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
Loving the blog piece, thank you. And sox, you're getting better & better at this!
Delete"Probation has been set up to fail those they supervise." - Absolutely correct.
I'd like to take that idea further:
"Probation has been set up to fail"
Because that's exactly how 'the system' works in these right-leaning glory days of capitalism first. A highly valued organisation is targetted, streamlined then sold on as a going concern or, if that fails, broken up & the assets sold for a profit.
In the case of probation the valued service was targetted by the political classes with access to almost unlimited public funds if the right argument was made. Numerous times they tried to get the service market-ready (noms, oasys, OMA2007, trusts, etc) & tr was the market tester, i.e. experiment how to monetise the service while keeping something in (public) reserve.
It was an umitigated disaster costing the public purse - NOT the politicians & their civil service lackeys - £1billion+. That's how shit they are at this stuff, but they just get promoted & rewarded.
Now they're trying again, only this time they know that the probation officer model won't wash, so they're using techology as the bait. Imposing expensive tech paid for (again) by the public purse means they can claim all sorts of policy 'wins', while ensuring that the probation model as it was is irredeemably flawed, thereby lining up the next attempt to go to market.
They do not give one flying fuckity fuck about those who are directed to be supervised. They would prefer all that's done by the tags & AI; far less messy, makes monitoring & recall simple & remote. A bit like the new weapons of war, i.e. killing folk from thousands of miles away is sooo much easier and sooo less painful or concerning.
Thank you @17.57 one day I'll write the contribution I promised JIm nearly 5 years ago. Brain fog makes this hard but I'll get there one day.!
ReplyDeletesox
The MOJ has been discussing the removal of the word probation from the probation service for a time as that word harks back to a time when the service was akin to that portrayed in an Ealing or Boulting brothers film. It is one word which is causing all of the problems. The word conjours up hope….a chance for redemptive action……a chance to start again……and is the main stumbling block to the UK Correctional Agency a public/private initiative to wash away the bothersome compassionate approach, such an initiative relies in technology…..not humans….and therefore can never be wrong…..as officers are human, they make mistakes but learn from them…..AI purports to do the same but at the end of the day it is just a tool.
ReplyDeleteWe need to fight from the top to the bottom to retain that one word that promises so much but which currently delivers so little…….the current nasty approach to offending by all major parties will change and the pendulum will starts its long journey back……we need to make sure that the word probation is ready to welcome it when it does………..
It’s not the first time. The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) intended to do the same, replacing Probation Officers with Offender Managers. The difference then was the Probation Association and Probation Chiefs Association fought to retain the “probation” brand and name. There’s nobody to fight for us anymore.
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