The Probation Officer that the Probation Service has created
The blog is curated by you, JB. It is a compendium of opinions, mostly anonymous. Those opinions come from a wide range of standpoints. The 'fine line' is that anonymised posts are welcomed BUT they need to be read & understood in the context of factual subject matter. I enjoy the blog very much. I find some posts painful to read. Not the spiteful digs of politically motivated interlopers & not the shit-shovelling of those with a personal agenda. The most painful are those that evidence an overwhelming sense of the loss of humanity, of the loss of humanitarian values, posts that inherently display lethargy, division & selfishness, a bit like most new-build houses come fully furnished with appliances & decor, i.e. they lack a sense of authenticity of an individual or any element of risk-taking.
But this is an example of what I enjoy here:
I quite liked not having to make recommendations.
I don’t care about all that professional responsibility malarkey. Nobody respects poorly paid and overworked probation officers as it is.I'm torn as to whether that's mischief-making by a sad bastard or a real person saying what they really believe. The subsequent post, however, will have opened some eyes as it placed those comments in a context with facts:
I hope Raab appeals and wins.
Bear in mind CRC POs were effectively removed from parole processes for many years.Maybe that's what Raab wants, i.e. the CRC-model of a PO that just does what's asked without feeling the desire to involve themselves in other peoples' lives, other peoples' business or hold any sense of professional values. He could demote any number of managers at any level of his organogram & get exactly that, of course.
Take it a bit further. Stop focusing on Raab and his recommendations or Grayling and his privatisation. We could pretend to believe the Probation Officer was once a professional elite. A silent pillar of the Criminal Justice System, neither social worker nor enforcement agent. An expert at resettling prisoners after long sentences, helping aggressive or prolific offenders to CALM or Think First, walking those with complex needs through drug, alcohol and mental health support, and being the link between the Court, prison, the community and their future. An advisor to the Court, Parole Board, Mental Health Tribunals and anyone else needing an expert witness, opinion, risk assessment or plan involving a supervised offender.
It’s a nice memory for some, a rose-tinted nightmare for others. If we are to believe it was true, but then came successive Justice Ministers who stripped away the Probation Officer’s professionalism and removed their values while our Chief Officers, managers and unions stayed silent, mostly. Even that Probation Institute still hasn’t amounted to much more than “the lipstick on the TR pig”.
First, the Probation Officers title was changed to Offender Manager, Responsible Officer and Practitioner.
Second, our beloved Probation Service was changed to Trust, NPS, CRC then back to a Service again that looked very different from it once was.
Third, we were made to work for private companies for profit who made us follow erroneous practices, or cower under the civil service and government ministers that removed our professional authority to make independent decisions and recommendations.
Fourth, we were forcibly vetted and scrutinised by the police, made to adopt police assessments and procedures, and made to partner with the police at MAPPA IOM and elsewhere.
Fifth, we were denied pay rises and compelled to work increasingly excessive hours, with unmanageable caseloads and in unsafe, unhealthy and toxic office environments which caused hundreds and thousands to leave in droves never to return.
I could go on and on, it ends with the Probation Service being exposed as inadequate, dragged through the mud, and with some Probation Officers thrown under the bus, becoming mentally ill and committing suicide. It is this that has led to the “model of a PO that just does what's asked” because that is what is now required of a Probation Officer. The expectation is that targets, instructions and JFDI are followed “without feeling the desire to involve themselves in other peoples' lives, other peoples' business or hold any sense of professional values”. Probation Officers are not required to show “humanity”, or humanitarian values”, and how could they possibly do so within a Probation Service that by the very nature of its application causes “lethargy, division & selfishness”.
I’ll put it in simple terms so you don’t overthink this too much. I became a Probation Officer because it’s what I chose to do and initially I loved it, but now I don’t. Tomorrow I’ll turn up for work with a 170% caseload of 60 mostly high risk offenders. I’ll be bombarded by emails demands and requests from dawn until dusk from managers, prisons and other colleagues and professionals alike. I’m under constant threat and hoop-jumping of SFO investigations, complaint procedures and HMIP audits. I’m expected to turn up at legal hearings, team meetings and training events I have no time to prepare for. I’m trying my best but I can’t keep up unless I work 35 hours extra every week, which means I won’t spend enough time with my family and for a job that barely enables me to pay the bills or plan my future. It’s not just me, there are PQIPs, PSOs and PO around me that feel exactly the same, some have no idea what they’re doing and there’s not an experienced colleague or a manager in sight to learn from. The rest are off sick so receptionist is the most experienced person in the office.
If not making recommendations means one less paragraph in a report, one less hour at a hearing or one less question from an offender, their POM and their legal representative harassing me about whether I’m recommending their release then I’m all for it. I’d rather not complete another OASys, AP referral, EPF assessment ever again either. This by no means makes me “lethargic, selfish or divisive”, nor lacking “humanitarian values”. I am being the Probation Officer that the Probation Service has created in every single office across England and Wales. Not the rose-tinted one of of a decade ago but the robot-dog one of 2023. It’s not a vocation or a job for life either. I want a better job, a better paid one and as far away from the Probation Service as possible.
Its a great call-&-response piece. Hats off to the co-author who 'took it a bit further'. Good job, JB.
ReplyDeleteI think we can add the working from home culture to that list. I've no doubt that working from home 40% of the time makes an individual's job a lot easier - and it is a great way to make our meagre pay stretch a little bit further each month, having to commute less often. But has it also helped create a 'robot-dog' view of the work? I would say it has. Appointments missed by 'chaotic' clients (read: people that require the most humanity) aren't so readily rearranged and scooped up by their PO later in the week because they're not in the office that day, or they have 'back-to-back' appointments on the days they are in (of course a consequence of the horrific workload - not blaming the individual there). So people are bundled through the 'automatic enforcement' process much more readily, rather than first met and worked with at their level, to gain their trust and give them a chance. The senior leaders / government are of course the ones to blame for how the job has been steadily reduced to a box ticking exercise. But I have often had my doubts about how well this type of work (sentence management) lends itself to working from home and how it has likely helped contribute to a poorer Service... But good luck to the fool who gets rid of it, it's probably the only 'benefit' that's keeping the few staff left around!
ReplyDeleteI don’t blame senior leaders. I blame those that don’t follow instructions given.
ReplyDeleteIt is the fault of senior leaders. Probation managers and directors are supposed to speak up for the organisations they represent. They didn’t do this, in fact many did the opposite and supported the most detrimental of strategies.
DeleteWhat’s that about crc model of Probation Officer who doesn’t involve their selves in people’s business or hold any sense of professional values
ReplyDeleteRead the whole thing rather than get stuck on one point in isolation.
DeleteOMG - so true
ReplyDeleteThe Government are guilty of failing so many.
‘I’ll put it in simple terms so you don’t overthink this too much. I became a Probation Officer because it’s what I chose to do and initially I loved it, but now I don’t. Tomorrow I’ll turn up for work with a 170% caseload of 60 mostly high risk offenders. I’ll be bombarded by emails demands and requests from dawn until dusk from managers, prisons and other colleagues and professionals alike. I’m under constant threat and hoop-jumping of SFO investigations, complaint procedures and HMIP audits. I’m expected to turn up at legal hearings, team meetings and training events I have no time to prepare for. I’m trying my best but I can’t keep up unless I work 35 hours extra every week, which means I won’t spend enough time with my family and for a job that barely enables me to pay the bills or plan my future. It’s not just me, there are PQIPs, PSOs and PO around me that feel exactly the same, some have no idea what they’re doing and there’s not an experienced colleague or a manager in sight to learn from. The rest are off sick so receptionist is the most experienced person in the office.’