Thousands of prisoners are about to be released early. Is probation ready?
I met Anthony by the gates of Thameside prison in south-east London. A skinny, gaunt-looking man in his 40s, he’d spent much of his adult life in and out of jail for offences linked to his mental health problems and addiction to drugs. His latest spell inside had lasted eight months. He was hugely relieved to be out and vowed, like so many other newly-released prisoners, never to go back.
Over the next few hours I joined Anthony and a support worker from a charity on a car journey across London as they raced against the clock to find him a bed for the night, register with a GP, so he could get the medication he needed, visit a benefits office and attend a probation appointment. It was a crazy few hours – complicated by the fact that Anthony’s identification documents were stuck in another prison and there’d been little time to organise things in advance of his release.
That encounter with Anthony, for a radio feature a few years ago, came to mind as the government prepares to free some 2,000 prisoners on Tuesday – double the number they usually let out in a week. It’s the first stage of a scheme which will see 5,000 prisoners let out early in September and October to create space in jails across England and Wales, where the population has reached a record high of 88,521. Inmates will serve 40 per cent of their sentence in custody instead of the standard 50 per cent.
However much planning has taken place, many of those released will face the same mad dash as Anthony did to access the services that will help them re-settle in the community. Key to it all will be the probation staff charged with their supervision. Since 2015, every offender, no matter how short their sentence, must be monitored by probation for at least 12 months after they leave jail. It’s a huge burden on a service which is overstretched and under-performing.
Only two out of 12 probation regions are operating satisfactorily, according to the latest ‘scorecard’ from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ). Three areas – East Midlands; London; Kent, Surrey and Sussex – are rated ‘inadequate’, seven are said to require improvement. In his final report after four years as chief inspector of probation, Justin Russell said his ‘greatest’ concerns were around public protection with staff unable to accurately assess and robustly manage the potential risk of serious harm posed by some offenders. Russell highlighted poor supervision and unmanageable workloads, with some officers dealing with 40 or more cases each.
A large part of the problem is that there aren’t enough staff. The MoJ wants there to be 7,339 fully-qualified probation officers, yet there’s currently a shortfall of 2,179. Leaving rates are up and most alarmingly, every year up to 20 per cent of trainees drop out before they even qualify.
To address the staffing crisis Martin Jones, the new chief inspector, has suggested reducing the burden on existing probation officers by removing the requirement to supervise prisoners who’ve served short sentences. It would cut the caseload by around 40,000, 17 per cent of the current total, and give staff more time to do meaningful rehabilitation work with offenders who pose a greater public threat. It’s an attractive idea but politically deadly: an unsupervised prisoner will inevitably commit a ghastly crime and ministers will get the blame.
A better option would be to tackle the bureaucracy surrounding probation work so staff have more one-on-one time with offenders. Russell highlighted Civil Service rules that meant it could take weeks to order equipment and fill posts. ‘Multiple layers of approvals and standardised and centralised commissioning processes stifle innovation and can feel disempowering for local leaders,’ he wrote. Officers also complain about legislative demands and data management requirements that they have to fulfil but which aren’t part of their core duties, as well as clunky IT systems that make every task take longer. If workloads are to be made manageable, this is an area the MoJ must urgently focus on.
The department appears to be pinning its hopes on a campaign to hire an extra 1,000 trainee probation officers. That will undoubtedly ease some of the pressures, but it would be a mistake to think that simply boosting numbers will improve performance. A theme of recent reviews into murders committed by offenders on probation is a lack of ‘professional curiosity’ on the part of officers entrusted with their supervision – they’re too willing to accept what they’re told at face value and don’t inquire deeply enough into what’s going on in the background. Much of this is down to inexperience: one-third of probation staff have been in the service for less than five years. A recruitment drive is unlikely to address that problem unless it’s targeted at older people who can bring skills from different walks of life.
Indeed, that was the recommendation from a report carried out for the Conservative government which said the probation service needed to hire more ‘career changers’ in their 30s, 40s and 50s. The findings of the review, which wasn’t published, also called for the service to bring in more men. Seventy-five per cent of probation staff are women but 91 per cent of those they supervise are male. The chief probation officer, Kim Thornden-Edwards, has agreed that the gender mix needs to change to give senior staff more options when allocating cases. ‘It might be really good for a woman to be leading on a domestic abuse case – but also, it might be good for a man to be challenging those kind of issues around masculinity and power from a male perspective,’ she told the BBC.
Thornden-Edwards made those remarks 18 months ago, but the gender balance in probation hasn’t shifted. If the service is to be more effective at keeping the public safe and helping offenders with rehabilitation the workforce needs to be more diverse, particularly in terms of age, life experience and gender. That is not to denigrate those who currently work there, they are doing a valuable and challenging job. But we should acknowledge that they need more support so that former prisoners like Anthony and the thousands exiting jail this week get the best chance to turn their lives around.
Danny Shaw
I met Anthony by the gates of Thameside prison in south-east London. A skinny, gaunt-looking man in his 40s, he’d spent much of his adult life in and out of jail for offences linked to his mental health problems and addiction to drugs. His latest spell inside had lasted eight months. He was hugely relieved to be out and vowed, like so many other newly-released prisoners, never to go back.
Over the next few hours I joined Anthony and a support worker from a charity on a car journey across London as they raced against the clock to find him a bed for the night, register with a GP, so he could get the medication he needed, visit a benefits office and attend a probation appointment. It was a crazy few hours – complicated by the fact that Anthony’s identification documents were stuck in another prison and there’d been little time to organise things in advance of his release.
That encounter with Anthony, for a radio feature a few years ago, came to mind as the government prepares to free some 2,000 prisoners on Tuesday – double the number they usually let out in a week. It’s the first stage of a scheme which will see 5,000 prisoners let out early in September and October to create space in jails across England and Wales, where the population has reached a record high of 88,521. Inmates will serve 40 per cent of their sentence in custody instead of the standard 50 per cent.
However much planning has taken place, many of those released will face the same mad dash as Anthony did to access the services that will help them re-settle in the community. Key to it all will be the probation staff charged with their supervision. Since 2015, every offender, no matter how short their sentence, must be monitored by probation for at least 12 months after they leave jail. It’s a huge burden on a service which is overstretched and under-performing.
Only two out of 12 probation regions are operating satisfactorily, according to the latest ‘scorecard’ from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ). Three areas – East Midlands; London; Kent, Surrey and Sussex – are rated ‘inadequate’, seven are said to require improvement. In his final report after four years as chief inspector of probation, Justin Russell said his ‘greatest’ concerns were around public protection with staff unable to accurately assess and robustly manage the potential risk of serious harm posed by some offenders. Russell highlighted poor supervision and unmanageable workloads, with some officers dealing with 40 or more cases each.
A large part of the problem is that there aren’t enough staff. The MoJ wants there to be 7,339 fully-qualified probation officers, yet there’s currently a shortfall of 2,179. Leaving rates are up and most alarmingly, every year up to 20 per cent of trainees drop out before they even qualify.
To address the staffing crisis Martin Jones, the new chief inspector, has suggested reducing the burden on existing probation officers by removing the requirement to supervise prisoners who’ve served short sentences. It would cut the caseload by around 40,000, 17 per cent of the current total, and give staff more time to do meaningful rehabilitation work with offenders who pose a greater public threat. It’s an attractive idea but politically deadly: an unsupervised prisoner will inevitably commit a ghastly crime and ministers will get the blame.
A better option would be to tackle the bureaucracy surrounding probation work so staff have more one-on-one time with offenders. Russell highlighted Civil Service rules that meant it could take weeks to order equipment and fill posts. ‘Multiple layers of approvals and standardised and centralised commissioning processes stifle innovation and can feel disempowering for local leaders,’ he wrote. Officers also complain about legislative demands and data management requirements that they have to fulfil but which aren’t part of their core duties, as well as clunky IT systems that make every task take longer. If workloads are to be made manageable, this is an area the MoJ must urgently focus on.
The department appears to be pinning its hopes on a campaign to hire an extra 1,000 trainee probation officers. That will undoubtedly ease some of the pressures, but it would be a mistake to think that simply boosting numbers will improve performance. A theme of recent reviews into murders committed by offenders on probation is a lack of ‘professional curiosity’ on the part of officers entrusted with their supervision – they’re too willing to accept what they’re told at face value and don’t inquire deeply enough into what’s going on in the background. Much of this is down to inexperience: one-third of probation staff have been in the service for less than five years. A recruitment drive is unlikely to address that problem unless it’s targeted at older people who can bring skills from different walks of life.
Indeed, that was the recommendation from a report carried out for the Conservative government which said the probation service needed to hire more ‘career changers’ in their 30s, 40s and 50s. The findings of the review, which wasn’t published, also called for the service to bring in more men. Seventy-five per cent of probation staff are women but 91 per cent of those they supervise are male. The chief probation officer, Kim Thornden-Edwards, has agreed that the gender mix needs to change to give senior staff more options when allocating cases. ‘It might be really good for a woman to be leading on a domestic abuse case – but also, it might be good for a man to be challenging those kind of issues around masculinity and power from a male perspective,’ she told the BBC.
Thornden-Edwards made those remarks 18 months ago, but the gender balance in probation hasn’t shifted. If the service is to be more effective at keeping the public safe and helping offenders with rehabilitation the workforce needs to be more diverse, particularly in terms of age, life experience and gender. That is not to denigrate those who currently work there, they are doing a valuable and challenging job. But we should acknowledge that they need more support so that former prisoners like Anthony and the thousands exiting jail this week get the best chance to turn their lives around.
Danny Shaw
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Also from today's Spectator:-
Probation officers won’t be able to cope with 5,500 prisoner releases
Today the government is releasing an estimated 1,700 prisoners early, under the scheme (SDS40) in which most inmates will only serve 40 per cent of their sentence. By the end of October, some 5,500 prisoners will have been released early. The idea is to take pressure off the prison system, and buy enough time to build more capacity. Life may become a little easier in our jails, but for the probation service, this means yet more pressure.
Probation is a crucial part of the justice system. It is responsible for supervising people who are serving community sentences, and those who have been released from prison ‘on licence’. Probation officers are expected to ensure that people do not breach the terms of their licence, do not reoffend, and that they participate in programmes to address substance or behaviour problems. If an offender breaches their licence, a probation officer may have to ‘recall’ them, sending them back to prison for some or all of their sentence. In many ways, it is much harder to supervise offenders in the community as opposed to a prison. At least in jail, we generally know where a prisoner is sleeping each night.
The early releases will challenge a service that is already in crisis. Staffing is in a critical condition, with only 70 per cent of the needed number of qualified probation officers: a shortfall of around 2,000. While the government has promised to recruit another 1,000 trainees by March next year, the reality is that trainee hiring has collapsed, down almost 60 per cent year-on-year, and the service actually lost 178 officers in the last quarter.
Morale is terrible. A probation officer in the Midlands said: ‘Staff don’t feel protected. They don’t feel like the service cares about them.’ The view of many probation officers, from speaking with their union, NAPO, and individual POs, is that management and the organisation will not support them if the worst happens and someone they are supervising commits a serious further offence. This fear is likely one factor behind our astonishingly high rates of recall. Around 55 per cent of prisoners released from jail will be recalled. While for many this is because they’ve committed further offences, probation officers often take the decision to recall because they don’t believe they can keep the public safe in any other way.
Of course, public protection has to be at the heart of the justice system, but a properly staffed and resourced probation service would be able to manage far more offenders in the community. Instead, understaffed and overworked, probation oversees a system in which more than a quarter of released prisoners are proven to have reoffended within a year.
This stressful environment has significant consequences. Tania Bassett, of the probation trade union, NAPO, said: ‘We’ve got really bad levels of sickness at the moment, mainly as a result of poor mental health.’ A probation officer in the South West remarked that ‘staff go off sick with work-related stress, then get given a warning and an 18-month improvement period, but there’s no change to their workloads’. In a hostile and unsupportive management culture like this, it is no surprise that staff are leaving.
I understand that probation staff have only had a few weeks’ notice of the additional people they will be supervising, and in some cases were only told last week. This provides no time for the staff to familiarise themselves with the prisoners’ needs and risks, or to put in place support around drugs, housing or behaviour which may keep them out of prison. Prisoners who are released homeless, without a job and without any meaningful support are at a particularly high risk of reoffending. As a probation officer from the north of England said, ‘I just don’t think SDS40 has been thought out properly. It’s unsafe.’
This, combined with the pressure on individual probation officers, may well mean that this early-release cohort is even more likely to be recalled or commit further offences. If so, we might expect more than 60 per cent of the 5,500 prisoners to be back in jail before too long. It is hard to see how the government is going to find enough extra capacity. The prison population continues to climb, and we are already seeing hints that the Tories’ laughable plan to send prisoners overseas may be revived. This isn’t serious policy. Our prisons are full because of longer sentences, a court backlog which this government has exacerbated by reducing court dates by 2 per cent this year, and the soaring rate of recalls.
As Tania Bassett said to me: ‘We need to start the long-term conversations now.’ Serious reform would mean significantly expanding the open prison system and working to deport the estimated 10,000 foreign nationals held in our jails. Early release isn’t the solution, and if it results in a wave of reoffending, while failing to save the prison system, then the government will only have itself to blame.
David Shipley
David Shipley is a former prisoner who writes, speaks and researches on prison and justice issues.
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Postscript
Hello, I work as a ARD German Television Producer. We are the main public broadcaster in Germany comparable to the BBC and our London office deals with any UK based stories.
I am putting together a report for one of our prestigious prime time Sunday evening current affairs programmes about Britain's prisons overcrowding crisis and the ways in which the new government is looking to solve it.
We are hoping to speak to probation officers about the challenges they are currently facing and also if they have any concerns about the new early release scheme. We are also looking to speak to ex- offenders who were recently released from prison about the conditions of overcrowded prisons and the challenges they face once they leave prison. This could be both on and off the record just for my background information or as part of the programme.
If interested please contact me directly via email on r.hayes.fm@ndr.de or on my direct line on 02073916263.
Rabea Hayes
ARD German TV | Studio London
Producer
If Probation senior managers can't (or won't!) even implement an Enhanced overtime scheme that was nationally agreed over a month ago, what hope is there that they will ever be able to implement any changes that will improve probation for staff, the offenders or the public!?
ReplyDelete"A theme of recent reviews into murders committed by offenders on probation is a lack of ‘professional curiosity’ on the part of officers entrusted with their supervision – they’re too willing to accept what they’re told at face value and don’t inquire deeply enough into what’s going on in the background. Much of this is down to inexperience: one-third of probation staff have been in the service for less than five years."
ReplyDeleteDanny has been on the case for a long time, but still fails to make it explicit that this is all courtesy of a series of tory govts & their obsession with privatisation. They actively, intentionally & brutally dismantled the probation profession against ALL advice, used public funds to make hundreds unemployed & thereby lost vast swathes of experience & knowledge.
Now we're reaping what was sown.
And all of the so-called "excellent leaders" who enabled & expedited that cull of staff remain in situ on generous publicly funded salaries.
Where's the outrage? Where are the consequences for those responsible?
As ever, the self-defined 'elite' will walk away unscathed & without a care, while everyone else picks up the tab - financially & emotionally.
See also: Post Office, Windrush, Infected Blood, IPP, Grenfell, etc, etc, ad nauseaum.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpvyg8g8vy4o
ReplyDeleteAn assault victim has said she felt "sick" after being told her attacker could be released from jail by the end of this year, having served just over a third of his sentence.
It resonates case studies but after all the knowing what we do cannot be done like it is. A bit rich from Napo telling us a root reorganisations should be the key forwards when they did nothing to consolidate the past.
ReplyDeleteThe early release of prisoners is not based on any attempt to reform the system. It's all about capacity and the need to free up space.
DeleteWhy do we need more space if the intention is not to fill it?
This is just another part of the revolving door.
'Getafix
I can't work out whether Ian Lawrence is bungling and inept or actively collaborating with the employers. It has to be one of those. Why the hell haven't we been balloted for strike action to start today? This was the first chance to have our plight aired and actually heard in 14 years. Instead, another article about Gaza or the far right. Sure, they're legit views Ian, but you're preaching to the choir on the Napo website mate. First and foremost you're supposed to be representing members who are working 10 hour days, unable to pay rent, not sleeping, dumped on, bullied, Most of us will get under £300 this year following the much heralded ‘re-opening of pay talks’ - and still no clarity on when we'll actually get it or what overtime will look like. Embarrassing and shameful. I just cannot understand how the ‘top team’ in Napo are where they are, and how they justify those salaries which honestly make ours look like peanuts. They've let members down terribly and apparently forgotten the central purpose of their role. We desperately, desperately need a new team with intelligence, focus and a bit of wiliness.
ReplyDeleteI would opt for his incompetence but that will excuse his complicit conduct. It is a bit of both but he really is just clinging onto the excessive salary for as long as the funds roll in. Napo has no office base . Staff are virtually home working and the. Titles and experience means nothing. Napo is a sham.
Deletenapo is a generous employer but a shit union; and it no longer represents the now-defunct probation profession. It simply exists to look after its employees, funded by members' subs.
DeleteI agree. Napo is a sham. The £25 a month is going into a savings account for a nice weekend away every year. I’ve stopped caring about it all. I feel so much better.
Deletenapo's elusive & bumbling gs was incoherent as ever on on R4's "the world tonight" last night. Embarassing & pointless noises, despite the presenter's attempts to tee up great opportunities for meaningful statements, just sounding so far out of his depth with no structure to his lightweight commentary.
DeleteLawro had every opportunity to provide informed context to what is evidently the legacy of TR, to expose the incompetent bullies at hmpps. But no, he just waffled about his overtime plan being knocked back, or about how staff are stepping up & coping in the circumstances (they're not, Ian).
TR robbed the service of hundreds of experienced staff; it dismantled a previously excellent profession; it has led to an homogenised tick-box-target culture; it allowed the right-leaning ideologues to skew probation culture such that the mantra "offenders-must-be-punished" is repeated daily within the probation organisation.
£80k-a-year-Lawro has done nowt to challenge or change that.
Lawrence has no detailed knowledge of this job or trade union matters most likely either. He had been a real drain on probation members and has helped us to this crisis because he has always conned the agms. Best get rid and the lose cannons of the exec needs to grow up and deal with incompetence only that's what they are.
DeleteAnd surprise surprise, Starmer is announcing no more large public sector pay rises. So thanks NAPO for accepting without putting it to the vote 6 months back pay of an already terrible deal. Wonder what a crap deal we will be offered next year ( and have to wait months for).
ReplyDeleteWork to rule , no more TOIL , no overtime ( they haven’t even managed to sort that out yet) .
Anon 09.45 - there is not enough people in the union to call a strike. It's happened before when you get about 6 people on the picket line losing a day's pay, the rest of their colleagues continue to work. That's really going to impact.
DeleteQuestin posed by Telegraph today.
ReplyDelete"Nearly 2,000 prisoners are being released. So why are probation officers working remotely?
Insiders warn ‘grassroots intelligence’ can be missed without in-person contact, leading to dangerous mistakes"
We don't work remotely every day, well, some managers and people who work on 'projects' do but the rest of us manage our diaries and work hybrid, seeing offenders in person and pulling our hair out writing pointless documents the rest of the time. The Telegram can sod off.
ReplyDeleteShouldn't be allowed to work remotely these kinds of perks are available to all staff and besides that remotely means not seeing offenders.
DeleteWhy the faux outrage at those being released celebrating their release? Why can't released prisoners spray fizz or have friends who drive lamborghinis? They're celebrating their release, not their crime.
ReplyDeleteUnlike those who stole £millions during the pandemic & celebrated with yachts, mansions & relocating out of the reach of the UK tax system... and are contributory factors to the desolation of the uk.
Sums up 21.century torified uk... let all the incompetents & bullies who caused this shitstorm pocket £millions of public money & escape taking any responsibility for fucking everything up, but insist its everyone else's fault & shine the media spotlight on & magnify any distraction available.
See also: starve the poor, cull the aged, prosecute the innocent; but let the cynical liars & cheats get away with £billions of stolen taxpayer cash, e.g. TR, PPE, Post Office, cash for questions, donations for jobs...
ReplyDeleteFrom Napo:-
Probation union Napo fears that the early prisoner release scheme is a ticking time bomb that could put public safety at risk.
The scheme originally initiated by the previous government will see 1700 prisoners released early today to ease overcrowding in prisons.
But Napo and its members fear that this is just moving the problem from one place to another without properly assessing the risks to probation staff and the general public.
The probation service is currently facing a crisis of its own. Chronic staff shortages, excessive workloads and poor morale have staff worried about how they will be able to supervise this influx of service users – particularly those who should not be eligible for the scheme but are somehow being released because they are serving concurrent sentences involving a lesser offence.
Napo General Secretary Ian Lawrence said: “Members have shared examples where those with both Domestic Violence offences and Sexual Offences have been released because of this. When this has been challenged members have been directed to HMPPS guidance which has stated that the early release is correct and cannot be challenged. Members are extremely disappointed that this has been denied during several media appearances by Government ministers and we have been challenging this in our media engagement. We call on the Government to correct the record.”
The announcement of the policy had already exponentially increased workloads for probation staff working in prisons and the community as they attempted to accelerate release plans, develop and strengthen risk management plans and find appropriate accommodation for those being released.
With workloads significantly higher, the ability of staff to address risk and support the transition of those being released will have a wider impact on the work that is already being undertaken.
“The Probation Service has been chronically underfunded for the past 14 years. At the same time hundreds of millions of pounds have been wasted on disastrous re-organisations including failed part-privatisation of the Service. Probation’s current location in the civil service and it’s position of being seen as an annex to the prison service only exacerbates these problems.
“Staff in the Probation Service do not feel that their work is valued or understood by those who make decisions at the highest levels of the Service.” Added Ian Lawrence.
Napo is calling for increased funding, workloads that enable risk management and rehabilitation and greater protection for staff who are scapegoated by ill thought out government policy. At this week’s TUC In Brighton, Napo National Chair Ben Cockburn called for a wholesale review into short term sentences to try and find a longer term solution into the capacity problems in Prisons.
https://www-mirror-co-uk.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/probation-officers-didnt-know-what-33641655.amp?amp_gsa=1&_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQIUAKwASCAAgM%3D#amp_ct=1726043439552&_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17260434286240&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mirror.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fuk-news%2Fprobation-officers-didnt-know-what-33641655
Delete'Getafix
Name dropping nonsense. Whatever Ian Lawrence says is completely irrelevant. The obvious reason for this si because he himself has traded our terms and conditions away. We are no longer in trusts on contracts of are but now nationalised half hearted civil servants. Without the pension terms. By the sheer cowardice to ever mount a campaign of real action and by low tow to grayling it's staggering to see Lawrence has this job. Yet here he is paid 100k plus a year and is absolutely useless . The concerns he raised don't get acknowledged because he is a spinless fool and this is how the authorities regard him. The chair who cares what's he ever done to demonstrate talent or risk to management nothing. Napo oh dear. 0653 has it spot on.
DeleteWhy would it be a ticking time bomb? All the released cases would have been out in a few months anyhow.
DeleteMy partner and I have made the decision for me to resign, after 24 years as a PO with numerous successful secondments, I have simply had enough. The change I have lived through is breathtaking and disturbing.I have seen inspirational POs, who never sought high office and whose professional curiosity was amazing to witness, marginalised and put down by young upstarts not in the slightest ashamed to voice their lofty ambitions. Bullying, racism and homophobia are now rife in an organisation that once was held up as a beacon of progressive professionalism and recognised internationally. My resignation is going in tomorrow morning and the sense of relief is beyond description, odd as it may sound I feel free.
DeleteAre you in Napo ?
Deletethere IS life beyond the hmpps perimeter fence
DeleteFrom Twitter:-
Delete"Sad to hear that even though I don’t know you. I think it’s the scariest thing of all to see these attitudes, encouraged by government filtering down to individuals on the frontline who we’ve been so reliant on over the years to deal with people impartially. Scary and tragic."
From Twitter:-
Delete"Once the decision is made, that feeling of freedom is common. Sad to see you leaving the Probation Service after 24 years...you must have seen the best of times and the worst of times... My involvement was only 12 yrs as a a trust board member and chair...enjoyed every minute."
Good luck and enjoy your retirement
ReplyDelete