"After 14 years of chaotic reorganisations, the national probation service is struggling to keep the public safe. A lack of co-ordination between prisons, probation and other local services also means prison-leavers are not getting the right support, raising the risk that they go straight back to crime.
In some areas of the country, we have seen Labour Mayors pioneering a more joined-up approach to reduce reoffending. In Greater Manchester, probation is linked up with housing and health services to ensure offenders leaving custody receive the support they need. Labour will conduct a strategic review of probation governance, including considering the benefits of devolved models."
At last there is an opportunity of wresting probation away from the clutches of HMPPS and the dead hand command and control of the civil service!
--oo00oo--
Many thanks to readers, supporters and contributors for wishing me well on the treatment journey. Fatigue will be an issue, but things are going well and I have much reason to hope for a bright future.
From Twitter:-
ReplyDelete"It is indeed encouraging. I hope all current staff and stakeholders will ensure they have an excellent understanding of governance arrangements and recent governance history so they can influence the review effectively and intelligently." Sally Lewis former probation CEO
This is good news but we cannot trust Probation senior leaders, to be the voice of Probation in this process. Neither should the Chief Inspector be trusted with the defence at all costs being mounted at every inspection that voices support for the excellent leaders who have presided over the decline, and by any measure have proven to be poor. Please remember their evidenced behaviour in being entirely complicit in the current mess probation is in. So yes bring on a strategic review but for God’s sake don’t involve the current shower of senior managers!
ReplyDeleteAgreed. I can’t think of a decent rpd across the country
DeleteWe had a good one who moved to AED. Now it's a former head who was in charge when the London bridge attacks happened...
DeleteAt present we are in a huge crisis. Lack of staff, lack of prison space, gold command nonsense everywhere.
ReplyDeleteI'll vote Labour for the next 30 years no questions asked, as long as they dig a great big hole and bury Oasys, then cover that hole in cement, dig the hole up and finally shoot it off into space with a sign on it saying 'do not open'....
ReplyDeleteI agree, but remember who was in government when OASys was imposed on us!! It was always linked to allowing central monitoring from London
DeleteIf you want to vote Labour, be prepared for another few years of war, misery and deprivation.
DeleteOn July 4th, Labour are going to have a massive lead in the polls.
DeleteWell, until around 6pm when all the Conservative voters finish work....
A strong Labour government will be worse than a weak Tory one - the knight of the realm, Sir Keir Starmer, will use that relationship with unions to further take away workers rights, and they'll more than likely just continue ploughing money into the Israeli and Ukranian military.
DeleteKeir isn’t going to set the world alight. But he has surrounded himself with some very good people.
DeleteSuch as ? And as an aside, he's kicked out a lot of the left of the party.
DeleteLabour tried two elections led by ‘the left’. They didn’t win! Getting into power is the key. You need to appeal to the masses.
DeleteOASys was the biggest poo ever to enter the system & adds nothing to reducing offending.
Delete@anon 19:49 - "Labour tried two elections led by ‘the left’. They didn’t win!"
DeleteYes, and that was perhaps due to Corbyns backtracking around Brexit and the antisemitism smear. Sadly, St Jeremiah wasn't strong enough to fight.
"You need to appeal to the masses."
The Corbyn years saw thousands of people joining the Labour Party, but that doesn't seem to be the case now.
The Labour Party is a dead end.
ReplyDeleteBest option available
DeleteAnd that is of course false. Labour will likely just continue a lot of the same things as tories, like continued nhs privatization and more austerity.
DeletePlease do share your wisdom as to the better party to vote for in terms of investing in public services.
DeleteGladly. I would advise people to look into who their local candidates are, and if you have any decent left alternatives, like WPB, vote for them, but if its all Labour, avoid. Having said that, its entirely up to people how to vote, but please don't fool yourselves into thinking Labour offer some sort of amazing change or that its the "lesser of two evils". It is equally as evil and you only have to look at the partys history to see that.
DeleteInevitably and reasonably, Labour ministers in a new Labour Government will require their civil servants to conduct the review of probation...and prisons. My absolute red line is that Probation must be removed from HMPPS and civil service. If there is to be any chance of those civil servants being compelled to REALLY look at the issues, and hopefully recommend that they themselves give up their grip on Probation, of which btw they seem to have no understanding or knowledge at all (pauses for breath this is a ludicrously long sentence) then sustained pressure must be applied.
ReplyDeletePearly Gates
Christ I can't read this crap it's not like you ain't seen it before . Devolved models means deconstruction yet again and I'm surprised at Sally Lewis being in the top job don't mean you are actually smart . We know this anyway but read between the lines. Don't forget it was labour that left the privatised legislation on the book for the Tories and grayling to carve us up and dump us into privateers. Let's get aggressive and stop this passive welcome hope.
ReplyDeleteAnd let's not ignore the whole pfi nonsense that Blair was responsible for. The nhs still has to pay out millions for it, and under Labour that's set to continue, as well as further privatization. It impacts everyone, but I bet hits your clients a bit harder - what's an extra few months waiting for that mental health assessment when you've already waited a year or two, and there's no need for a seasoned time served psychiatric nurse when you've got some volunteers to do peer work, which is because they have lived experience, not because it's just a cheap and hyper-exploitative set up.....
DeleteThe failed CRC experiment cost Grayling et al £500 million. The assimilation of probation into the civil service and associated costs must be ...substantial.
ReplyDeleteI can't help but think that it's naive to believe that even more money is going to be thrown at either establishing a new independent probation service or expecting beleaguered councils to pick up the bill.
£571 million and that was before the reunification God knows the up to date cost !
DeleteProbation is broken and it’ll take years to repair.
ReplyDeleteHere in the southeast the senior leadership is corrupt. They are so invested in command and control staff are completely robotic and simply unable to make their own decisions any more.
The probation officers that were able to practice autonomously have all left. The current training creates officers who don’t know what they’re doing and need to be told what to do.
The senior probation officers are completely inept.
The whole of the southeast failed on their hmip inspections and yet the rpd, the hoops and head of interventions all kept their jobs. They set the culture, the strategy and direction and are the ones responsible for the failings, not the poor frontline staff.
Whichever flavour of government gets in these people will still be running the service.
Oh no!! Please do not allow Antonio Romeo anywhere near this review. Remember her and her Civil Service dictatorship during TR……she’s still at MoJ please keep her away, she damaged Probation nearly as much as Grayling!
ReplyDeleteAs far as I know, civil servants do as they are told by their political masters.
DeleteStop press:- "Permanent secretary at the Ministry of Justice Antonia Romeo becomes a Dame Commander."
DeleteWell she will be in charge of the new makeover look out.
DeleteWell, she was party to breaking it, so now she can mend it. Breaking things is pretty easy. Rebuilding is a whole other game, I hope the next government is up to this across the piece, and given the time to do it, and I also hope for Probation that the combined voices of Unions, academics, inspectors, and if we are lucky, some good MPs, all of whom have called out this fiasco, keep the pressure on
DeletePearly Gates
The inspectors protect the senior managers and make the frontline officers accountable for everything of concern they find. Inspectors never ever see the true picture.
DeleteWhatever review is undertaken it needs to be urgent.
ReplyDeleteThey way they're trying to deal with the prison capacity crisis is just acceleting the complete breakdown of the CJS.
https://insidetime.org/newsround/capacity-crisis-half-of-early-released-prisoners-come-straight-back/
Hence why an Initial Sentence Plan needs to be carried out once they're in custody and if ECSL does come up, a rationale for why, which is risk-based, needs to be made available to Community Probation. Moreover, offence-focused work has to be evidenced and mandatory before ECSL is eligible and resettlement teams in custody need to be more proactive. Otherwise, this is one in, one out, one in, one out (repeat) and shake it all about. The Public need to be honestly informed that high risk offenders in most categories (save for sex offending, MAPPA and terrorism) are being released, including D.V cases. The ECSL panels should have senior probation managers overseeing these cases, this is clearly not the case, as the cases are not risk-informed. Having a laundry list of what has to happen pre-release of ECSL cases expected in a very short space of time, when community probation is already beyond overstretched, isn't helping. It's a bit more nuanced than that. Well, it would be, if COMs were consulted, seeing as they have to manage said case and it's much harder to do that in the wilds of the community than in custody. Divisions created by prison/probation are both the issue of the ECSL which is biased to custody and that prisons believe that as they have primacy this is do as I say, not as i do (or what I didn't do because ECSL gives this a free pass). Let's not lose sight of the collective goal to protect the public and reduce crime and help to rehabilitate. Empathy from those with self-designated primacy would also be helpful. Not simply waving an Annex about. Otherwise, it's one in, one out or sometimes that changes, but not to any great effect. Community Probation yet again the panacea punchbag for all the things than need fixing.
DeleteThere's also an other article in Inside Time that's worth a note peehaps.
DeleteIt relates to a sharp increase of male prisoners being transfered from high security prisons to the cat c estate.
https://insidetime.org/newsround/more-men-moved-out-of-high-security-jails/
'Getafix
From InsideTime:-
DeleteUp to half the prisoners released early under a Government scheme intended to release overcrowding have been recalled to jail for breaching their licence or reoffending, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph.
More than 100 prisoners a month are being recalled at some jails, Prison Service sources told the newspaper. In one probation area, more than 200 offenders were reportedly freed, with half recalled within a week.
Prison watchdogs have blamed jail bosses for releasing prisoners without an address to go to, which meant they ended up homeless, increasing the risk of breaching their licence or reoffending.
The disclosure comes after the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) extended the End of Custody Supervised Licence scheme to allow for the release of prisoners up to 70 days before their scheduled date. The sudden recalls threaten to undermine the effort to tackle the prison crisis.
ECSL was introduced in England and Wales after warnings that prisons would run out of spaces within weeks. A Prison Service source told the Daily Telegraph said the numbers being recalled were “staggering”, adding: “There are over 100 a month in some places easily.”
It is understood the recalls relate to breaches of licence conditions but not necessarily for committing further offences. Reasons are likely to have included failing to attend appointments with probation or drug agencies, or breaches of orders barring individuals from particular geographical areas.
The problem has been highlighted in reports by Charlie Taylor, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, including a man who was released early from the Segregation unit at Lewes prison without a home to go to. He was back in custody before the 11-day inspection visit was over.
Probation officers have also raised concerns about people convicted of domestic abuse being released early. One probation officer was quoted by The Times as having said that ECSL is “an absolute shambles” and that probation officers’ over the threat being posed by some who are let out are being ignored.
Taylor said: “The scheme is unavoidable given the overcrowding in prisons, but is being introduced so quickly that there has not been enough time for the probation service and other agencies to prepare.”
The probation officers’ trade union, Napo, took issue with comments made by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak about ECSL in the House of Commons. Sunak told MPs: “There are strict eligibility criteria in place, with exclusions based on public safety. No one would be put on the scheme if they were deemed a threat to public safety … Offenders are subject to the toughest of licensing conditions and, if those conditions are broken, they are back in prison for considerably longer.”
Napo said: “To be crystal clear, these statements are inaccurate and Napo members across England and Wales can cite hundreds of examples since the ECSL scheme was launched in October 2023 to evidence this. Whether the Prime Minister deliberately lied to Parliament depends on how well he was advised on ECSL before he stood up in the House of Commons and started speaking. It may well be the case that, rather than being an outright liar, he simply hasn’t got a clue what he’s talking about and just parroted out whatever nonsense was written down in his briefing papers.”
The number of men being transferred from maximum-security Category A prisons to less-secure jails has leapt during the current capacity crisis.
DeleteBetween 2015 and 2022, between 400 and 900 prisoners per year were downgraded from Cat A prisons to lower-category establishments. However, in 2023 the number increased sharply, with 1,492 such transfers, according to new figures from the Ministry of Justice.
In normal times, a prisoner leaving a Cat A prison would usually step down one tier, to a Cat B or Reception prison. However, in 2023 there was a steep rise in the number who moved directly to Category C jails, the lowest security level among closed prisons.
The year saw 721 transfers from Cat A jails directly to Cat C jails. Over the previous eight years, the annual total of transfers from Cat A to Cat C never went above 212.
Experts said the trend was likely to be linked to the capacity crisis, which at times has seen the number of free places in the prisons of England and Wales drop below 1,000, prompting the Government to introduce early release schemes to keep a cap on numbers. One told Inside Time: “I think the capacity crisis is likely to be playing a part – Category B prisons are likely to be feeling the squeeze with both reception and resettlement functions, so perhaps more are transitioning straight to Cat C trainers as a result.”
Changes to prison rules on categorisation and allocation, and a catch-up following the Covid pandemic when transfers between prisons were halted, may also be playing a part.
The figures were released by the Ministry of Justice in May, before the general election was called. Disclosing them in Parliament in response to an MP’s question, Prisons Minister Edward Argar said: “Prisoners cannot be transferred into a prison with a lower security category than their individual classification. Moves from higher to lower security classification prisons relate to prisoners who are progressing through the prison system as their assessed risk decreases.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/15/in-middlesbrough-i-found-drug-dealers-and-their-victims-locked-in-a-circle-of-despair
ReplyDeleteThis is the reality of life here, it isn’t easy being in frontline probation work in Middlesbrough.
Prisons are full because of breach by probation staff , disgusting , a friend of mine a solicitor in wales , probatio asking for jsil
ReplyDeleteAt every opportunity , bench laugh at them , what have we become ?