You talk about “falling short in public protection” as if that’s news to anyone on the frontline. You repeat the same lines about “improvement,” “risk,” and “public safety” like a press release on loop, while ignoring what every probation officer has already told you: the system is collapsing because of how it’s managed, not because of those doing the job.
If you really want to improve probation and justice, then do better. Stop forcing probation to overpromise on risk management, public protection, and crime control. Instead, start with its training, staffing, resources and identity, the questions everyone keeps dodging.
Ask yourself what a true probation champion, Gerry McNally, once asked: “What do clients think of probation? What should probation be, a friend, an acquaintance, or an authority to be feared?” And then try to understand how Probation operates within the tension between the probation of liberty and the restriction of liberty; it cannot effectively embody both.
Think about that. Because until those truths are faced, probation will remain broken. It’s no longer qualified to be a social work agency, it shouldn’t be an extension of law enforcement, it isn’t resourced to be a welfare provider, and it’ll be a tragedy if a century-old service ends up reduced to nothing more than a tagging, monitoring, and prison-overflow management unit.
I don’t agree that “risk is intrinsic to the work of probation.” Rehabilitation is. That’s what probation is supposed to be about. But people like you, obsessed with risk, audits, ratings, and soundbites, have stripped the service of its purpose. You measure everything except what matters. You claim to “support staff” while inspecting them into the ground.
Probation isn’t failing because officers don’t understand risk. It’s failing because leadership, inspectors, and politicians don’t understand probation.
If you genuinely want to see improvement, stop dictating from above and start engaging with the people who actually keep the service running. We don’t need another inspection. We need honesty, investment, respect, and a clear purpose.
It fitting to end with the words of Mike Guilfoyle, former Probation Officer, may he Rest in Peace:
“At a time of reduced resources the Probation Service helps to reduce the harms of offending at the local level in communities blighted by crime. Probation has made a unique contribution to criminal justice and although many would argue that it has lost much by way of its traditional roots, professionalism and identity, it still merits its place at the centre of any rehabilitative revolution.”
Anon (Probation Officer)
jones: "People on probation deserve to be overseen by a Service which has sufficient measures in place... our communities deserve to feel safe in the knowledge that steps are being taken to reduce the risk of harm"
ReplyDeleteYes, they do. Everybody deserves to feel safe. But how do you get there? Berate, humiliate & batter the existing broken service provision? How will that help? That doesn't make those in the broken service feel safe.
So, before we beat probation staff to a bloody pulp, let's see the appropriate investment by government into our public services; the services that will best ameliorate those risks of harm at source, e.g. equitable & adequate provision of health services (physical & mental), education, accommodation, social care.
Adjust the economy so its not about 1% hoarding 95% of wealth.
That would reduce both the prison population & probation caseload considerably.
Then... invest in the staff, train them properly, respect them & pay them commensurate with their skills & role.