century of Probation and you can still contribute. Let’s take this opportunity to grasp the place back for probation in a community justice system. Are you up for the challenge?

Professor Paul Senior, Director, Hallam Centre for Community Justice, Sheffield Hallam University