Guest Blog 97

Probation re-set, revise and regret

I reset my email password today, that’s something you re-set. You do not re-set an entire organisation with over 100 years of history. It’s been discussed in the shadows for some time now, but the dye has been cast, the touch paper is lit. They’re calling it Probation Re-set, the whisper has become a reality though we do not need a “re-set”, we need resources, independence and staff.

First they “transformed” probation, which really meant dismantling and privatising. Then they “unified” probation which meant joining two disjointed organisations and papering over the mistakes of the past decade. Now the wallpaper is peeling off the walls and HMPpS is using probation to absorb the smoke of the prison overcrowding crisis, blaming probation for recalls and deluding us to believe it needs to be “re-set”. My question is re-set to what exactly?

Probation is not being re-set to its gold medal award status of over a decade ago, it is not being re-set and returned to its social work roots of advise, assist and befriend, it is not being re-set and detached from the hangman’s noose of the civil and prison services. The “re-set” will scrap PSS and terminate all supervised cases at the two thirds point, excepting those registered as MAPPA and child protection cases. All sentence management contact under PSS will cease. All supervision appointments delivered by probation will cease in the final third (unless the exception criteria is met). Contact for People on Licence (PoLs?) will cease in the final third (unless exception criteria is met).

I remember when probation fought to provide supervisory support to those sentenced to under 12 months in custody. We didn’t expect this to arrive in the form of Post Sentence Supervision (PSS), which ramped up workloads and forced support onto many released prisoners that did not require it. Short term sentences should have been replaced by community sentences and PSS should have been legislated as optional for those released from short term prison sentences. If PSS needed to be mandatory then this should have been for the first three months and only extended by mutual agreement and without enforcement practices. Instead there has been a total u-turn and community supervision is being reduced, PSS to be suspended or scrapped altogether and supervised individuals no longer supported in the last third of their supervision. Have we missed the evidence-based research that told HMPpS experts those in the last third of a sentence do not need support, won’t commit crime, or pose a risk to themselves, victims and communities?

If probation is an agency of rehabilitation, enforcement, risk management and public protection then this surely will not be achieved by cancelling supervision and support when it could be needed most. Under “re-set” guidelines an individual could be sentenced to a few years in prison or put on probation, released 60 days in advance of the half way point, to then have their supervision suspended after 6 months on probation. Without dwelling on whether this is what the Courts and victims expect a sentence to be in actual fact, it does not sound very rehabilitative for those in need of help and support.

The rhetoric is that “we will reset probation so that practitioners prioritise early engagement at the point where offenders are most likely to breach their licence conditions. That will allow front-line staff to maximise supervision of the most serious offenders”. The first big elephant in the room is that once again probation is being twisted into an agency for supervising “serious offenders”. Many individuals do not start off as serious offenders and can still require support which will no longer be available. The support that could be needed for those released from prison 60 days early, homeless, penniless and addicted is to be reduced instead of improved. 

The second is that supervisory relationships do not always flourish until the very last periods of sentences. This will no longer happen when supervision is cancelled, not for good progress, but because the computer calculated that an individuals two thirds are up.

The cynical person I am thinks that Probation Re-set is part of the grand design of OneHMPpS which has consumed the Probation Service alive, warts and all. All HMPPS, Rees & Co needed to do was let go of their grip on the Probation Service and allow it to improve its staffing, practices and resources under a more localised control structure. Instead they’re continuing Grayling’s legacy by dismantling what’s left and ensuring probation is no longer a provider of probation services. Or we can be like the Emperor and believe the lies that Probation Re-set is going to save probation, at least for five minutes!

“The Emperor walked under his high canopy in the midst of the procession, through the streets of his capital. All the people standing by, and those at the windows, cried out, “Oh! How beautiful are our Emperor’s new clothes! “But he has nothing at all on!” at last cried out all the people. The Emperor was upset, for he knew that the people were right, and the Emperor walked on in his underwear.”

Probation Officer