Bit late today due to a lie-in, but back to the day job, the following exchanges came in a couple of days ago and deserves some attention I think:-
"The prison service was actually more helpful to my OH than probation have been since release. Probation have done absolutely nothing at all to rehabilitate."That's strange because most people who work in Probation would see it the other way around. Prisons have primacy in most cases and are very good at shifting the risk onto probation as soon as possible. The ECSL has only increased their ability to talk down to probation in the community. These early releases are clearly not risk-informed and there is no rationale given and the prisons hide behind it using the dreaded Annex that community probation has to fill in whilst the clock is ticking until very short notice release.
Resettlement teams, which are costed and funded, are next to useless but remain in the prison for giggles and show. I've had a prison tell me they don't resettle high risk offenders but house them, which makes no sense. They don't alert probation to changes of release dates and ignore pleas from probation to have offenders undertake offence-focused work.
This offender has had a unique experience if prisons helped him more than probation. Prisons do the bare minimum and then shove the risk onto probation and that's been made much easier because there's been no time to undertake offence-focused work and resettlement (they have access to the internet- so no excuses about local this or that) before countdown to yet another early release which has been a pick-n-mix of all kinds of risk levels, despite the public being told 'no high risk ECSL'.
Why can't they just concentrate on the low and medium risk cases; be more risk-informed when these cases are chosen; be accountable in the form of a rationale; not hide behind an Annex which is the obligation of probation to deal with, and just be a bit more team orientated instead of thinking they're the kings of the castle and we're the dirty rascals.
Prisons need to do and be much better. Probation is damaged and broken but as we get to little to no funding and it's harder to manage offenders in the community, frankly on what we get, which are crumbs, we perform miracles. Perhaps the £46K a year they save on shoving/imposing ECSL cases onto probation can be used to sort out some of the issues in probation. Just a thought. Oh, that's passed. Back to reality.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cevv4pn0zpwo.amp
ReplyDeleteHad it been pos we would have been gone fast as . The prisons do nothing but claim credit.
Two police officers who failed to investigate an allegation of abuse by the serial rapist David Carrick have been given final written warnings and will keep their jobs.
DeleteInsp David Tippets and PC Emma Fisher, of Wiltshire Police, faced a disciplinary panel over their handling of a complaint in 2016 against Carrick, a serving Metropolitan Police officer at the time.
The allegation was made five years before the former police constable was first arrested.
An Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) probe - which prompted the hearing - found if the officers had searched Carrick's name on the crime recording system, they would have found he was under investigation for abusing another woman.
In February 2023, Carrick was jailed for a minimum of 30 years for 49 violent and sexual offences, including 24 counts of rape against 12 women.
The IOPC's investigation began in July 2023 after the force voluntarily referred itself to the watchdog.
The misconduct allegations centred on a call in 2016 from a member of the public who reported that Carrick had abused another woman.
The complainant wanted Carrick investigated.
PC Fisher was assigned to the case, and requested its closure after speaking to the woman who reported it.
Insp Tippetts, who was her supervisor and a police sergeant at the time, agreed with the decision.
Afterwards, PC Fisher updated the computer system to say the woman who had reported the allegation said the matter had been investigated some time earlier, when there was no record of any previous investigation.
Neither officer checked the system, nor took any further steps to resolve case.
Carrick's alleged victim was never contacted about the allegation either, the IOPC found.
Despite being told that Carrick was a serving officer, PC Fisher and Insp Tippets did not notify the Met's Directorate of Professional Standards about the serious allegation.
They also failed to seek advice from their own Professional Standards Department.
The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) should also have been informed to enable detectives to re-visit the woman who reported the allegation and to contact the alleged victim.
'Horrific spate of offending'
Mel Palmer, the IOPC regional director, said: “No-one is to blame for David Carrick’s horrific spate of offending but him."
The watchdog ruled there had been a "missed opportunity" by Wiltshire Police to investigate Carrick, following a report made years before he was eventually arrested.
PC Fisher was found to have demonstrated "minimal work or effort" to investigate Carrick, and she was found to have worked against the force's policy by failing to flag concerns to the CID.
The panel concluded that both officers had breached the standards of behaviour relating to duties and responsibilities and discreditable conduct and that their actions amounted to misconduct.
As a result, they were given final written warnings lasting for two years.
Wiltshire Police deputy chief constable Craig Dibdin said: “This is a clear case of officers failing, in the most basic sense, to properly investigate allegations made to them.
“This failure in service was compounded by a lack of proper oversight and scrutiny by a supervisor.
"Whilst it would be inappropriate to comment on the ongoing IOPC investigation, clearly the public will have questions as to the impact this inaction might have had on Carrick’s vile offending after 2016.
“I would like to apologise unreservedly to the person whose report we did not initially investigate as we should."
This is exactly the tone set over the last decade or so by govt & most "excellent leaders" across the uk, i.e. “This failure in service was compounded by a lack of proper oversight and scrutiny by a supervisor."
DeleteTranslated into modern-speak on't day that Kafka & Orwell are celebrated on't BBC:
"We did what we could at the time.
It turns out we did not do what we were supposed to do or what we were trained & paid to do, so of course we tried to cover it up.
We were eventually caught out & so we apologise. We hold out our hands for a slap on the wrist. We did not say we were sorry, although we do regret being caught out
It is what it is. We are where we are. No use crying over spilt milk.
(No D-Day veterans were harmed during the fabrication of this statement)."
In terms of a broken prison system, isn't Whole Life Order prison Damien Bendall facing further charges of alleged assault for hitting another inmate with a claw hammer whilst in the prison workshop? What risk assessments are they undertaking with a quadruple killer, in a Cat A prison, who used weapons to brutally kill four people, including children, is allowed to work in the workshop where there are tools which are potentially lethal in his hands? Perhaps it's no wonder they leave risk assessing to probation because how they identify ECSL cases seems to also have be wholly absent of being risk-informed. It's very worrying. No problem with prisons having primacy but they're clearly not up to the responsibility. A PQIP could see that giving him access to weapons when, I assume, he's Very High ROSH with weapons registrations is potentially very dangerous and dare I say it, very risky. Do prisons risk manage on some other model of risk management that is like the 11 herbs and spices of a KFC dish-a secret formula probation isn't aware of? Leave it to Probation- we're the experts of managing people without prison officers, keys, cells, large walls and security regimes. Perhaps it's time to give over primacy to the other 'P' in HMPPS?
ReplyDeleteFrom Twitter:-
ReplyDelete"This is slightly offensive to the probation officers and prison offender managers who are trained to manage risk in a prison. They all work incredibly hard to manage the people on their caseload and are fully aware of how different the risk is on the outside."
Probation officer work in prison was always a doss and still is. Used to be known as the elephants graveyard for probation officers. Prisons / OMUs are hiding behind their Gold Command and push all the pressure, responsibility and decisions onto probation officers in the community. We see those ECSL email demands and want to throw the laptop out the window.
Delete“probation officers and prison offender managers who are trained to manage risk in a prison. They all work incredibly hard to manage the people on their caseload”
DeleteOtherwise known as locking the cell door and grabbing a cup of tea before firing off a dozen emails to tell probation officers a bunch of prisoners are being released homeless in the next few days.
Clearly written by individuals with little experience of prison work or full understanding of the omic model.
DeleteAn omic model which dumps a significant number of service level KPIs at community probation's door. The latest is the pre-release OASys 10-2 weeks prior to release, a timespan that does not account for ECSL.
DeleteFrom Twitter:-
ReplyDelete"Prison and probation staff should not be looking at each other to apportion blame. There are issues on both sides, but we should be standing together with our shared anger and frustration, directing it at those who have overseen the decimation of our public services."
Unfortunately the way ECSL is designed it favours the prison. If it was more equal and that community probation had a say in releases other than the very high threshold or rejected Annex M then I would agree. But prisons are hiding behind it. This default intransigence stance is frustrating and leaves community probation put upon. If prisons did more offence-focused work, more resettlement, used more pastoral care, advised and befriended rather than just warehouse offenders there might be fewer recalls and you might see the prison population tangibly reduce. As it is, it’s a merry-go-round of musical cells.
DeletePrisons don't disappear problems,they disappear human beings- Angela Davies
DeleteCompletely agree
DeleteFrom Twitter:-
ReplyDelete"Staggering isn't, in the 90`s as a PO/SPO I could always find a person accommodation either released from prison or from court, now days it is almost impossible. SPO sometimes carried cases as well."
The answer seems to be everyone can go to an AP
ReplyDelete