It goes deeper than probation as a service. What we’re really seeing is the result of society and government failing people earlier and earlier, and those failures being funnelled into the criminal justice system. When housing, mental health care, education, youth services and addiction support are stripped back, people don’t disappear, they fall forward. By the time probation meets them, the harm is already layered and entrenched.
Probation was originally built on the principle of advising, assisting and befriending because it recognised that reality. It needed people with life experience, emotional intelligence, credibility and the confidence to exercise judgement. That model naturally attracted practitioners motivated by understanding people and working with complexity, not just enforcing rules.
The current model is based on something else entirely. It treats social failure as individual non-compliance and manages risk through restriction, surveillance and recall because meaningful support has been hollowed out elsewhere. In doing so, it reshapes who the service attracts and retains. Experience becomes inconvenient. Judgement becomes risky. Longevity becomes expensive.
Instead, the system now favours staff who can tolerate high throughput, follow process, meet targets and apply rules consistently, even when those rules don’t improve outcomes. That isn’t a criticism of individuals, it’s a consequence of design. When discretion is discouraged and autonomy removed, the role no longer rewards depth or experience, it rewards compliance.
Younger people are arriving already failed by multiple systems, and probation inherits the responsibility without the tools to repair the damage. When outcomes don’t improve, the response is tighter control rather than upstream investment.
Probation hasn’t just lost its original purpose. It has been deliberately reshaped to absorb social failure while presenting enforcement as solution, and in the process it is transforming both who the service is for and who it wants working in it.
Probation was originally built on the principle of advising, assisting and befriending because it recognised that reality. It needed people with life experience, emotional intelligence, credibility and the confidence to exercise judgement. That model naturally attracted practitioners motivated by understanding people and working with complexity, not just enforcing rules.
The current model is based on something else entirely. It treats social failure as individual non-compliance and manages risk through restriction, surveillance and recall because meaningful support has been hollowed out elsewhere. In doing so, it reshapes who the service attracts and retains. Experience becomes inconvenient. Judgement becomes risky. Longevity becomes expensive.
Instead, the system now favours staff who can tolerate high throughput, follow process, meet targets and apply rules consistently, even when those rules don’t improve outcomes. That isn’t a criticism of individuals, it’s a consequence of design. When discretion is discouraged and autonomy removed, the role no longer rewards depth or experience, it rewards compliance.
Younger people are arriving already failed by multiple systems, and probation inherits the responsibility without the tools to repair the damage. When outcomes don’t improve, the response is tighter control rather than upstream investment.
Probation hasn’t just lost its original purpose. It has been deliberately reshaped to absorb social failure while presenting enforcement as solution, and in the process it is transforming both who the service is for and who it wants working in it.
Anon
Hugely powerful , poignant and very profound and will resonate with so many who regularly read this blog. Heartfelt thanks. Coinciding, with what feels like a hugely significant event occurring tomorrow. The outcome of the ballot. I recall and often post a view that tomorrow is much more than just a statement about Probations value and worth of a much maligned, marginalised and hidden service its also about its ‘essence’ and future direction of travel our vocation. With permission, I would like to share this with the 14 MP’s who Ive connected with over the past 4 months and although Ive long accepted that it wont make any difference our vocation deserves our very best efforts. My thought/prayers are with all Probation staff tomorrow and over the weekend whilst we all await the outcome. Iangould5
ReplyDeleteThanks for that Ian - this post was of course inspired by you truffling it out from January and posting on Twitter! Because my eye is off the ball most of the time now, I'm not always noticing gems like this - so am very grateful to you.
DeleteThat packed so much truth into so few words, the disease and cure all wrapped up together. The frequently ludicrous licence terms imposed at the beginning of post sentence supervision often destroy any trust between probation officer and ex offender. Probation has been set up to fail those they supervise.
ReplyDeletesox