I thought I would offer an update regarding my employment. My leaving the service approx 3 years ago was published anonymously as Guest Blog 84 in November 2021.
I took early retirement after 21 years as a probation officer (in 2021). however I then worked elsewhere for approx 18 months. My old senior and the chief then persuaded me that my experience was sadly missed and asked if I would return on a part time basis? The promise of a mentoring role, guiding inexperienced and newly qualified officers whilst supporting my old team was, I thought, an opportunity to return to the work I once loved.
I have now achieved 15 months back in post as a part time PO, my case load currently sits at 170% capacity (workload management tool). I am told what to do by numerous SPO’s who all have differing agendas. I have had no refresher training and yet the way OASys is now written bears no resemblance to how I was trained. I am micro managed in every aspect of the role and told all decisions regarding enforcement, breach, recall, transfers, amendments and warnings etc ‘must’ have management oversight.
The team is short staffed and cannot fill vacancies. I am told my role will change ‘when’ the vacancies are filled. People are now being directed to work at my office and sickness absence has reached new highs. Morale is lower than I have ever seen.
The Service is broken beyond repair. The core skills of a professional Probation Officer are no longer required or desired. Good performance is measured in OASys timeliness and constant management oversight. The development of effective and meaningful relationships with offenders is no longer encouraged or required.
Prisons are at capacity, early release is now common place, PSS licence is on the cusp of being ditched, IPP sentences are being revoked due to the lack of capacity rather than the effectiveness of risk management. When it all goes wrong and the inevitable SFO’s start to occur, it will be the hapless ineffectual and over worked Probation Officer who will be thrown under the bus!
I am done, I give in, this Gold Star Service is no more. I have become a square peg that could never fit the shapeshifting demands of the HMPPS. Hope this helps the cause.
Prisons are at capacity, early release is now common place, PSS licence is on the cusp of being ditched, IPP sentences are being revoked due to the lack of capacity rather than the effectiveness of risk management. When it all goes wrong and the inevitable SFO’s start to occur, it will be the hapless ineffectual and over worked Probation Officer who will be thrown under the bus!
I am done, I give in, this Gold Star Service is no more. I have become a square peg that could never fit the shapeshifting demands of the HMPPS. Hope this helps the cause.
Best wishes,
Anon
--oo00oo--
Have something to say? Want space to reflect? Want to get something off your chest, but anonymously? Why not hit the keyboard and send it in for publishing? jimbrown51@virginmedia.com
What you've written seems to universally chime for all of us. No one in senior management wants to deal with the problems and it just keeps getting worse. Probation is eating itself and the prison system is given primacy when its in a worse state that Probation; COM probation, especially, is the punchbag for the on-going and long-lasting and long-gestating problems of the service. If you're going to have early release panels or boards or faceless Whitehall mandarins then at least have representation from Probation involved or a hub so they can be accountable for their instructions. Making decisions without involving those tasked to carry them (not just instructed by a governor, head of service or even a case admin in the prison) out only creates more problems. Like the POPs we supervise, they need to understand consequential thinking as well. It's not just a criminal phenomena.
ReplyDeleteExactly my thoughts. For a while I thought it was just me.
DeleteIve left the Probation Service more times than most NQOs have served a year. Ive come back to Probation each time to find it more ethicially compromised, bureaucratic and unhappy. Threw in the towel, punch drunk, this Spring.
ReplyDeleteI miss Probation, but what I am missing doesnt exist anymore, so its more a protracted mourning process. Any recovery of a Probation Service with a beating rehabilitative independent soul is going to get more difficult to achieve as memories of what that actually is, fade away. Perhaps in the future some emmissary from a newly established economy might pop over here to show us how its done.
I totally agree.
DeleteI can only see the entire abolition of Probation (like the despised and now disbanded Tavistock Gender Identity Service) .... and then hopefully a new Service altogether could be created. Probation is profoundly and irredemably broken and can not be reformed - least of all by the Probation Managers who have failed for so long and so comprehensively.
ReplyDeleteUntil those who are directing the travel of probation can understand the difference between rehabilitation and deterrence, probation will never be fixed.
Delete'Getafix
I’ve an idea for all you burnt out disgruntled probation officers. Follow the example of guest blogger Tuesday 9 April 2024 and for a fast buck start up a coaching business to shoehorn graduates into the job you all hate. Haha!
ReplyDeletehttp://probationmatters.blogspot.com/2024/04/a-typical-day-at-office.html?m=1
Not often I laugh out loud - nearly choked on my digestive as well.....
DeleteHaha. Well at least you didn’t trip up in your Clark’s !!
DeleteThis is an interesting one from the Probation Institute, pg 22 - Clothing and Identity. Apparently we all wear lanyards, Clark’s and jackets probably with moleskin elbows (which I can see some truth in for those of us beyond a certain age).
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ec3ce97a1716758c54691b7/t/65f94392bbd0a51b50d70b2a/1710834593755/PQ31.pdf
Clothing and Identity
DeleteWhat you wear can communicate an array of
information about your identity to those around
you, even if you do not it intend to do so.
Probation work is not immune to this effect, and
in categorising and analysing the objects, the
theme of probation identity as being intertwined
with clothing began to emerge. This is primarily
seen in the coat stand, the lanyard, and the Clarks
shoes. Clothing is a powerful form of expression
and these objects, deliberately and inadvertently,
convey information on personality, status, values,
and political ideologies (Satrapa et al., 1992). As
such, these objects represent the physical
manifestation of a probation officer, an
expression of identity and meaning.
Whilst the notion that a probation officer is
required to “wear many hats” is familiar
(Ugwudike et al., 2019), one participant instead
defined their work by the various jackets worn in
their work. The coat stand conveys not only the
practical and literal use of jackets worn to court,
home visits or prisons, but also the symbolic
jacket “offering a chat, a smile, support and
guidance to those in need of them”. Despite the
lack of distinctive “visual cultural symbols”
(Mawby & Worrall, 2013, p. 141) or a prescribed
probation uniform, there are still implicit shared
understandings of how clothing interacts with
probation work. Demonstrated by the question
“Why do all probation officers wear those ******
stupid shoes?”, said of the Clarks ‘Cornish pasty’
shoes. This specific shoe style clearly implied something innately probation, a belonging to the
profession. Be it the style or practicality that
made the shoes a popular choice for probation
staff, they demonstrate the influential role
clothing can play in communication. Conversely,
clothing can be used as an explicit form of
messaging: “the probation lanyard provides many
practitioners with the opportunity to express
their own personal and professional interests and
identity.” For this participant, their lanyard
provided them with a space to represent their
identity and values, displayed through badges
and ribbons. Clothing, therefore, stands as a nonverbal tool, providing us with a representation of
probation work that transcends the spoken word.
https://www.thejournal.ie/gerry-mcnally-probation-service-interview-6351779-Apr2024/
ReplyDeleteA taster as I intend to republish the whole article:-
Delete“CAPTURE ‘EM, NAIL ‘EM, jail em” will not solve the problem of repeat offenders but including them in the community can positively move people away from a life of crime, Ireland’s most experienced Probation Service officer has said.
Gerry McNally has spent 45 years at the coal face of the Irish Probation Service, starting all the way back in 1978.
He has spent that time working in the courts and the prisons and found himself trying to set people back on a straight track.
He reached the level of Assistant Director with responsibility for research projects, policy briefings and special international projects. He’s also a former President of the Confederation of European Probation (CEP).
It has been a long journey from his Monaghan upbringing and his degree in English, philosophy and psychology. That degree led him to teaching for two years but an interest in probation and the law led him to take a second degree in social sciences.
He had no desire to become a social worker but was fascinated by the growing Irish interest in probation.
A riot in Mountjoy in 1971 saw then Justice Minister Dessie O’Malley work to find a different way of managing prisoners and to grow the Probation Service. McNally joined in 1978 and spent the rest of his professional life working in the area.
He has seen Ireland transform over the years and witnessed the societal impact of the heroin epidemic on the streets of Dublin in the 1980s and to the present era of organised crime mixed with the apparent hopelessness of drug addiction.
In those 45 years of service he said the greatest skill is dealing with people in the criminal justice system not as individuals to isolate but as people to be included in communities.
McNally believes fundamentally that his role is separate from that of the gardaí.
“Your purpose as a probation officer is about helping people change their behaviour – that the focus. So you’re actually working for the betterment of the community and the betterment of the individual.
“And you work in partnership – you’re supervising the person on behalf of the court. You’re exercising authority yes but there is no benefit for us to be dealing with them in a capture ‘em, nail em, jail ‘em way,” he said.
20+ years experience as a PO, many years following this blog; in my humble opinion, nothing short of a revolution will bring about the change needed for the Probation Service to succeed in regard to our now old fashioned views of support, befriend and assist!
ReplyDelete