Here’s an idea? Treat people with empathy and respect, stop behaving like a communist state police force and your punters might thrive better, progress and be more respectful to you, in turn you might enjoy what you do more.
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You what?! Nah, too much like hard work; it's easier to issue appointments, demand respect & breach when they don't play ball. Keeps the IT police off yer back, keeps the numbers right. As long as it's on the system in the 'correct' format, no-one gives a toss. HMIP can't find fault in the audit trail. £650 in the pocket for 35 hours a week, every week, good holidays & pension. Input whatever you need to & do as you please with the rest of the time. Piece of piss. And a free degree thrown in. Why stress?
What we “have” is a pretty shameful take, to be honest. I get that somebody is making a point by posting it but it’s a completely distorted picture.
ReplyDeleteNot all, but many, if not most, probation practitioners genuinely do treat people with empathy and respect. The job is hard work, the pressures are constant, and the conditions are often demanding. Plenty of staff already hold degrees before they even start, and as for “£650 a week”, that wouldn’t even cover a room in a shared house in many areas today.
Critique the structures, yes. But reducing the whole profession to laziness and box-ticking isn’t just unfair, it ignores the reality of people who are doing their best in a system that’s stretched to breaking point.
Average weekly 1 bed flat in London is about £300-600. But I get your drift. These days £650 (£500 approx after tax and Ni) a week doesn’t go far.
DeleteBy contrast, here are some selected points from a post made yesterday which suggest that even the box-ticking (allegedly) stress-free poster's antics could still be having a positive impact. Maybe someone in the illuminati could help explain?
ReplyDelete"603 people have been convicted of murder while being supervised by probation since 2014"
Grim reading. But, whilst never wanting to minimise anyone's loss or distress, let's place that figure in context with Home Office data relating to known/recorded homicide incidents 2014-2024, i.e. 6,386.
603 represents 0.00025% of the caseload over 10 years (assuming an average of 240,000 cases/year)
Probation-as-was is fucked, long dead & buried by this neo-con hmpps, it doesn't & can't achieve what is claimed by hmpps & politicians because they broke it beyond repair & now have no idea what to do except to proclaim "we're recruiting more people".
And yet, in its most parlous form to date with staff stressed to fuck, caseloads through the roof & pay at rock bottom, it is *still* making a difference to a significant number - the vast majority - of those subject to supervision, despite those numbers falling away as the clusterfuck continues to implode."
Probation centred on punishment and public safety will falter, whereas probation focused on rehabilitation and reintegration will thrive. For probation to expand its scope in supervising individuals in the community, is perhaps fundamental to the success of rehabilitation-focused approaches. The future of probation lies in evidence-based reform, practitioner development, and adequate resourcing.
DeleteOr we can denigrate it to a “communist state police force”, for which most of the practitioners and clients I see on a daily basis it is not!