On Probation Blog

An Apology

2012-03-09T09:30:00.000Z

As children I suspect most of us are taught to tell the truth. I can well remember getting a good hiding when a pathetic attempt to plant blame on someone else failed and I was reminded of the virtue of honesty. But as we grow older the issue begins to get a little blurred when the mixed messages start. When asked if we like auntie's new outfit, we're suddenly told that telling the truth about its awfulness is not acceptable.

As we get older, hopefully we begin to learn the concept of 'good' and 'bad' lies and the general nuances of life that make things so difficult for those people who suffer from a learning disability for instance. Most of us would agree that at some point in our life we will be faced with a 'cost benefit analysis' dilemma when we have to balance the chances of getting caught against some possible reward or advantage. In other words, a moral dilemma.

One of the most challenging aspects of being a Probation Officer is highlighted in this post by Tony on Prisoners Families Voices. He frankly admits to having reached the age of 39, never having had a job. He's been in and out of prison most of his adult life and bemoans how little help his Probation Officer had been following his release in 2011. I suspect he hoped that his PO could help him find a job, and that would be a realistic and normal expectation in my view. But the issue is always what to put on the bloody CV? Just how can you cover 20-odd years constructively and in the absense of any work record?

Tony quite quickly identified the inherent problem in following the no doubt sound advice from his PO to tell the truth and hope that a sympathetic employer will still call him for interview. I've given this advice myself many times with a heavy heart, both of us knowing deep down that, especially in a worsening economic climate, the chances of it bearing fruit are close to zero.

No wonder then that many clients like Tony decide to ignore advice from probation and instead concoct fairytale CV's. There're not alone in doing that though are they? The middle classes have always indulged in a bit of 'creative accounting' where employment histories are concerned, so is it really that terrible? Of course there is always the risk of being found out, but there is also an inherent and huge incentive on the part of the client to become a model hard-working employee and establish a work record. We call that rehabilitation of course.

There are potential problems, such as in relation to Schedule 1 offenders where there is a clear duty to inform employers if there is likely to be any contact with children or vulnerable adults. But this is a pretty unlikely scenario nowadays with the advent of CRB checks. I really hope it works out well for Tony in his minimum wage job and that he's able to progress to greater and better things. I'm just so sorry we weren't much help.

I See Trouble Ahead

2012-03-07T09:37:00.000Z

I think everyone would agree that finding a newly-released prisoner a job as soon as possible would be A Good Thing. Surely it must therefore be very good news that all prisoners will be required to join the governments Work Programme as a condition of being paid Job Seekers Allowance on release? Well, I'm not so sure and sadly I predict all kinds of trouble ahead. As is so typical of governments nowadays, they seem to feel they know best and I bet the idea wasn't discussed with bodies such as Probation, who just might have a constructive view on the subject.

Long experience tells me that prisoners being released often have a whole host of immediate and pressing problems to deal with such as where the hell to live or how to sort out their script for methadone. In addition they are bound to want to make urgent contact with family, children and partners as these relationships are quite likely to have suffered significantly during any period in prison. They will have urgent need to see their probation officer and may well have quite onerous licence conditions to adhere to. These are just some of the possible pressures laid upon newly-released prisoners and that give rise to the often-heard refrain 'my heads up my arse' or 'my head's in bits.'

So on top of all this we are now going to add an immediate requirement to provide evidence that serious efforts are being made to find a job. Failure to turn up for interviews with the Work Programme provider, or satisfy the adviser that you are compiling your CV, or applying for jobs will mean a sanction of some or all of a claimant's benefit. The pressure is going to be enormous because of course the Programme provider, such as A4E, will be paid by results. A price is effectively on each released prisoners head and can amount to as much as £5,600 if someone stays in a job for two years.

All I will say is that the advisers involved would be well advised to bone up on their people skills because they're going to need to tread very carefully and sensitively with some potentially very stressed and angry people. Failure to exercise some compassion and understanding at an often very difficult stage in a person's life is quite likely to be counter-productive and rebound in a great deal more prison recalls, or worse in my view. It could be yet another example of the unintended consequences of a bit of social policy that hasn't been fully thought through.

Perks of the Job

2012-03-04T12:55:00.001Z

I must admit that over the years I've always had a degree of naive astonishment in relation to the amount of sensitive information appearing in the media and exactly how it might have found it's way there. According to Inspector Gadget it's quite straightforward. He says that ever since the days of the Illustrated London News and the notorious 'Jack the Ripper' case, police officers have simply sold information to the press. He goes on to have the cheek to imply that in effect such actions are merely providing a public service and it's us who are to blame as the newspaper-buying-public.

His views appear to find support with several former very senior Metropolitan Police officers and whom have recently been giving evidence to the Leveson Enquiry. Former DAC Peter Clarke seemed to excuse the whole thing by saying 'Invasions of privacy are odious, distressing and illegal, but to put it bluntly, they don't kill you, terrorists do." That's all right then!

Of course Probation Officers have always know that as public servants such behaviour is not only illegal but unprofessional, unethical, unwise and appalling to boot. So how come the police seem to believe otherwise and it takes a woman, DAC Sue Akers to say something rather different? Her testimony to the Leveson Enquiry is indeed astonishing to most public servants and members of the public generally, but I honestly think that amongst many police officers there's a feeling of 'What's all the fuss about? It's just a perk of the job and anyway the public love all this salacious gossip.'

The real tragedy of course is that such a belief appears to have broadened into a widespread culture and attitude that is nothing short of corruption involving as it does allegations of the sale of secret information, the frustration of investigations, criminal collusion as well as plain old cronyism.

As I seem to say on a regular basis, we've been here before. I can't be the only person to recall that former Commissioner of the Met Sir Robert Mark got so fed up with the corruption amongst London's CID in the 1970's that he forced them all into uniform for a period. He's famously quoted as saying "A good police force is one that catches more crooks than it employs." In those days I think the perk of the job was taking backhanders from pornographers in Soho. It's obviously got a bit more sophisticated since then.

Law of Unintended Consequences

2012-03-01T09:02:00.000Z

At various times in my career I've considered the option of working in a prison, but always rejected it. When I started, some probation areas had a policy of compelling PO's to undertake a stint in prison as there was always a fear that if you didn't rotate staff regularly, there was a danger of staff losing their, shall we say 'distinctiveness'. Some older readers might even recall that in the dim distant past some vociferous elements within NAPO even tried to get all probation staff removed on the grounds that working inside prison was inconsistent with our values.

My main reason for not working in a prison is that basically someone, other than my employer, could lock me out at the drop of a hat and I would have virtually no means of redressing that action. In an absolutely astonishing move, this is precisely what has happened to all the probation staff at three prisons in South Yorkshire. The governor in charge of HMP Moorlands, Lindholme and Hatfield has taken the action because he discovered that South Yorkshire Probation Trust has got into bed with private prison contractor G4S. Now of course that's the company currently engaged in trying to win the bid to run these three prisons and hence wrest them away from the public sector.

The problem is that South Yorkshire thought this was a smart move because it meant they would get a seat on the Board of G4S and actually be sharing the driving seat running these three prisons, rather than just being a sub-contractor to G4S, if they won the contract. The governor is furious and apparently his boss at NOMS has refused to overturn the decision. To say it's a mess would be an understatement. As of right now 2,000 inmates in three prisons have no probation service looking after their interests and helping them prepare for release. All this beggars belief when you realise that the prison and probation service are supposed to have unified management and oversight in the form of NOMS. Just another unintended consequence of the barmy privatisation agenda.

Good or Evil?

2012-02-26T18:34:00.001Z

Regular readers will be aware that I watch a lot of tv - no rubbish you understand and most of it as a selfless act conducted as research for this blog. So it was in this vein that I recently watched a repeat from last September of an episode of Horizon, the long-running and distinguished BBC 2 science programme.

Entitled 'Are You Good or Evil?', it discussed the disturbing advances in science that were making it possible to identify a gene that basically dictated whether we were likely to be either 'good or bad'. Now this whole idea ought to be very worrying indeed to all right-minded people and probation officers in particular. It's pure Orwellian in my view.

All probation officers of my vintage will have covered in training that old chestnut neatly summed-up as 'nature or nurture?' as a way of helping to understand why people do certain things, and especially what might be politely-termed, very nasty things. In essence the argument boiled down to whether a person committed a crime because of their character and personality - they were basically 'a wrong 'un' - or whether it was because of their background and upbringing? For some reason a myth has persisted in some quarters that PO's are just about 'making excuses' for people and their behaviour in order to 'get them off' when their day in court arrives.

Of course this has always been a grossly simplistic distortion of what we're about. It ought to be self-evident that a person's reasons for doing anything are many and varied. Much more the case in terms of offending behaviour. We are not all able to exercise free will all the time and without reference to our surroundings or influences. A PO's job is to dig around and explain those factors and reasons, not to excuse them. Throughout my career I've found it useful to remain firmly on the fence and hedge my bets in terms of the argument.

So it was enormously re-assuring to discover that the scientific conclusion at the end of the programme was that, although it might be possible to identify a 'psychopathic' gene, it was environmental factors that largely decided if a person was going to cause murder or mayhem in later life. Phew!

Not only is it sometimes great to have your personal beliefs re-inforced, a lot of world leaders, politicians and business tycoons can breathe easy knowing that their psychopathic personality type alone need not necessarily give the rest of us excellent reason to lock them up. Of course on the other hand such research does possibly lead the way for better diagnosis and assessment of people who have committed very serious and disturbing offences. I can't see it helping in either the detection or conviction of psychopathic offenders though.

Nightriders

2012-02-24T09:04:00.000Z

The internet is a strange and wonderful place indeed. Whilst searching for inspiration, I came across a short video made last November about a phenomenon I was completely unaware of. This isn't particularly surprising I suppose because not living in London, I've never had cause to frequent the N 29 night bus service from Trafalgar Square to Enfield.

Like many bus routes in the Capital, until Mayor Boris Johnson banished them completely from last year, the route had been served by the unloved 'bendy bus'. Well it's not strictly true to say that everyone disliked them. It's become fairly well known that with rear entry doors, this type of bus was ideal for fare-dodging on an industrial scale. What I didn't know was their widespread use by the homeless during the night. According to one driver on this particularly popular route out to the leafy northern suburbs, he'd had up to 70 homeless and ticket-less nocturnal travellers on one trip.

What an incredible indictment of present-day society when instead of providing proper facilities, we gently bounce the homeless around on a massively-subsidised bus ride through the capital from midnight to 5am. Literally flotsam, they look a sorry picture trying to catnap along the way. I wonder where they go now, as double-deckers serve the night routes and drivers cannot easily turn a blind eye anymore.

The video can be viewed here.

Just Too Good to be True

2012-02-22T09:18:00.001Z

I can't say I'm surprised to hear A4E in the news and fraud mentioned in the same sentence. I think we're all aware of the concept of something that just sounds too damn good to be true. You know the sort of thing, the telephone call out-of-the-blue informing you of a valuable prize waiting for you if you just ring this number, the investment with 'guaranteed' returns or even the free tickets to New York if you buy a vacuum cleaner.

A4E, and other similar private government contractors, agree to take on some of the hardest and 'most difficult to place' people in terms of employability, in return for shed-loads of our money. In the process these private companies have become hugely successful in terms of dividends returned to their now very wealthy owners, and we're led to believe that along the way the seemingly impossible has happened. The previously unemployable have been found jobs. That's great isn't it? But how do they do it?

Well in true private capital style the staff are 'incentivised' of course, or rather are target-driven. Fail to reach your target and your future with one of these companies is rather short-lived and you find yourself joining the queue of people you were trying desperately to help. Faced with some of the most 'unemployable' people imaginable through health, educational or environmental issues, I don't think it's too difficult to imagine a culture developing amongst staff where shall we say massaging some figures or adjusting some criteria or just plain fiddling might not become a priority, for self-preservation if nothing else.

The astonishing thing is that we've been here before. Remember the Training and Enterprise Councils set up by previous governments? They were established to try and deal with the same problem and were rewarded with lavish amounts of government money, supposedly based on success. A sort of precursor to the latest fad Payment by Results. The only trouble was that the books were being cooked, figures fiddled and the whole charade was eventually dismantled.

But isn't this sort of thing bound to happen when public services are replaced by private contractors? Another classic attempt at a quick and easy political fix for entrenched social policy failings.

Some Observations 10

2012-02-21T22:04:00.002Z

When I recently took a trawl through the NAPO discussion forum, it was good to see that some of the former vibrancy had returned, having suffered badly from a massive 'redesign' last year. It's still not as good as it was though, but a decent debate has been raging as a result of someone asking about the pros and cons of a return to officers being able to use rather more discretion and judgement than more-recently qualified colleagues are used to. Apparently NAPO is re-writing their 'Good Practice Guide' with promises that it will provide some answers. It's funny in a way - that's exactly what I started out with in 1985 - a 'Good Practice Guide' and a copy of Jarvis of course.

This is a big year for NAPO as it celebrates 100 years since foundation in 1912 and the conference at York in July promises to be especially interesting as our proud past is inevitably compared to our uncertain future.

Talking of which, I see from Jonathan Ledger's blog that the list of senior defections from NOMS to the private sector grows ever longer. Interserve are the latest company to benefit as they finalise their bids for operating the public sector prisons put out to tender by Ken Clarke. Call me naive, but I just don't understand how we're expected to believe that all these former public servants don't take with them privileged information that then enables the public sector to be outbid completely unfairly? But it's all so terribly British - Jonathan wonders if the people concerned are aware that the National Exec - well - jolly well groaned when they heard!

I haven't been watching 'Prisoners Wives' on BBC1 - you have to draw the line somewhere - but I can't help noticing that a post on the Prisoners Families Website voicing a differing view of some prisoners wives being anything other than victim, has generated quite a spat. If nothing else, it should serve to remind us all that 'pigeonholing' anyone is not at all helpful, especially in this line of work. By the way, it may surprise some to know that we used to run support groups for prisoners wives in the old days, and organise subsidised coaches to far-flung prisons.

A Bit More on Drugs

2012-02-20T20:14:00.003Z

Well cannabis to be more specific. I'll be honest from the start and say that as a Probation Officer I've paid little attention to the subject, always having drawn a distinction between it and other potentially more dangerous mind-altering substances. I'm aware that cannabis strains have increased in strength over the years, but I've still never come across a case of anyone having been beaten sensless as a result of an assailant being high on the substance, unlike alcohol or crack cocaine of course.

On the contrary, I've been involved in several cases of cultivation for personal use which have been vigorously defended on the grounds of significant beneficial effect for serious medical conditions. I well remember one guy presenting the judge with a significant file of information, gleaned mostly from the internet, and which he agreed to read over the weekend before reluctantly imposing a two year Probation Order.

As far as I'm aware, and I speak as someone who has never tried exotic herbal substances myself mainly because I don't smoke, the most harm that can be caused by the stuff is that meted out by the Criminal Justice System. Having said that, there are always exceptions and I am also aware of the risk posed by say skunk if used grossly to excess and the possible mental health effects such as paranoia. But surely all this has to be seen within the context of the utter mayhem caused on Friday and Saturday nights by alcohol, together with the horrors of people assaulting their bodies with dodgy needles, filled with dodgy substances and in dodgy circumstances?

I have never subscribed to the view that cannabis should be treated seriously by the
authorities because it is a so-called 'gateway' drug. I think it's a ludicrous argument, especially as heroin users are far more likely to have started on alcohol. The only real problem with cannabis in my view is that it's illegal. At some point a future government is going to have to grasp this nettle, de-criminalise the substance and put it on the same footing as tobacco. That way we might all be spared the damned flypasts by the Force helicopter on a regular basis looking for 'hot' roofspaces with their infra-red imaging cameras.

Addiction

2012-02-19T10:59:00.001Z

I can't help noticing that my mention of drugs the other day as having utterly changed the criminal justice landscape over my working life, generated quite a lot of comment. My most popular post ever was about the war on drugs having been lost, so I thought it might be an idea to add a bit more to the discussion.

When I took up post in my small English town in 1985, heroin had yet to arrive. I found that most of my reports for court concerned offences that in some way were connected to alcohol misuse. Of course this legal, but potentially highly addictive mind and mood-altering substance, is so socially acceptable that its consumption is almost compulsory. This is despite there being loads of evidence to show that it's a dangerous substance, both in health terms and as a major ingredient in the commission of violent acts. If it was invented tomorrow, it would surely be illegal.

But of course despite being potentially dangerous, like many things in life, it's also very enjoyable and that's why I indulge regularly, along with many other people I know. What makes the difference is that despite being an addictive substance, alcohol can be enjoyed without it becoming an addiction. For the fortunate majority, they remain in control, not the other way round. Of course there is scope for any of us to possibly be deluding ourselves, but the key is whether or not a person finds that their life becomes adversely affected by a driving compulsion, the satisfaction of which takes priority over all else. I would normally assess someone as suffering from an addiction when their health is seriously affected and when they are unable to function normally in terms of shelter, nourishment, employment and relationships.

Trying to supervise clients suffering from alcohol addiction and slowly killing themselves can be a harrowing experience. The same goes for heroin of course or any number of other illegal substances. But addictive behaviour can come in many forms and gambling, driving or sexual activity can all be just as potentially harmful or disabling and bring people into contact with the Probation Service through associated criminal activity. I have remained of the opinion that such behaviour should be viewed as a medical phenomenon and indeed back in the 1980's it used to be. In those days I was able to refer clients relatively easily to a Regional Addiction Unit that was based at an NHS hospital. In my experience it's not so much a case of an addictive substance, but rather a propensity towards an addictive behavioural trait.

In suggesting that society takes a radically different approach towards illegal substances, I'm basically wanting to highlight the utter futility of the present approach. Virtually no aspect of the current regime works, in fact much of it compounds the problem and is hugely expensive along the way. Even though politicians dare not talk much about the issue, tentative prescribing regimes within the NHS are beginning to prove what many of us have suspected for some time, namely that legal access to heroin can enable a person to live a normal life, either on a maintenance dose, or withdraw more easily if they so desire.

We've all known for years that the middle-classes can manage to keep a good job and hide their drug use because they have the means to fund the habit without recourse to acquisitive crime. In the absence of a chaotic lifestyle and criminal activity, there's also evidence to support the thesis that many can maintain a recreational level of consumption, similar to that of responsible alcohol users.

So, just to be clear, certainly in relation to heroin and similar substances, I'm not advocating decriminalisation, but rather a return to the situation pre Misuse of Drugs Act when heroin could be prescribed and hence controlled by the medical profession. Alone it would not solve the drug problem entirely, but it would be an intelligent move in the right direction and help both those who have a problem addiction and those who might be termed to have a recreational need.

A Fundamental Question

2012-02-18T09:12:00.000Z

Following on from the debate that resulted from Bystanders piece about the arrested Sun journalists, an absolutely key question has been asked about Probation Officers and their role within the Criminal Justice System. What are they for? Do they look after the interests of clients or that of wider society? Apparently, I'm precluded from answering that they do both!

Over the months regular readers will be aware that I've tried to explain what Probation Officers do by means of a number of posts numbered 1 to 5. Fundamentally, a Probation Officers' job is to try and prevent offending. The journey we've been on from our Christian philanthropic roots through social work professionalism towards current law enforcement has been interesting to say the least. Our methods may have changed and adapted, but the key principle has remained the same, that of protecting the public from crime and the effects of crime.

Of course at this point I should mention that we are all members of the public, Police Officers, Judges, Magistrates and of course offenders. I think I can say without fear of contradiction that we have all been the victims of crime at some stage or other. It is therefore in the best interests of the whole of society that we try and reduce it. Incidentally, PO's are only too well aware of the supreme irony that dictates that is is our clients that often tend to suffer the most from criminal activity. They are more likely to have suffered sexual or physical abuse, be burgled more often or assaulted more frequently.

So, if that's what Probation Officers are for, how do they do it? Well in essence this has never really changed much in that we have always been charged with two responsibilities, the discharge of which means that there is constant tension between the need to protect the public on the one hand, but at the same time having regard to the best interests of the client. In simple terms, in a lot of cases, the public can be protected and crime reduced if the underlying reasons for the criminal behaviour are dealt with. This might range from helping with practical things like food and shelter through to effecting a change in attitude by means of counselling or groupwork. The landscape is vast and because every individuals needs are unique, the possible solutions and interventions vary enormously. All this of course means that the job of a PO is quite demanding, but potentially enormously rewarding.

Now this might be termed as focusing on the 'welfare' aspect of the job as a means towards reducing crime and thus protection of the public. But there is another side, the so-called 'iron fist in the velvet glove'. Having qualified as a social worker at University and started applying for jobs as a Probation Officer, I am reminded of an SPO who said to me once 'we don't want a social worker - we want a Probation Officer!' I knew even back then what he meant. A PO's job involves having to judge when a lengthy prison term is right, just and appropriate. When recall has to be instigated, when early release from a determinate sentence might not be appropriate and when it's simply too dangerous to consider releasing a lifer.

These and similar decisions are big responsibilities that affect people's lives and are never taken lightly. But they represent the other half of discharging our dual responsibilities and we still have to work with these people. No matter how heinous the crime, or unpleasant and difficult they are, we still have to try and take into account their best interests and work towards a change in attitude and a reduction in the risk they represent. If the risk is reduced the public are protected. If not, we carry on being part of the system that monitors, supervises or in some cases ensures continued incarceration.

So, I hope the question is answered. We do indeed do both - look after the interests of clients and society at the same time!

Punish Less : Understand More

2012-02-15T09:58:00.001Z

Every now and then I come across a post on other blogs that particularly grabs my attention. In this instance it wasn't so much what the blogger said, as much as the resulting and mostly ill-tempered comment and discussion that got me thinking. On Sunday Bystander on the Magistrates Blog posted a piece entitled 'Biter is Bitten' which basically engaged in a bit of schadenfreude brought about by the arrest of five Sun journalists as part of the phone hacking scandal. Not particularly controversial I thought and a view with which I have some sympathy, but I was genuinely surprised by the passion and heat generated over sentencing policy and the state of the Criminal Justice System generally in the comments section.

At first I was keen to add a probation officers viewpoint, but to be honest the number of thorny issues raised were so great that I decided to reflect further and pen this post instead. To try and summarise, there was a view that the likes of The Sun and Daily Mail were merely voicing what ordinary people knew to be the truth about 'soft' judges and magistrates, who are just part of a liberal middle class elite and who feel they know better than ordinary folk about crime and punishment. The answer was obviously to lock more people up for longer and that in itself would be an effective deterrent. The tabloids were merely telling the truth and that was the reason they were hugely successful - unlike the quality dailies.

I'm sure I might have missed out some elements of the debate - but I think that's the gist. This sort of debate has raged over many years and unfortunately the probation viewpoint is either never voiced or hardly ever heard. This is a terrible shame and possibly connected to the fact that as a group we're pretty much publicity-shy, despite having been experts in the field for over a century. The absence of a clear voice and message has allowed successive governments of both political parties to seize the initiative and impose their half-baked populist sentencing ideas, the results of which of course we enjoy today.

It might be useful to look at crime through the analagy of health or indeed life itself. In effect it's all a game of chance, right from fertilisation of the egg through to the point at which our pre-determined genetic pre-disposition meets the effects of our lifestyle and death. We all know that choosing our parents carefully will in all probability be the single most important factor that determines our future prospects. Probation officers know only too well that the vast majority of their clients do not get a great start in life. That's a fact, but that's always been the case, so what's changed I hear you say? Drugs!

Over my career I can say without a shadow of doubt that the whole criminal landscape has changed beyond recognition due to the widespread and unstoppable use of narcotics. A vast amount of acquisitive crime is committed today in order to fund these insatiable habits and this simply wasn't the case when I started out. Just as increasing prison sentence lengths have no effect on deterrence, no matter how sustained the war on drugs becomes it will have absolutely no effect on drug usage. The tabloids don't agree of course - because they seemingly know better and are merely reflecting the views of the public - and therefore no politician dares speak the truth that the whole thing is a costly and futile charade. We must admit that our current drug policy is a disaster and treat it instead as a health issue with legal prescribing.

Over my entire career I have never been aware that criminal behaviour is significantly affected by the deterrent effect of sentencing. What does affect behaviour is much more concerned with the chances of getting caught. Just with smokers not being affected by gruesome photos on cigarette packets, offenders feel confident that they will evade detection. Each feels that there is good reason to believe that justice will not catch up with them. It's the old theory of partial random re-inforcement. But I can hear some people saying at least the public gets a break whilst the offenders are off the streets. Yes that's true, but firstly it's costly, secondly we imprison more people than ever in our history and thirdly what use is it if offenders are returned to society more damaged and less able to cope than when they went in? In the end the only real chance of stopping criminal behaviour is to effect a change in attitude and that takes skill, time and effort.

In terms of sentencing, it always amazes me when routinely there are examples quoted in the media of 'soft' sentencing, without full knowledge of the case. Probation Officers have to be experts in sentencing because they are often charged with advising sentencers based upon detailed assessments of each offenders background, attitude and environment. This information is normally confidential for sound professional reasons and unfortunately can sometimes compound the public's perception of a sentence being 'soft'.

All I can say is that in my experience, having sometimes sweated blood and tears over some Pre-Sentence Reports, I have more often been disappointed at my recommendation being ignored by imposition of a harsher sentence, than one being imposed that was more lenient. In such cases there will invariably have been factors that the public would not have been privvy to, that had a direct effect on offending behaviour and that could have been addressed more constructively.

Now the cynics will say that just shows that Probation Officers always 'down tariff' rather than 'up tariff' offenders. There did indeed used to be some truth in thinking that, but even so it ignores the fact that when we were rather more closely associated with sentencers than we are today, we had to maintain their confidence. So called 'concordance' rates were monitored enthusiastically both by individual officers and management and was the source of some pride. Somewhat ironically nowadays there is evidence to suggest that more-recently trained officers have a tendency to 'up tariff' offenders which I find a sad indictment on the changes imposed upon us over the last 10 to 15 years. In essence my message would be that the need to punish rather less and understand more has never been greater. I can't help but notice that that goes counter to current political thinking though.

What Does a Probation Officer Do? 5

2012-02-10T08:49:00.002Z

Deliver

From the first day I set foot in a Probation Office whilst on placement from University, it was blindingly obvious to me that the vast majority of clients that would come my way needed help of some sort. I was never in any doubt that the State would be paying my wages so as to try and make amends either for various social policy failings, the effects of developmental hurdles or environmental traumas. Yes a criminal act had set the ball rolling and thus fate had delivered them to my office door, but almost without exception there was something that had gone wrong in their life that had contributed to criminal activity. Fix that and we might be on the way to reducing the likelihood of repetition.

All probation officers know that many clients present with some very familiar sounding life histories. Often the products of broken homes, many have spent periods in the care of the Local Authority. Significant numbers have suffered abuse of some sort, their education has been disrupted and developmental problems go undiagnosed. They form unhelpful friendships with criminally experienced peers and are introduced to alcohol and drugs. Failure and exclusion from school leads to unemployability, relationship breakdown, homelessness and finally prison. I still defy anyone to give me intelligent reasons why a qualified social worker practising as a probation officer is not a key part of the appropriate answer to this depressing scenario.

If this is the raw material, I think most people would agree that it might take a little more than a 'jolly good talking to', a spell of Unpaid Work or even a period in custody in order for them to see the error of their ways and stop offending. They need some basic things sorting, like a proper diagnosis for a learning disability, some counselling for past abuse, or help filling in forms. They need somewhere to live, help with literacy or some treatment for alcohol or drug dependency. They might need a doctor or dentist.

The list is long and the job remit vast. In the end though in my experience it's often only the PO who can see the whole picture and start trying to fix things. And I don't mean a bit of 'signposting'. It has to be action, like contacting the appropriate agency and arranging for a GP to be allocated. Like badgering the Local Authority or Health Authority to carry out the appropriate assessments. Like talking to housing providers in order to 'sell' your client to them. Like arguing the toss with the Benefits Agency to sort out why no money has arrived. It also means responding. Doing the home visit at a time of crisis. Visit the jail, or the hospital or hostel. Keep in touch, telephone and write letters. Advocate on their behalf and ferry them and their chattles about when felt appropriate.

I know some of this is now regarded as unnecessary or unprofessional even, but it's always worked for me. It reminds me of one of my very first clients when still a student. He was a young disaffected black guy sent away to YOI for the first time. His mother had no means of visiting so I offered to take her considerable bulk in my compact Morris Traveller and combine the excursion with a joint interview. I learnt so much about her and the families problems on the way and to this day I remain touched by the young lads genuine appreciation in return.

Basically I think the job means delivering for your client, making their life a bit more satisfactory and along the way help to understand what's gone wrong or repair past damage. In this way you help build a constructive relationship that means they just might listen more carefully when the time comes to give some words of advice or strident warnings even.

Despite all the changes over the last 30 years, I remain committed to the social work approach to probation. It was a mistake to make us famously a Law Enforcement Agency, but politicians feel it sounds good to the public and hence we have the current mantra of 'understand less and punish more'. It's rubbish of course and just see where it's got us. I believe that social work will continue to be re-discovered by more recently qualified colleagues and if necessary will be quietly undertaken subversively.

Just as a point of information, I think this concludes the occasional series 'What Does a Probation Officer Do?

Call the Midwife

2012-02-08T09:29:00.002Z

Yes I know I should get out more and stop watching so much tv, but I'm a real sucker for period dramas, and particularly if they are set in the 50's and 60's. It's not so much the fanciful story lines of the likes of 'Heartbeat' and 'The Royal' that attract me, as the sheer nostalgic 'high' they provide with the attention to period detail. So it was in this vein that I set out to watch the new Sunday evening offering from BBC1 'Call the Midwife'.

I thought it might be a little different, having been based upon the real-life memoirs of a midwife starting out on her career in London's East End and during the early formative years of the National Health Service. Conscious that on occasion I have been accused of looking back at the past through rose-tinted glasses, I was reassured to read a complimentary review of the drama in the Sunday Times by social historian David Kynaston no less. It was certainly his view that this particular portrayal was realistic and true-to-life, and I think I have to agree.

Even though I'm not old enough to have many personal memories of the period, much chimes with anecdotal stories I've heard. In fact it's fascinating to reflect that my own mother established a life-long friendship with the midwife that saw me into the world. Of course these were the heady days of the NHS when the Nation was still coming to terms with the novelty of 'free' health care and it's worth reminding ourselves every now and then just what A Wonderful Thing it is, whatever our American cousins may think. It was also pre Seebhom Report and before social work had established itself as a distinctive discipline and function of the State. This drama very neatly spans the period of transition from what might be termed well-meaning charitable endeavour to that of vocational professionalism.

What really strikes me about this portrayal is that the nurses, whether part of the Holy Order or not, are basically making things up as they go along and responding to situations intuitively. Ok they have undergone training in relation to pre and post natal care in the community, but they are also inventing social work as they follow their 'calling' or vocation. Current practitioners in the social care field cannot but marvel at the almost complete absence of management, bureaucracy, policies, procedures and risk assessments. These were the days of a 'can do' approach to every aspect of the work and the only boundaries were those that were self-imposed by each individual as they simply did what they felt was appropriate in each case.

This certainly chimes with my early days post qualification as a social worker and newly-appointed Probation Officer in a small field office. I well remember very experienced officers describing how they often worked long into the evening going from door-to-door visiting clients in their homes. The officers were clearly a trusted part of the community and it was not unusual to discuss things with the whole family, stay for tea, exchange Christmas cards and even attend weddings, Christenings and funerals. Despite my inexperience, I also felt empowered to do whatever I felt appropriate in each of my cases. Team meetings made decisions by democratic means and often out-voted the Senior Probation Officer - a sort of 'first' amongst equals in those days! But of course things were changing and eventually the bloody computer arrived.

It would be futile and I'm not trying to pretend that everything was better back in the old days, but I find this drama a powerful reminder of just what we've lost along the way towards today's modern professional practitioners. I suppose there couldn't be a starker illustration than that provided by yet another new BBC 1 tv programme, 'Protecting our Children' where a social worker conducts a home visit accompanied by two security guards for FFS!

Coppers 2

2012-01-24T09:34:00.000Z

The Channel 4 tv programme 'Coppers' continues to provide fascinating 'fly-on-the-wall' viewing and last night's episode devoted quite a bit of time to someone very familiar to many old-style probation officers. I suspect every town in the land still has a Danny, even though most don't make it into old age, let alone middle age. Although most officers being interviewed about Danny made it clear in typical gallows-humour style that it would do everyone a favour if he just shuffled off this mortal coil, they obviously had a soft spot for him, but were completely at a loss how to help. And why should they - they're not social workers are they? But as the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester said a year or two back, that's who he effectively employs, hundreds and hundreds of 'social workers.'

Danny and his ilk have been a problem for society for many, many years. Probably the product of a very unhappy childhood, he failed at school, started 'getting into trouble' and just couldn't make a smooth transition into independent life. A secure home, relationship and employment all eluded him and as a result he sought refuge and comfort in alcohol and drugs from an early age. Those substances are slowly killing him, as is the weather due to living on the streets. We're told he shuns help and I have no doubt this is partly true, but what is society's answer to this social problem? Why ASBO him of course. He's banned from the whole centre of the town where he grew up and that gives police a steady job interminably re-arresting him when he inevitably breaches the ASBO. A ridiculous merry-go-round of arrest, interview, court, prison, release and back to 'go' again.

So what's the alternative? Well it will come as no surprise to hear that Danny used to be the responsibility of the Probation Service. When I started we were all social work trained and the Service took seriously it's legacy social welfare work with waifs and strays. But then so did society in general. Even up to the late 1980's, the State in the form of the DHSS still ran a nationwide network of hostels dedicated to helping the likes of Danny. But there were other providers too, the Church Army, Salvation Army and Local Authorities to name but some. They all provided help and support so that probation had a fighting chance when undertaking the often difficult and patient work of trying to turn the likes of Danny's life around.

I'm often asked if it worked? My answer cannot in all honesty be a trite 'yes'. Of course for some it worked, but remember probation only really see the 'failures.' For others it could be said to have failed, but I don't agree for the following reasons. Firstly, all probation officers quite quickly learned in those days that 'failure' just meant the guy wasn't ready yet and therefore you just had to try again, possibly something slightly different. Secondly, it was a much more humane way to treat people. I suspect I could now add a third which would never have occurred to me at the time and that would be that it was just 'cheaper.'

Of course nowadays in the modern Probation Service we are all concerned about 'efficiencies and effectiveness.' The likes of Danny doesn't get a look in at all. He's low risk and therefore simply of no interest to us. Oh, and for good measure we'd say he wasn't suitable for Unpaid Work or any programme we offered and he'd be unlikely to respond to supervision. Every time I watch programmes like 'Coppers' it makes me reflect on why I became a probation officer in the first place and why I often feel so miserable about where we are today. I want to go and interview Danny, pick up the case and get to know him.....

The rest of this particular episode of 'Coppers' featured officers spending hours getting tangled up with long-running neighbour disputes and possible ways to try and resolve them. Guess which agency of the State used to do that?! And talk to naughty kids, and help resolve child custody battles. Oh happy days......

Popularity and Balance

2012-01-23T09:19:00.001Z

I can't help noticing that Inspector Gadget has now passed 8 million hits, but has recently been musing that despite this, nothing seems to have changed. It got me thinking. Having been hugely successful and named by The Times as one of 40 blogs That Really Count, it occurs to me that he actually seems to feel that things might change. On the contrary, I'm fairly sure that they won't and that gives me cause to feel rather more optimistic about things as a result.

When I started blogging I was angry about what was happening to my profession and quite quickly found it therapeutic. I've always wanted to try and explain the intricacies of what largely remains a much-misunderstood field of human endeavour, but I don't think I ever thought things might change just because I started writing about them. Chance would be a fine thing! If you think about it, there have been relatively few people in history who's writings alone have changed the course of events. In a job like probation, especially nowadays when initiative and innovation are impossible, you mostly have to be content with just trying to help change an individuals life for the better, rather than the social policy failure that in large measure lead to the person's life being a mess in the first place.

Basically I think most work-based blogs are essentially a useful commentary on what goes on from an insiders point of view, and at the very least might prove to be of some interest to future historians. To be taken seriously though I think they have to at least try and aspire to being reasonably balanced. I'm a big supporter of the Police, appreciate the very difficult job they have to perform for all our safety and love reading Gadget. But I'm always worried about stuff I don't see him mentioning, like the recent revelation that two undercover officers secretly fathered children and a PC in Manchester has been dismissed for having sex with five women at Police Stations. Apart from anything else, it brings policing into disrepute, fosters the impression that it's almost a perk of the job and gives a whole new meaning to the term 'Police Service.' And what about the news from 34 Forces who responded to an FOI request that there are at least 1,000 officers and PCSO's currently serving with quite serious convictions to their names?

Gadget regularly has a pop at the coalition government's plans for elected Police Commissioners, but at the same time is dissmissive of current Police Authorities like that covering London and recently abolished. I would tend to agree with him on this point, but exactly how do we exercise some accountability over Police Forces? It seems that Nottinghamshire Police Authority wasn't even aware of their Chief Constable's decision to co-operate in the making of the Channel 4 tv show 'Coppers' and is mightily vexed at some of the broadcast footage as a result. He's not a fan of the Independent Police Complaint's Commission either, so do we go back to the days of simply relying on internal investigations? Popularity is one thing, but happily common sense is quite another.

New Training Tool

2012-01-22T10:38:00.001Z

News reaches me that at least one Probation area has decided to use the recent BBC1 drama series 'Public Enemies' as the basis for staff training. I'm grateful to the person who sent me an early draft of the questions and hope that the author will not mind their handiwork being brought to the attention of a wider audience. Why not have a go at the quiz yourself?

‘Public Enemies’ Training Quiz

You are a PO and have just returned to work following suspension after a Serious Further Offence investigation involving a very high profile murderer released on Life Licence. The first case you are allocated on returning to work is Eddie, a very high profile murderer released on Life Licence. Read the following scenarios and decide which option would be most appropriate.

Eddie breaches his exclusion zone by visiting his victim’s memorial and gets into a fight with the victim’s father. Eddie then asks you to lie for him rather than take any enforcement action as he ‘deserves a second chance’. What would you say?

a) No, that would be completely unacceptable.

b) I won’t lie but we may be able to avoid recall if the father doesn’t make a complaint.

c) Of course I’ll lie! After all, we wouldn’t want anyone to think I was being paranoid just because of that last SFO would we?

Shortly after his release you notice it is Eddie’s birthday - the first one he has celebrated in the community for several years. What would you do?

a) Risk assess the situation - is it possible he will go out and get drunk, try to contact people against his licence conditions etc?

b) Wish him a happy birthday when he next reports but make no more of it.

c) Meet him from work, take him out to a public place where either of you could be recognised and buy him a cupcake with a candle in it. It’s a ‘constructive intervention.’

Eddie turns up at your house in the middle of the night, furiously banging on your door and saying that he is innocent of the offence after all. How would you deal with the situation?

a) Call the police straight away and have him arrested and recalled.

b) Calmly ask him to leave and speak firmly about appropriate boundaries during your next supervision session.

c) Let him in (after all, he says he’s innocent), threaten to recall him using your special Home Office hotline then change your mind (after all, he says he’s innocent) and give him a lift back to the hostel (after all....)

You realise that in light of his denial of the offence, the fact that he has lost his job and is pushing boundaries with his licence, the offender’s risk level should be increased to High. What actions would be part of your contingency plan for this eventuality?

a) Issue an ACO warning.

b) Call an emergency MAPPA.

c) Send him on an unsupervised day out to the seaside with his new girlfriend, who knows nothing of his offences, and turn a blind eye if this makes him late back for his hostel curfew. It’ll do him good.

During a group session at the hostel Eddie launches into a rant about his licence, swears at you, storms out of the group and trashes his room. What action would you take?

a) Go straight to recall.

b) Issue a final warning.

c) Arrange for his sister to smuggle him out in her car and take him back to her house (within his exclusion zone) where he can continue his rant in front of her impressionable young daughters.

Following a meeting in a cafe, Eddie asks you to stay with him for a while as he ‘enjoys your company’. You agree on certain conditions. In terms of boundaries, which of the following would you need to insist was not acceptable?

a) Making jokes about your past sexual experience.

b) Tweaking his nose in a playful, flirtatious manner.

c) Talking about football.

Eddie becomes convinced that his GP was responsible for the murder, forces his way into the surgery in front of a room full of patients and punches him on the nose. He is arrested, but the GP refuses to press charges. Would this now be grounds for recall?

a) Definitely. The arrest is enough, his behaviour is unacceptable and the risk is going through the roof.

b) There’s some room for flexibility - maybe just a warning on this occasion.

c) Absolutely not. Having visited my last SFO case in prison, I’m now 100% convinced that Eddie is innocent because he’s openly breaking the rules instead of manipulating me - what sort of dangerous offender would do a thing like that? In fact, I’m going to meet him from the police station, greet him with a passionate hug and kiss and tell him that I believe in him. As long as I clearly record this in CRAMS and update OASys, I’m sure it will be defensible if the worst comes to the worst.

Not a Pretty Sight

2012-01-20T09:48:00.000Z

On this occasion I would tend to agree with Inspector Gadget that the pictures of Daniel Chrapkowski celebrating his avoidance of prison on the steps of Manchester Crown Court is not an edifying sight.. Having pleaded guilty to a count of causing Grievous Bodily Harm that put his victim in hospital for a month, he received a suspended term of imprisonment coupled with Unpaid Work and a two month curfew. A co-accused pleaded guilty to Affray and received Unpaid Work coupled with a Curfew and Compensation Order. A third person was sent to custody for 27 months having admitted that the assault had been committed whilst on bail for another offence of violence.

I have said before and I say again that it is invariably unwise to comment on sentencing decsions in the absence of full knowledge. For a start we don't know if there was any antecedant history. For all we know Mr Chrapkowski may well have been of previous good character and, as unattractive as he may look from his Facebook photos plastered all over the tabloid press, as far as I'm aware it's not yet illegal to either be an arse or cover yourself in tattoos.

On one level the sentencing decisions by the judge in relation to each defendant can be regarded as competent, understandable and proportionate and especially given the guilty plea's. My concern relates to the point at which the plea's were entered and as a consequence the resulting type and quality of probation Pre-Sentence Reports that were prepared. For early guilty plea's, there's ordinarily plenty of time for probation to prepare full reports, but if there is a guilty plea on the day, judge's are increasingly loathe to adjourn for any reasonable length of time and now insist on just a quick interview on the day with a Probation Services Officer based at Crown Court.

My point is this. I have reason to believe that in the interests of speed and economy, probation is no longer in a position to make the necessary full investigation and assessment on defendants prior to sentencing, and especially in serious cases. PSR's were invented in the first place so as to assist the process of fair sentencing by providing an independent but expert view somewhere in between the necessarily partisan picture painted by the defence and prosecution. In my view we are slowly but surely losing this vital role and it will have serious consequences for sentencing.

Coppers

2012-01-13T10:07:00.000Z

I'm sorry if it seems like this blog is turning into the electronic version of the tv or radio times, but there just seems to be so much being broadcast about criminal justice at the moment. Maybe it's always been like this and I just hadn't noticed, but now I have blank blog pages to fill.

'Coppers' is a Channel 4 documentary series following various branches within the police as they go about their daily work. I never caught any of series one broadcast in 2010 and the new series started on Monday this week, featuring CID based in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. The subject matter is of interest to probation officers because of course those being dealt with will almost certainly come our way at some point. Watching this first programme just served to remind me once again for the need of something similar, following our work with offenders, but maybe the tv people just don't think it's exciting enough.

First off, I have to say it's reassuring to see that the officers based in Mansfield appear so 'normal' to me. So professional, so human and well, like us in many respects. I knew that before of course, but we have different jobs to do and of necessity we view the clientele somewhat differently. Once again I recognised all the characters and try as I might I found it hard not to be either mentally writing their PSR's, pondering a supervision plan or just seeking an explanation. At the same time, ringing in my ears, was a particularly irritating political soundbite I've heard recently along the lines of 'we should try and understand less and condemn more.' Errr no, and tv programmes like this highlight for me the stupidity of such sentiments.

The young, cocky, suspected burglar who feels that the police are 'stupid' and villains much smarter will be all too familiar to most PO's. Such distorted thinking is sadly so very typical. Having failed miserably at school, probably the product of unstable parenting and negative role models, he will almost certainly be involved in either heavy drinking or drug usage. The look of those eyes and the profuse sweating during interview looked very familiar to me. The future for him, and sadly the community that he resides within and is no doubt pestered by him, is quite bleak. Currently unemployable, one can only hope that either the passage of time and maturing process, coupled with a rather more sensible girlfriend, may in the end effect some positive change.

Of course probation will do it's best. He'll no doubt find himself on a Thinking Skills Programme at some point. A referral to a drug project and a spell of Unpaid Work, but when he either fails or breaches it will be ever-lengthening spells in custody, which he made plain were no great hardship at all. What he and his ilk need is something radical. Do you remember that tv series a few years back called 'Bad Lads Army?' A brilliant example of how the combination of external interest, structure and discipline can change someon'e life for the better. A period away from your normal environment, a broadening of horizons and the chance to have some responsibility. All quite well-known techniques behind organisations like Scouts, Youth Clubs, Sail Training Association, Intermediate Treatment and Prince's Trust, but as a society generally we seem to have forgotten the lessons and no longer have the range of opportunities we once did.

At the other end of the spectrum, and the first episode of this new series of 'Coppers', was the learning-disabled sex offender. We don't know all the details, but it seems he was being accommodated in a hostel of some kind and was the subject of certain restrictions in terms of movement. Basically an ill-judged decision to allow him out into the community unescorted now means that he has been sentenced to indefinite detention in prison (no doubt IPP) with a judges recommendation that he never be released.

I find this absolutely shocking, but highlights the plight of this very difficult group of offenders. Not bad, or mad in terms of being appropriate for detention in Special Hospital, this sad man will now be inappropriately the responsibility of HM Prison Service with little chance of release. Due to his learning disability he will be deemed unsuitable for sex offender groupwork programmes within prison and his future is even more bleak than the young suspect burglar. I always find these cases very upsetting and his probation officer will find that their scope to assist is sadly severely restricted. Without doubt, the learning-disabled remain very much misunderstood by the Criminal Justice system and get a very raw deal as a result.

Dying in Prison

2012-01-11T15:58:00.001Z

It may not be widely known, but one of the fastest growing groups within our prison system is the elderly male. There are currently 8,000 such prisoners classified as 'old' and the Prison Service takes 50 as the relevant age due to the often harsh lifestyles already having wreaked havoc with mind and body. There are two main reasons for this ageing prison phenomenon. Firstly, the increase in length of sentences for serious offences over the last decade or so, and secondly the ability of improved forensic techniques, especially that of DNA, in being able to apprehend suspects many years after the commission of offences. By far the largest category of prisoner in this aged male population is the sex offender.

Often abandoned by friends and family it's extremely difficult for probation officers to find suitable accommodation for these prisoners upon release. In my experience, both hostels and sheltered accommodation providers are extremely loathe to justify the risks involved and I do wonder if there might not be some frail and elderly prisoners on determinate sentences possibly languishing in prisons beyond the legal authority to detain them? Surely not I hear you say...... ? But certainly for those on indeterminate sentences, it goes without saying that lack of suitable, supervised accommodation often precludes the possibility of the Parole Board even seriously considering release. I guess it could be described as 'scandalous', but where is the willingness or funding for such specialised units that would be required as an alternative to prison?

For the first time ever, the Prison Service has granted media access to the special elderly unit at HMP Norwich, along with other prisons, and Rex Bloomstein's programme for BBC Radio 4 makes fascinating listening as a result. There are real issues of risk involved, even with men in their 70's and 80's, in terms of possible further offending and it was enlightening to hear the Governor of HMP Whatton talking of current experiments with libido-reducing drugs for this group. I'm not at all sure I'm entirely at ease with such developments as it inevitably brings back some very unhappy thoughts of drug therapies and treatments in the 50's and 60's. I seem to recall that Alan Turing was sentenced to such a chemical treatment as part of a Probation Order after the war. I suppose by nature I'm much more inclined towards cognitive therapies where sex offending is concerned.

Anyway, a thought-provoking programme for those interested in yet another aspect of our mostly secretive prison system and due for repeat on Sunday 15th January at 5.00pm on BBC Radio 4. Alternatively, in the UK it can be found on i-player here.

Another Milestone

2012-01-08T08:55:00.002Z

The blog counter tells me that I've passed 100,000 hits since starting in August 2010 which feels great, even though sadly in recent times the hit-rate has been inflated by pesky attention from spammers. Nevertheless, it feels good and I'll certainly be raising a glass later today in celebration. Thankyou for reading and some of you for taking the time to give valuable feedback. It really is much appreciated.

I sense that this year is going to be another significant milestone for probation. 2012 sees NAPO marking its centenary, but sadly any celebrations will be tempered by significant chunks of the Service moving out of the public sector. There's been precious little public awareness or comment on the proposed privatisations, effectively giving the politicians a free hand. But at long last the Probation Chiefs Association seem to have woken up to the widespread ignorance the public has about our work and have suddenly become more media savvy. They are giving some prominence to the efforts of Russell Webster, an independent consultant and I'm sure it's not just coincidence that the initiative has been launched at the same time as the BBC screens the first major probation drama since 'Hard Cases' in the late 80's.

Readers will be aware that I've already expressed my disappointment with 'Public Enemies' and been taken to task for naivety to a certain extent as a result. I understand that drama often does not represent reality, but our problem is that public ignorance remains widespread and probation features but rarely in tv drama, and then mostly in terrible 'bit parts.' Did anyone catch a glimpse recently of a black probation officer broadcasting his involvement with a client to the regulars in the Queen Vic in Albert Square?

Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to see what others are saying, like the Probation Chiefs Association:-

"While a drama would not be expected to reflect accurately the day to day work of probation, it does bring out many of the themes that face probation staff daily. Striking the balance between restrictive requirements and the more “constructive interventions“ sometimes referred to in the film is correctly and sensitively portrayed. In terms of the fictional Probation officer/offender relationship, viewers will no doubt find the suggestion of the ‘up close and personal’ chemistry compelling. It is far removed from reality. What is true and backed by solid research evidence is that the professional Probation Officer/offender relationship is a key factor in successfully reducing reoffending."

I seem to recall that when 'Z Cars', 'Softly, Softly', 'The Sweeney', and 'The Bill' were first aired they got a panning from official police sources. Well, in true probation style, I think this carefully-crafted statement counts as a panning, lol!

A Missed Opportunity

2012-01-07T10:09:00.005Z

For me the test of a good tv drama is if it's believable or not. Sadly Paula, the probation officer in Public Enemies, the recent three-parter penned by Tony Marchant for BBC 1 was almost completely unrecognisable. Eddie on the other hand was a very familiar face and I've come across him many times. So, why is it so difficult to write a realistic part for a probation officer? Remember the author had the benefit of assistance from Harry Fletcher of NAPO no less. The answer lies partly in it's inherent conflicts and multitudinous dimensions, not easily portrayed in a three-part tv drama by someone who has little or no knowledge of our work.

I have to say that I found watching this drama very uncomfortable indeed. For some reason I kept thinking it was a training film that could be stopped every now and then so that people could chip in comments on the ubiquitous flip chart 'oh that's not how to talk to him', 'that wouldn't happen', 'that's definitely not right', 'oh bloody hell!' you know, that sort of thing. As a training film demonstrating how not to supervise a lifer case, it might just have an enduring role, but for me it's absolutely vital that the public understand it's not how we work at all.

In order to be clear, I'm not just saying it was Paula's general demeanour, her poor judgement and method of operation, it includes important factual errors such as contact with the victims family. In my experience the clients supervising probation officer would never have direct contact with victims or their families. For sound professional reasons, this delicate work is undertaken by colleagues in a dedicated unit and there exists a 'Chinese wall' between the two parts of the probation service.

Even in accepting the authors intention of showing the difficult journey an officer returning to work from suspension has to tread, Paula's behaviour is just breathtakingly unrealistic, naively stupid and crankily-scripted. I have never come across that level of unprofessionalism, collusion, obfuscation and lying, and I've seen my fair share of bad practice over the years, believe me. However, what's really worrying is some of the comments from probation staff in London on their website. Some apparently think 'it was a realistic representation of probation work.' OMG - I feel one of my heads coming on again and need to lie down!

PS - the NAPO forum site is strangely silent on the topic and some of us would like to hear a bit more from Harry Fletcher........

Public Enemies

2012-01-05T09:32:00.000Z

Well, after a false start caused by the Stephen Lawrence verdicts it's finally arrived - a serious attempt at a probation drama. As Harry Fletcher from NAPO says, it's been a long-time coming since the last attempt 'Hard Cases' in the late 80's. I certainly cringed when I first got wind of the intended story line that involved a sexual relationship between young female officer and released 'lifer', but Harry reckons to have significantly altered the plot line to more accurately reflect true life. We'll have to wait to the end to find out, but surely for there to be any point in drama, it must reflect reality mustn't it?

Writing about probation by non-practitioners must be peculiarly difficult as it is so uncommon, and yet insiders have always known that the potential plot lines are vast and all-encompassing. We know author Tony Marchant had some help from NAPO and we're all smart enough to understand that in telling a story for tv you have to indulge in some 'compression' and even suspension of belief, but I really think the public needs to know that hell freezing over is rather more likely than a lifer being released to the area where the offence was committed. Yes I know it's an essential element of this plot-line and it will therefore serve the purpose of underlining just how sensible a policy it is when viewers see the mayhem caused by not following it. I just didn't want people thinking we really were generally that stupid.

As always, insiders will probably laugh and cringe in equal measure - did you see the size of that 'lifer' file? - and how about that interview for a first meeting? But this is tv drama and sadly I am familiar with some officers who might be better placed career-wise in an interrogation unit in some other government agency. It's not impossible to imagine a change of officer at the very point of release as any of us could succumb to a nasty accident, but I think most of us would hope that any officer finding themselves in such a situation really would put a bit more effort into building a rapport with their new client!

It would be nit-picking to point out things like a lifer would only be released from an open prison and would have already stayed at the hostel on ROTL, Release on Temporary Licence. I think the key thing for me has to be the degree to which a member of the public would be able to understand what is going on and the reasons for it. Realistically one episode, let alone three, cannot hope to capture the sheer breadth of issues and factors probation officers have to deal with on a daily basis. The stresses and strains, together with the subtleties and nuances of continually having to balance the needs for risk management and public protection with rehabilitation and positive development in their client. I think that's going to mean the BBC commissioning at least another series.

Oh, and finally the cliff-hanger that Eddie is in fact innocent and took the rap for someone else is going to get a lot of prison officers laughing their socks off - I can hear them now "we've got whole wings who say that in here!"

Justice at Last

2012-01-04T09:39:00.001Z

How supremely ironic that the first episode of the long-anticipated BBC1 probation drama 'Public Enemies' was bounced off the tv schedules by a real-life murder case. It was always likely that the jury returning guilty verdicts in the Stephen Lawrence case would be big news, and so it proved with the last-minute screening of the moving BBC 1 'Panorama' special focussed on Stephens mother Doreen. The Criminal Justice System, Probation included, is often accused of not taking into account the effect of crime upon victims and this programme gives us all some valuable insight.

As the judge considers his sentencing remarks overnight, discussion has already begun regarding the likely outcome. Although both convicted men are now in their 30's, they will have to be dealt with as if they were minors, and initially 'Detained at Her Majesty's Pleasure'. This strikes me as pretty much academic as such a sentence automatically becomes a Life Sentence on attaining the age of majority. The key bit is the length of the tariff, or period of imprisonment that must be served before consideration for release by the Parole Board. The situation has changed significantly over the 18 years since the murder took place, with the Criminal Justice Act 2003 introducing much higher tariffs in relation to certain types of aggravated offences.

Although there is bound to be concern in some quarters that these two men will still have cheated justice to some extent when their tariffs are announced, it must be remembered that release will only eventually come about when the Parole Board are convinced that it is safe to do so. At this very moment, somewhere in London, two probation officers will already be engaged in the process of making preparations for that process in the form of Post Life Sentence Reports. Over the coming years they will have the task of getting to know as much as possible about these two men in order to make well-informed judgements that will inform the process, and it's not easy.

Understandably perhaps, there is a view in certain quarters that probation officers are quite naive and gullible. All that is required is to 'tell them what they want to hear' and release becomes relatively straightforward. Well, I must disabuse them. It's not for nothing that this blog refers to the 'mysteries and magic' that is 'probation.' Despite the claims for OASys, making assessments is not and never can be a science in my view, but rather will remain an imprecise art. In view of this, experience tells me that one of the most significant factors is the length of time a case can remain with the same officer. In my career, in sentence planning meetings, I have often been the only 'expert' in the room due purely to having supervised the case from the beginning and remembered key facts, noticed differing versions in the prisoners story and subtle changes in their attitude, demeanor and body language.

Of course what I'm describing is a situation where the prisoner wishes to make progress on an indeterminate sentence. In a sense it's much easier to make a judgement about risk where the prisoner makes it plain that they have no intention of changing - they simply don't get released. So the key question is, as put to me regularly by a long-term denying life sentence prisoner, 'if you don't believe me, how will you know when I'm telling the truth?' In short a very good question, to which I routinely gave the somewhat lame reply 'I just will!'

It's sad I know, but over the Christmas and New Year break I found myself watching an old edition of a game show called 'Goldenballs' on an obscure cable tv channel. For those unfamiliar with the format, contestants compete for potentially very large sums of money by playing a game of chance, but spiced up by the ability to either rob their opponent or share the winnings with them. They basically have to convince their opposite number that they are telling the truth in wishing to share the loot and not lying in order to steal the lot. I have to say an unnerving programme for a probation officer, with some very uncomfortable professional similarities.

Probation Exceeding Targets - Shock!

2011-12-29T18:33:00.000Z

I wouldn't normally be bothered expending time discussing statistics, let alone targets, as life is just too short and we are all familiar with the refrain that there's "lies, damned lies and statistics." However, seeing as Inspector Gadget has raised the issue, I think it's only fair to respond. In a post entitled 'Ruralshire Probation Service in melt down - SHOCK!' he says:-

"More than 43,000 offenders given community sentences have breached them in the past year.
A total of 43,521 criminals had to be tracked down and sentenced again in the year to July 2011.
Around 23,750 offenders failed to comply with simple punishments such as doing unpaid work.
Another 19,741 committed further crimes during their non-custodial sentences."

Well I've been looking at the National Offender Management Service Annual Report - a hefty tome at 115 pages, but on page 42 it states:-

"Orders and licences successfully completed (national KPI)

This is an indicator of offender compliance which measures orders and licences at their point of termination. It shows the proportion of these that have terminated successfully, i.e. which have run their full course without being revoked for breach or a further offence or have been revoked for good progress.

Target: To ensure that at least 72 per cent of orders and licences are successfully completed in 2010/11

Result: 76 per cent of orders and licences were successfully completed"

It goes on to say that the the figure has risen consistently from 2008/9 from 72 per cent. Meanwhile Inspector Gadget goes on to make the following assertion:-

"In Ruralshire, offenders often wait so long for their first appointment after sentencing that their sentence has actually ended before they get to sit in front of a probation officer."

Indeed this statement is repeated twice for emphasis. Administrative oversights and errors occur in every organisation, but all I can say is that I simply don't recognise the validity of such a sweeping assertion and would be very interested to hear of some evidence to support it.

The post concludes by saying:-

"All of this stuff adds to the general feeling of a lack of consequences for the criminal underclass."

I might have some sympathy with this view were it not that prison numbers continue to stand at an all-time historical high.

It's That Time of Year Again

2011-12-24T14:32:00.000Z

Having at last done my bit for the economy, met all deadlines, achieved all targets and caught up with most colleagues and friends, it's time to batten down the hatches, steady the nerves and prepare for several days of over-indulgence.

To all my readers, old and new, I wish you a happy Christmas and a great New Year. I have reason to feel that 2012 will signal renewed enthusiasm for the written word with one or two new thoughts and comments to add to the whole criminal justice debate. For a kick-off, don't miss the long-awaited three part BBC 1 probation drama 'Public Enemies' due for screening on January 2nd, 3rd and 4th. Apparently Harry Fletcher from NAPO has given the production company some advice. I wonder what it was and if they took any notice........?

Cheers for now,

Jim

Some Answers

2011-12-09T08:53:00.001Z

My suggestion that readers might like to ask some questions has already produced a very interesting clutch, together with some truly thought-provoking comment. I'm really grateful you've all taken the time and it's had the desired effect of stirring me from a temporary stupor. I intend to respond to all contributions, but some are going to take a bit of time to ponder over, especially those that require a bit of self analysis. (By the way I had never noticed that I've been mispelling Inspector Gadget continuously - freudian slip or just poor spelling?). So thanks everyone - keep them coming and in no particular order, here's some answers. Lets start with a belter from a fellow blogger and magistrate:-

Do your colleagues have training commensurate with their responsibilities?

In essence this seems to have been triggered by PSR authors suggesting 'a suspended term of imprisonment' or similar without first addressing whether imprisonment is appropriate or not. I agree that the issue is not just one of semantics, but rather sloppiness, or ill-judgement and not how I would approach the matter. I don't think it's the probation officer's role to say if imprisonment is appropriate or not, but rather to point out the possible effects incarceration would have and compare those with other options, including suspension in order to allow the Bench to make a decision. On the wider issue of training - I'm tempted to just say 'no!' But let me add that my age, background and experience leads me to marvel on a daily basis as to the difference between the world when I started out and where I find myself today in every sphere of endeavour! I'm fatalistic I'm afraid - we're just stuck with it.

Have you ever supervised anyone that you felt was genuinely innocent? How would you supervise them in this case?

The short answer is yes, but I'm going to highlight a distinction in terms of seriousness. Over the years there's almost certainly been a significant number of wrongful convictions that have led to people being supervised by me for offences they didn't commit. However, 'probation' hasn't always been seen as a particularly onerous or pointless process and indeed used to have some significant benefits in terms of support, guidance and practical help. Hard to believe I know, but there was a time when clients looked forward to regular sessions with their officer, so it wasn't such a great hardship having been 'wrongfully' sentenced. Some of course would openly admit to having got away with 'shedloads' of other stuff and often agreed with me that justice had merely caught up with them, if albeit 'wrongfully' lol.

But at the other end of the scale there was the murderer doing life. It was a hideous offence and in my opinion only a very dangerous psychopath could have been responsible. Over many years, every single time I met the guy I had to ask myself, 'do I think he could have done it?' He always protested his innocence and said he was 'fitted up'. I always privately agreed, but it would have been completely unprofessional to let him know that. The best I could do was to try and follow a relatively 'neutral' path with him, but eventually he refused to see me and there was no alternative but to allow transfer of the case. As a sobering aside, no similar offences have ever come to light, as far as I am aware........

How does resentencing work for good behaviour and bad behaviour whilst on probation?

It's still good practice to apply to the court for early discharge of an order so as to reward good progress. However, I'll be honest and admit that I haven't always done this as having one or two successes on your books is good for the spirit and helps make up for all the hopeless and difficult ones. We're only human and early discharge would mean no more 'nice chats' and in all probability you'd get a difficult one in their place. Sadly management cottoned on to this of course and are now always pushing for early discharge and it takes a strong-willed and confident officer to resist this where it seems inappropriate.

Seriously 'bad' behaviour as in believable threats, seriously 'kicking off' or refusal to co-operate I can honestly say I've never really encountered. However, if regarded as not manageable it would clearly involve the police, or at least a return to court citing the order as being unworkable and with a request for re-sentence. Straight forward failure to attend appointments would lead to a return to court for breach, but not necessarily a request for revocation and re-sentencing. Most of us still believe in people being capable of change and learning from mistakes or poor judgement, and with redemption always as a possibility!

More answers to follow shortly.

Wot no posts?!

2011-12-06T20:30:00.000Z

Regular readers will be aware that there has been a deafening silence since Armistice Day. There's no particular significance in that, but I thought I ought to say something in case anyone was wondering about my well being. The truth is that I seem to have run out of things to say - or at least new things. I really don't want to be endlessly repeating myself, so it would appear that a natural break has occurred. Oh, and I did attract the attention of 'spammers' which can be very dispiriting.

Maybe it's the weather, the time of year, a reaction to circumstances or just the inevitable function of the passage of time, but I seem to be once again depressed by the state probation finds itself in. In truth there are times when I am just overwhelmed by the crass stupidity of so called changes, efficiencies and improvements. The ridiculous nomenclature that labels offices as 'service delivery units' and management initiatives that seek to re-invent the wheel such as evidenced by the latest fad, 'destistance' theory. As if we hadn't been doing that all along!

I guess I'm just fed up - and in this festive season, I'm spending more time on one of my favourite hobbies - sinking good beer in great pubs with friends. I'm sure something will eventually grab my attention and encourage words to flow. For a start, there's episode 5 of 'What does a Probation Officer do? But in the mean time I'd like to leave readers with an idea. How about posing some questions and I have a stab at providing some answers?

Cheers for now,

Jim

A Controversial Suggestion

2011-11-11T09:05:00.001Z

It's now well over a year since I started writing in earnest about probation and I'm conscious that a degree of repetition may be creeping in. I guess this is an occupational hazard and maybe there is only so much to be said about what is in essence quite a simple concept.

This post from 22nd October on the Justice of the Peace Blog has encouraged a return to the perrenial problem faced by all courts, that of the chronic alcohol or drug-addicted homeless offender.

"They are generally 45 year old males who look to be at death’s door. They appear at the magistrates` court with NFA….no fixed abode……on shoplifting or public disorder offences and they invariably have a long record of previous. There is no sentencing outcome which is appropriate. They are often given a notional fine and immediately released the fine deemed having been paid by their having been in custody overnight."

The piece goes on to quote a case reported by 'This is Derbyshire' and concerning a serial homeless shoplifter whose only intention is to get back to prison as soon as possible because he simply cannot cope in the outside world. Reading the piece you can sense that the frustration and despair is clearly shared by the journalist:-

"WHAT a dilemma for a judge or magistrates – what should they do with a crook whose only intent is being sent back to prison? Darren Newsome has eventually got his wish. The serial shoplifter had hoped for this outcome back in July, only to be disappointed, when he appeared in court charged with theft.
Undeterred, he went straight back to shoplifting in August, September and October – and now Recorder Christopher Donnellan has locked him up for 40 weeks.

"Thank you very much, sir," responded Newsome.

He makes no secret of the attraction of prison – he gets regular meals and a roof over his head without having to worry about how he is going to pay for that every day. But what alternative does a judge have in such circumstances? He can hardly leave him free to carry on in his merry, criminal way. Traders have to be protected."

"We have to recognise that some people just cannot cope with life outside the prison environment.
It is sad and they deserve some sympathy for that – but our law-makers need to explore the options for helping them minimise their reliance on this costly last resort."

Well of course this problem has been around for a very long time and in fact was the driving force behind the establishment of the probation service way back in 1907. It was recognised that a criminal justice system needed a welfare arm in order to try and deal with such problem cases, and eventually the early Christian pioneers became professionally qualified social workers. What was never properly understood however was the probation officers dual role encompassing welfare with public protection. Politicians of both parties subsequently decided that there was political advantage to be had in dropping the welfare role of the probation service completely, substituting it for punishment instead.

Now regular readers will be aware that there are still some officers around that are experienced and practiced in the old ways and find it very hard indeed to forget their welfare roots. Cases like the one described above are very familiar indeed to such officers and it is quite obvious that the problem has not gone away - it's just that the State seemingly has absolutely no method of dealing with it any more. The frustration of sentencers is palpable.
What on earth can be done?

I have made this suggestion before, but I think it's worth repeating. Make a Community Order with supervision. I say this not just because it will in all probability infuriate probation staff at all levels, I say it because I feel it is right and humane. We used to handle these cases and we can re-learn the skills required. Orders can be made on people who are homeless and permission of the probation service is not required. There is no other agency able to do this work and therefore I would remind sentencers that it is within their power to sentence how they see fit and it's up to the probation service to respond.

Got to be Worth a Try

2011-11-05T17:40:00.000Z

Any mention of RSA gets me thinking about school days and typing exams for the girls while us blokes were doing stuff like GCE 'O' level Technical Drawing. I've never really given much thought to the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce since, until today that is. Now with the strap line 'Ideas and actions for a 21st century enlightenment' this august body, somewhat surprisingly, wants to build a prison?

I think most of us are familiar with the notion of think tanks writing reports and coming up with bright ideas as to how society can be improved. But here we have something altogether different - not just some novel ideas for improving the rehabilitative nature of prisons, but a plan to actually build or acquire one and operate it along very particular and different lines.

As far as I can see the hypothesis is one centred on full-time, social enterprise employment for all prisoners, with remuneration at not less than the statutory minimum wage. The prison would be located alongside what is termed a 'transition park' which would be home to many and varied social enterprises offering a range of employment opportunities, together with some temporary housing. The aim would be to involve prisoners in the management of the whole enterprise and incentivize them to remain offence free. It's being likened to a 'John Lewis' type shared-ownership ideal.

Having got up to speed with the RSA's track record with regard to initiatives like The Clink prison training kitchen and restaurant, together with drug projects and school curriculum development, they strike me as being a body who's time may well have come. They seem to me to be peculiarly well-placed to be able to offer something significantly better than just more private prisons run by mega corporations as envisaged by Ken Clarke. This is a story worth following and should give us all cause for hope. There is an article in today's Guardian.

The Good Old Days

2011-11-04T09:03:00.000Z

Once again I'm grateful for readers contributions, like this from yesterday by Don:-

"I fear that you might also be looking back through rose tinted specs. Certainly I saw a lot of pretty poor practice alongside the good stuff. There were more ‘characters’ in the old days, but they sometimes took idiosyncratic to a level which had to be seen to be believed."

"Although I essentially became a probation officer to try to help people, I always thought our over-riding duty was to the court, so I used to breach people who didn’t comply with their sentences. I had colleagues in the ‘good old days’ who either didn’t know how to do a breach, or couldn’t be bothered. I remember one colleague who proudly told me she had never breached a client. It didn’t surprise me that she had a lot of no shows!"

This is a fair accusation and those that know me would no doubt say I do indeed have a tendency to look back with fond memories. I recognise much of what you say, and I think it has to be addressed in order to help make sense of the situation we now find ourselves in. I'm a firm believer in history being able to inform the present and help guide us through the future.

The situation in the 1980's was very different. Probation was an alternative to a sentence and the client had to give their agreement. We were indeed officers of the Court, but charged with the responsibility of assisting the client live a crime-free life during the period that the Court had placed trust in them. In essence all that was required of the client was to remain offence free and merely report as required. I think it's true that seen in this light, breach action was only felt appropriate in exceptional circumstances, not least because probation was not a punishment as it is today of course.

Pretty much the officer had complete freedom to determine the level and frequency of reporting. I would say that this enabled time and effort to be put into those risky or difficult cases, rather than the ones that were doing ok, and for whom probation was working it's magic. Some people did not have to report that often. After all, probation literally means a period of time during which a person can demonstrate that they can be trusted to change their behaviour. The job was invented because it was recognised that some people would need help in achieving this aim, hence we were charged with 'advising assisting and befriending.'

We had less serious cases in those days and our work was unashamedly welfare-orientated. We were the social work arm of the criminal justice system and thus we all had to be fully qualified social workers.

In an age before managerialism was invented and when officers felt attracted to a job that gave the opportunity of 'helping people', it did indeed encourage characters to flourish. Of course there was bad practice, but I would argue this was more than compensated for by the very encouragement of that idiosyncratic behaviour. We are all human and this is a person-centred occupation - or should be. The good old days gave officers the freedom to be themselves and innovate. As in all jobs there was bad, but at the same time there were many exceptional and brilliant officers that inspired us newer recruits.

Those of us who have been around for a long time can recall amazing initiatives and ground-breaking work undertaken by colleagues. Personally I could name at least three current well-established charities started by humble PO's in my small locality alone. This will have been replicated everywhere. We did research, we ran projects, we joined committees. Above all we got involved because we had passion and wanted to do things. Management, such as it was, encouraged this and facilitated innovation.

I could go on, but I think the point is made. I believe we have lost more than has been gained by recent and not-so-recent changes. Newer colleagues sadly never knew the freedoms we had and of course the process has been very painful for us old-timers. The need for a return to the kind of ethos I've described could not be greater in my view and I intend to highlight this in coming posts.

Thanks for commenting!

Pause for Thought

2011-11-03T08:49:00.001Z

I have previously voiced what I think every blogger knows. Writing and getting things off your chest can be hugely enjoyable and therapeutic, but all of us need to know it's being read. Sending all this stuff out into the ether is all very well, but it's great when it triggers a response and every now and then a comment really makes you stop and think. Yesterday is a case in point and I hope the author will not mind me quoting their words:-

"As a fellow probation officer who shares your passion and genuine interest in those we work with I fully agree with your sentiment about supervision being a magical/mysterious process. That said, I am one of those who voluntarily moved away from the 'magic' of direct client contact into a management role - for what I thought were the right reasons! - To try to influence management structures/cultures for the good of the clients since our effectiveness in working with them happens to achieve what the paymasters require 'reduction in offending'."

"Surprisingly, what I've found is that in espousing the highest standards and expectations from others (staff) in the supervision of those we work with, I've often met with resistance and resentment from some officers who clearly don't share my passion for working with and engaging the client. I therefore sometimes (more often than I would wish) find myself in a strange place as a manager having to convince,influence and sometimes insist that clients are respected and treated fairly. As a manager/practitioner I really struggle with the fact that not all probation employees view working with clients as a 'privilege' and fully respect their position."

This is quite a reality check. It serves to confirm a truth that I've been trying to ignore - namely that the thoughts, ideas and concepts that I'm spending so much time recording here are possibly nothing more than an illusion. Perhaps they are indeed just a description of a bye-gone golden age of probation, penned by one of an ever-diminishing bunch of 'old-style' officers, and have no relevance for today's practitioners. You see I've noticed this change in attitude towards clients myself and been shocked by it.

There was a time when it would have been an absolute 'given' about clients being respected and treated fairly. Now we have a manager saying they have to 'insist' on it. No wonder the Prisoners Families Voices website is routinely full of negative comments regarding probation. I used to believe it was possibly the result of a move towards the use of more unqualified Probation Service's Officers, but I know full well that's not the complete answer. There has indeed been a monumental cultural shift within the probation service and it's not good. Us 'old-timers' are not going to be around for much longer and the Service is inexorably losing it's collective memory. To be honest there needs to be some sign that the message just might still have relevance before the memory fades completely.

I'll end with a final quote from the manager:-

"I suppose I want to illustrate that there are probably many people like me (in management positions) who went in voluntarily because they thought they could make a difference and were disillusioned by 'managerialism'. I am hanging on in there trying to make a difference often considering reverting back to practice because my energies seemed better spent then! What keeps me going is the passion I have for the work of probation, of effecting change at whatever level and my fundamental belief in fairness."

Amen!

What Does a Probation Officer Do? 4

2011-11-02T09:40:00.000Z

Supervise

Hopefully all your hard work in garnering as much information as possible about the client, making a sound assessment and convincing the court of the soundness of the reasoning will ultimately lead to the making of an order. In an ideal world, having done all the donkey work, formed the basis for establishing a good working relationship and become the expert on the case, you should become the supervising officer. This scenario certainly describes my experience, understanding and philosophy. Indeed it could be said to be just plain obvious and commonsense, but sadly for all sorts of reasons no longer holds true in anything other than the most serious of cases.

Anyway, supervision is what a probation officer is expected to do whether the case is inherited or seen through from the beginning. Supposedly the process was made easier by the introduction of OASys which handily incorporated a supervision plan section within it's all-embracing remit. It sounds a useful and helpful facility, but believe me it isn't and in my experience only serves to frustrate the author in being able to get on and complete the report by forcing often arbitrary selections from a 'pick and mix' menu. Unfortunately the cunningly-designed software will not allow it's omission. I'll be honest and say I've never expended much time and effort on this section, given that it never seems capable of being able to express in plain English what I really think the aims of supervision should be.

Unfortunately the word 'supervision' has become somewhat of a large stick with which to beat the Probation Service. In the midst of widespread ignorance about what we do, politicians over recent years have encouraged the public to develop completely unrealistic expectations of our power and remit in relation to 'supervising' clients. Of course the media has played its part in encouraging the notion that if someone is being 'supervised' we must know what they are doing 24/7. As a consequence, any further offending must, by definition, be a failure on our part. Why? Because they're on supervision and we should have prevented it. Ludicrous, grossly unfair, never has been the case and never can be of course, when typically a client might only be seen once a week for an hour max.

That being said, supervision as I understand it remains at the core of what probation is all about. The key to it having an effect or not is almost entirely down to the quality of the relationship between officer and client. This alone should ensure that appointments are kept without the constant threat of having to impose sanctions or ultimate breach action. If the reporting session is felt to be useful and constructive by the client, attendance in my experience will not be a great problem. That is not to say that sessions are always necessarily easy and friendly. Difficult things have to be discussed and attitudes and behaviour challenged, but this is all down to the skill of the officer in deciding how and when to approach such matters. The client must feel they can trust you and that you're being fair with them, even when telling them something they do not want to hear. It's not about friendship, but rather mutual respect.

That small word 'supervision' can embrace just about any and every facet of human experience. The session can go in any direction and take a variety of forms. They can be incredibly difficult and emotional or easy and chatty. Each time in effect it's a blank sheet of paper on which the officer can write, or attempt to write, anything. Sometimes it's about listening, or counselling, advising or sympathising. Sometimes challenging, interrogating, checking, or admonishing. But the aim is always the same, to encourage and support positive changes.

Without doubt it's the most interesting bit of the job and I've never understood why some officers voluntarily move away from it, say into management. I can say it's still what makes this a brilliant vocation and an utter privilege to be given the opportunity of sharing other peoples lives. It's a process that can and does change lives. It's the true essence of probation's magical, but mysterious process.

On the Run

2011-11-01T08:59:00.000Z

The other night I found myself watching an episode of ITV's new investigative reporting programme 'Exposure' on i-player. Entitled 'On the Run' it was about the number of people who are subject to arrest warrants at any given time, either as a result of skipping bail, absconding from prison or disappearing whilst on licence.

I'll be honest and say I approached this self-imposed task with some trepidation because I'm not sure there's a huge story here, but actually ended up being quite enthused. Of course the vast majority are eventually brought to justice by being arrested for further offences and identified by DNA. But I think, quite unintentionally, the producers of this programme have just invented a whole new twist on a very familiar TV genre. The hypothesis of the programme was that there are countless thousands of dangerous people out there, the subject of unexecuted warrants and therefore escaping justice. Freedom of Information requests flushed out some seemingly alarming figures, but the star of the show, a former detective turned reporter, decided to illustrate the problem by trying to hunt down three fugitives from justice on camera.

We learned that in order to try and evade justice, two had jumped bail and left the country and a third had simply gone to ground having decided that the terms of his licence were too onerous. There was some half-hearted attempt at name changes, and cheekily two fugitives were continuing to openly use Facebook, with one taunting the police. I found it equally informative and hilarious that concerted efforts to snare them by means of 'honey traps' proved mightily difficult given their lackadaisical attitude to life, but the process was easily as enthralling as many of the now tired-looking police chase programmes we are so familiar with.

So there we have it. A whole new idea for a show. There is an endless pool of gripping TV out there to be tapped into and it will be doing a useful public service at the same time. A sort of cross between 'Crimewatch', 'Rogue Traders' and 'Police, Camera, Action.' But with the police stretched and unable to put a great deal of time into trying to execute all the warrants outstanding at any given time, why not go a little further and follow the North American model by putting a bounty on their head? Another example of the big society - the public can monitor live security cctv via the internet, so could they be induced to get a little more actively involved I wonder?

A Fine Mess and No Mistake

2011-10-31T08:51:00.001Z

It came as no great surprise when Ken Clarke announced last week the government's intention to abolish the hugely damaging and ill-thought out IPP sentence introduced by Tony Blair. It was all part of that government's 'tough on crime; tough on the causes of crime' agenda designed to curry favour with the voters and has had the result of stuffing our prisons with upwards of an additional 7,000 or so extra 'lifers.'

Imprisonment for Public Protection sentences are indeterminate sentences and so are indeed akin to a life sentence because release only comes when someone is deemed safe to release by the Parole Board. Sadly however, that's where the similarity ends. Unlike most other kinds of life sentence, the typical 'tariff' or earliest date before release will be considered is normally very short and averages about 3 years. This makes IPP prisoners a very unusual and difficult group for the system to deal with. It could be said they are neither fish nor fowl - not 'proper' lifers, which the prison service is well-geared up to deal with - but actually medium to short term prisoners by any other name. But we are now several years down the line since their introduction and vast numbers of IPP prisoners are languishing in prison well over their tariff dates.

Even before the last government lost the election, concern was growing in relation to the huge and growing problem IPP was becoming. Never intended to be used in that many instances, it has nevertheless proved hugely popular with Judges who add to the total on a very regular basis. Unfortunately very little thought was ever given as to how this group would be dealt with within the prison system.

In order to assist the Parole Board in reaching a conclusion regarding risk, various accredited courses have to be undertaken that are designed to address issues such as violence, sexual offending, thinking skills, drugs and alcohol. These courses do not run in all prisons and places are somewhat limited. Added to this is the fact that the Parole Board has become increasingly risk-averse in recent years, no doubt partly in response to negative public opinion and political pressure as a result of some notorious cases. Unhappily this has coincided with cultural and professional changes within the Probation Service, who are the people charged with advising the Parole Board regarding release. I have written on many occasions regarding the unhelpful effect of OASys in only highlighting negative aspects of an offenders situation, thus leading typically to over-cautious or negative recommendations for release.

All this of course has proved the perfect recipe for a massive and growing problem. One might say another fine mess the politicians have got us into. And to be honest it's not exactly clear how Ken Clarke intends to get us out of it with his mix of further 'mandatory' life sentences and determinate sentences. It seems some IPP sentences will be converted to life sentences, but the criteria and rationale has yet to be spelt out.

Meanwhile, here we have an experienced commentator, Mr Raymond Peytors of TheOpinionSite.Org who clearly has a problem with probation:-

"It looks now as if Mr. Clarke has been forced to abandon the idea of a formalised test and means that probation officers will be allowed to go on getting things hopelessly wrong and to continue to introduce their own bias and prejudice into release procedures."

"Mr. Clarke has also not made it clear as to who will determine whether or not an IPP prisoner has his sentence converted to a determinate sentence or, if the case is serious enough, a mandatory life sentence. One may presume that this procedure would be carried out by the Parole Board, no doubt with all possible interference from the Probation Service who are already fearful that their overbearing and unjust influence over release decisions may be under attack."

"We can expect too a howl of anguish from all those involved with any form of public protection and whose jobs and considerable income rely on maintaining the myth that everyone convicted of certain types of offences must be “dangerous” and incapable of change."

I'm not sure it's worth dignifying such comments with a response, but merely leave readers to form their own opinion.

Community or Custody?

2011-10-30T11:06:00.002Z

According to their website, "Make Justice Work is a campaign which aims to boost public support for a change in how Britain deals with minor offenders." In order to further this aim they've had a panel of 'the great and the good' conducting an enquiry over the last year or so.

Chaired by Daily Telegraph journalist Peter Osborne, not particularly known for being a bleeding heart liberal, it had the commendable aim of trying to inject some sense into that tired old political game of reducing all argument about sentencing to being either soft or tough on crime.

I've written on this topic myself a number of times and in particular highlighted how disastrous it has been to allow politicians to use criminal justice policy as a political football over recent years. For too long policy has been dictated by pandering to public opinion in the hope of gaining some short-term political advantage. The Probation Service has been one major casualty of this absurd and uninformed meddling and blame for the mess we now find ourself in should be placed firmly at the politicians door.

When first announced, I must admit I did not feel it was a particularly good omen that it was not felt appropriate to include a panel member with extensive probation experience. Now that the final report has been published, sadly I feel somewhat vindicated in this view, having had the opportunity of absorbing the analysis and conclusions. In a sense I don't think the report has come up with anything remotely surprising in saying that community sentences would be preferable to custody for many offenders. But what I do find startling is some of the analysis.

The panel visited four projects, each working in a particular field; Intensive Supervision for 18-25 year old men; women; drug and alcohol and mental health diversion. Clearly the Intensive Supervision scheme 'did what it said on the tin' and involved electronic tagging and what is described as an out of hours 'community outreach' service. It lasted from between 12 and 24 months and occupied offenders five days a week. Now this is just the sort of onerous community sentence that would be likely to get support from the likes of the right-wing press and it's clear the panel were mightily impressed.

However the report did identify one small problem that will not come as any great surprise to seasoned probation officers. I love this bit:-

"The panel were concerned to hear that the tough nature of these orders can sometimes lead to unintended consequences. Offenders have sometimes been known to breach the terms of their sentences so that they are sent to prison instead. Providers of effective community sentences need to find ways to work with offenders to understand the order and see it as an opportunity to reform."

Who would have thought that then? The sentence did indeed prove extremely onerous for some participants: so much so that some were either breached or just opted for custody instead. It's all very well designing an intensive punishment as an alternative to custody, but if the balance is tipped too far towards stick with not enough carrot content, the aim becomes self-defeating.

Many a time I have discussed with clients at PSR stage, often in custody, the relative merits of various sentences and for significant numbers their problems are so numerous and seemingly so intractable, that a period in prison is seen as a blessed relief and often allows release with a relatively 'clean slate.' The panel seem to have completely missed the point that this issue is absolutely key to the success or not of intensive supervision schemes.

In relation to offenders with drug or alcohol problems, the panel fails completely to address whether current drug treatment models are working and just concerns itself with lamenting that alcohol treatment is very much the poor relation. I am mystified by these two statements:-

"Diversion from custody to residential drug treatment produces a lifetime cost saving to society of approximately £200,000 per offender."

"£980 million would have been saved if those offenders given custodial sentence of twelve months or less in 2007 had instead been diverted to residential drug treatment."

Clearly the panel are not aware that 'residential drug treatment' is a facility akin to hens teeth in terms of availability. I suspect they might mean 'community' drug treatment. But how can you get the terminology wrong in a supposed high-powered report like this? Residential drug treatment, ie in a purpose-built facility, would be an enormous step forward for certain people with long-standing drug problems. But it simply isn't available nowadays, due to the cost of course. Pretty much all that is on offer is methadone while a person continues to live in the same often drug-riddled community whence they developed their dependency in the first place. Or they're homeless of course.

In the section about diversion from custody of persons suffering from mental health problems, there is no mention at all of learning disability or those suffering emotional distress or from psychological problems. Instead they seem to put great store on the abilities of early mental health assessments - no doubt by Community Psychiatric Nurses or equivalent - being able to obviate the need for 'expensive and time-consuming' psychiatric reports. Indeed they trumpet this as a significant improvement and cost-saving measure.

Sadly my experience tells me that what is proposed is unlikely to be adequate and encouraging less specialist medical reports, ultimately counter-productive. If anything I believe there is a greater need for expert medical opinion in far more cases because of the failings of the National Health Service generally. I have always been amazed that it is often only at court stage that long-established mental health, learning disability and psychological problems can be properly diagnosed, but only when expert reports are commissioned. It's a disgrace, but a situation that this report seems to want to compound on the grounds of cost and expediency.

I cannot over-emphasise the benefit to society - not to mention the individual - that can accrue just from obtaining a definitive diagnosis that would give insight into a persons offending and map out a suitable treatment plan. This cannot be done 'on the cheap' and requires the skill and expertise of a forensic psychiatrist or psychologist, not a CPN. Once again we seem to have a report that is completely unable to differentiate between the disciplines of psychiatry and psychology and the appropriate role boundaries of CPN's.

In short I found this report disappointing. It reaffirmed much of the blindingly obvious, came up with nothing new, but in the process managed to miss some key issues along the way.

Some Observations 9

2011-10-28T18:05:00.000+01:00

Fate has a habit of throwing up some unkind and unfortunate situations, none more so than the former social worker selected by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Plymouth to investigate allegations of sexual abuse. Unbelievably, Christoper Jarvis turns out to have had paedophile interests and has just been sentenced to 12 months imprisonment for possessing seriously indecent sexual images of children on his computer.

This news is so disturbing on a whole range of levels, but particularly that of being a breach of trust. Writing as a qualified male social worker, but one that chose a career in probation, it serves to underline the very uneasy feeling I suspect many of us have from time to time about being in the presence of children and how we might be perceived by others. It's a dreadful state of affairs, not spoken of much I suspect, but my instinct tells me it's probably a significant factor in relatively few men choosing childcare, especially residential childcare, as a career path. It's this aspect that so depresses me when I hear of men in particular who occupy positions of trust and are subsequently discovered to have been offending. It so harms us all.

I'm grateful to the person who brought to my attention this apparent scoop by the BBC about Armley Gaol in Leeds, West Yorkshire. Apparently it has been selected as the first pilot scheme involving Payment by Results in a state-run prison. I've written somewhat enthusiastically about this idea previously and particularly in relation to the pilot scheme at privatised HMP Peterborough involving those inmates serving 12 months or less.

Somewhat astonishingly, despite the complete absence of any evidence that the idea of rewarding agencies if they succeed in reducing reoffending actually works, the Ministry of Justice nevertheless feel it's worth rolling the idea out to other establishments. But I must say I'm somewhat mystified as to how the idea will work at a state-run prison that is not working to a contract containing a profit motive. No doubt all will become clear over the coming weeks - or can someone enlighten me? Economics has never been my strong point.

Meanwhile G4S have indeed had to replace all locks at HMP Birmingham - a very costly process indeed amounting to somewhere in the region of between £250,000 and £1million. It must rank as one of the very worst nightmares of every Number 1 Governor and the blame for the absence of a set of pass keys has indeed been put down to a disgruntled member of staff unhappy at the prison having recently been privatised. Although I've never worked in a prison, I'm sufficiently aware of basic security to know that all keys are tracked with an identity tag that has to be exchanged at the gate. I wonder how on earth someone seems to have got away with it?

What Does a Probation Officer Do? 3

2011-10-26T08:18:00.000+01:00

Influence

Having conducted the interviews and made an assessment, it's time to try and influence the criminal justice process and this is most often by means of a Pre Sentence Report either to the Magistrates or Crown Court. Having spent many years preparing such reports, I can say that some of my best work has been as a result of being able to influence a court to take a certain course of action that both satisfies the requirement for punishment and that encourages rehabilitation. It's at this point that issues such as Learning Disability, past emotional damage or mental health can be explored and highlighted. This is to name but a few of the vast ranges of factors that serve to contribute to someone's offending and should in my view be considered by a court before passing sentence.

Traditionally it's been a priviledged position occupied by probation in being able to address sentencers directly. However, regular readers will be aware that I've been highly critical of recent changes in this vital area of our work and especially the extent to which OASys has had a detrimental effect both on the quality and effectiveness of PSR's. I believe this vital process of providing courts with good quality assessments and recommendations pre-sentence has been damaged significantly by OASys.

It still remains a mystery to me that Crown Court Judges in particular have had very little to say about the changes in style and content and one wonders if they did indeed ever pay much heed to PSR's at all? The upshot of the dreadful 'pull-through' OASys-generated reports foisted upon us by our prison-dominated NOMS management has been a massive increase in the time required to complete full PSR's, which in turn has had the knock-on effect of requiring short format Fast Delivery Reports that do not require OASys preparation. It's been a double whammy for the Probation Service with OASys requiring more time to complete a report and delivering reduced quality in one fell swoop.

Now even as I write this I'm aware that hackles will be raised in certain quarters and if anyone can be bothered it might re-ignite old arguments. But I think I've almost got past caring anymore. It's as I see it and I think the proof is in the fact that PSR's are fast becoming irrelevant to the Criminal Justice process. We did that - our management made an absolute cornerstone of the system redundant through a complete inability to fully understand what the true effects of OASys would be. We are now rapidly moving towards the notion of Post Sentence Reports, thus completely ditching one of the key aspects of our work, namely providing courts with information and informed assessments that are independent of the prosecution and defence, in order to assist in the process of arriving at sentences that are fair and just.

I suppose somewhat understandably I've dwelt upon the PSR in terms of influencing, but there are other situations such as Parole Board reports, Recall Reports, Sentence Planning reports etc, etc. In each case the author is challenged to express in written form what the situation is, move towards an assessment with reasoned argument and come up with a conclusion and recommendation. It's without doubt a skliful process and if undertaken professionally should seek to influence decision-makers whilst taking due regard to public protection and rehabilitation. It's not an easy path to tread and does not always win friends. It also means we remain much misunderstood as a profession.

Some Observations 8

2011-10-21T17:00:00.002+01:00

I know this is old news, but I really felt I couldn't pass up the opportunity of commenting on the seemingly inexorable rise of the dreadful Louise Casey. The Prime Minister no less announced last week that she was resigning as Victim Commissioner in order to head up the post mortem into the recent riots. She will have particular responsibility apparently for developing policy concerning the 120,000 or so troubled families felt to be responsible for the vast majority of crime and anti-social behaviour.

Seeing as she had been tipped to become a possible Labour Peer, to now have the full endorsement of the likes of Eric Pickles is quite remarkable to say the least, but possibly just serves to confirm her true right-wing credentials. Somehow I don't see any enlightened liberal policies resulting from her highly-paid endeavours, but it's just possible her track record on not fully engaging brain before speaking out may be her undoing.

It was good to see a piece about HMP North Sea Camp on last Sunday's edition of BBC Countryfile. I've written about this particular open prison before and it's interesting history having been constructed in the 1930's by Borstal boys who marched from HMP Stafford and spent many years not just building a hutted prison, but also reclaimed many square miles of agricultural land from the wild Lincolnshire coastline. Such open prisons are extremely important in being able to help long-term prisoners adapt to eventual release, providing as they do varied full-time employment opportunities.

The sad thing is that prisons like North Sea Camp are pretty dilapidated and there have been rumours that it may succumb to Ken Clarke's spending cuts. This would be a very unwise move in my view as there are now so few working farms connected to prisons and the therapeutic value of often seriously damaged individuals working with animals cannot be over emphasised. The programme is still on BBC i-player and well worth catching. Keen-eyed viewers may spot some narrow gauge railway lines as until fairly recently there was still a small working system, but I suspect it fell foul eventually of MoJ Health and Safety regulations. What a shame.

Finally, am I the only person pondering if there might be some connection between G4S taking over HMP Birmingham and the disappearance of a set of pass keys? This is about as serious as it gets in terms of prison security and may involve changing every lock in the jail at vast expense. G4S have announced a number of redundancies and staff morale is quite likely to be extremely low.

A Skewed View?

2011-10-19T09:50:00.000+01:00

Every now and then I find myself gasping at a piece of radio news and am left pondering 'did I hear that right?' The Welsh Rugby coach going public and saying that he considered cheating, but decided it was not morally right to do so. What on earth does that mean? What could the motivation be for saying something like that? Even more interesting is the response from his boss saying he should be congratulated for deciding not to cheat. WHAT?!

I don't know about you, but I feel I could do with a pat on the back for deciding to pay for everything I needed from Tesco's the other day. For not doing a 'drive off' having filled the car up with petrol, or buying a ticket on a crowded train. The list is endless and the answer not just about weighing up the possibility of getting caught - the deterrent effect - surely it's also about responsibility?

I've written before about the the fact that for society to function well, citizens must all act responsibly, or the vast majority at least. The sad fact is that it just needs one person to be irresponsible to have a potentially devastating effect. As you approach the brow of a blind hill, you have to believe that every driver coming the other way is acting responsibly and not on your side of the road. Maybe I'm of an unusually nervous disposition, but tall buildings always scare me regarding the possibility of something falling, having been carelessly left on a ledge or by a window. And then there's the possibility of malicious or reckless intent. I well remember one of the very first court reports I ever wrote was regarding a young man throwing bricks off a railway bridge at oncoming trains.

Over the years my work as a probation officer has often involved cases where not acting responsibly has had tragic and profound consequences. Just one blow to the head can be terminal and the recent tragic death of an electrician working on Strictly Come Dancing serves to remind me of this. Of course the law is there to supposedly act as a deterrent and in deed this aspiration was very recently confirmed by the Appeal Court upholding four years imprisonment on two young men for inciting civil unrest by internet message. I said right from the beginning that such a sentence in no way surprised me, but I'm less sure as to whether deterrence really works.

Civilised society has always had the problem of how to encourage or ensure that everyone acts responsibly for the common good. Just one isolated act of irresponsibility can not only kill or maim, but can also be another small step towards impoverishing us all. Until one man threw a condom full of dye from the House of Commons public gallery at Tony Blair, it had been open to the chamber. Now the public are hermetically sealed behind glass screens.

I suppose I've always tended to be a 'glass half empty' kind of a guy and should instead try to be more upbeat. Maybe I need to marvel and rejoice that most people decide to act like the Welsh rugby coach and not cheat. I try to tell myself that most of us are law-abiding for most of the time and it's only this line of work that gives me a skewed view of the world. Mmmmmm...

What Does a Probation Officer Do? 2

2011-10-10T09:03:00.001+01:00

Make an Assessment

I was going to say that having completed the interview with the client either for the first or thirty first time, you move towards making an assessment, but actually it's a continuous process. In reality it's not that much different from what we all do unconsciously as human beings during every interaction. The only real difference is that it very much becomes a conscious process with a whole range of questions running through your mind. Just how open do I think this person is being? Does their story ring true? Are there discrepancies in the prosecution disclosures? Do they have a learning disability? Are they dangerous? What are the risk factors? Are they deteriorating? Do they have a mental illness? Are they psychologically damaged? Are they motivated? Do they have insight? Etc etc.

Making as good an assessment as possible is probably the most important part of the job because everything else flows from it. In essence it's the diagnosis to use a medical analogy. Get it wrong, or miss something and it can have significant consequences not just for the client, but possibly a future victim or wider society. It's why training and experience are so necessary for the job, although I have always had doubts that the ability to make sound judgements can be taught. A bit like empathy, you either have it or you don't. I've known quite senior colleagues who, rather worryingly, were hopeless at assessing so it's certainly not to do with length of service or age.

It's the making of assessments that probably lies at the root of much conflict and dissatisfaction between client and officer. In my experience this has increased significantly over recent years and is felt to be a function of the transition from social work agency to so-called law enforcement. I'm not entirely sure why because even when we were all social work trained, we still had highly dangerous and risky people to deal with. Possibly it's because probation officers only deal with this group nowadays and not the wide variety of general offenders we had on our books years ago. Certainly society has changed significantly and clients are just representative of those changes, specifically attitudes towards authority generally.

In rooting around the internet I came across a long piece written for Inside Time by a serving prisoner and these quotes give a flavour of how things can appear from the other side:-

"Although many probation officers claim empirical evidence is an acceptable substitute for that fact-based, what such evidence really boils down to is usually nothing more substantial than an ‘impression’ – a feeling in their water that it’s a bad ‘un they’re dealing with. And what is all the more remarkable is the extent to which other decision makers such as parole panels appear willing to accept unquestioned the professional opinion of probation officers. It’s a gullibility readily exploited by some probation staff."


"Why it is that probation staff can so easily invoke professional opinion in their reports without credible supporting evidence whereas professionals in other areas such as criminology, psychiatry, psychology, etc have to state the factual basis of their opinion? And more to the point, why do too many prisoners accept negative probation reports unquestioned? Is it fear that to challenge them will jeopardise their sentence progression (and have risk factors increased as a result)? Or is it because many prisoners’ educational limitations handicap their ability to spot often glaring flaws (especially false premises) in probation reports?"

The whole article is well worth reading as an example, possibly an extreme example, of the negativity felt towards probation officers by some clients. Of course it's understandable in part because of the nature of our respective positions and such views can be all-too-easily explained in terms of 'well he would say that wouldn't he?' But it's certainly something I've been conscious of over the years. What we do is not a science and never can be, but that just means we have to use all our skill and judgement in trying to make as good an assessment as possible, but always mindful of the potential consequences.

It has become fashionable to talk in terms of officers having to make 'defenceable decisions' and there is an argument that this has made officers much more risk-averse. This is entirely understandable in the current environment where, following a serious further offence by one of your clients, the blame seems to fall upon you rather than the perpetrator. This never used to be the case of course, but possibly explains the tendency towards what are perceived as 'negative' reports, 'lets err on the side of caution' risk assessments and endless referrals to behaviour modification courses.

The astute will notice that so far OASys has not been mentioned. The oh so confidently-named Offender Assessment System. Surely that should do what the name implies and enable all staff, no matter what degree of experience and training they have, to make sound assessments? Surely it introduces an element of dispassionate science and removes any danger of officer bias in producing accurate and fair assessments? Dream on. All it does is take up huge chunks of your time and hinder the very process I've been trying to describe. Making a good assessment is a cerebral process. Filling in OASys is a bureaucratic process.

How Disappointing!

2011-10-09T11:39:00.000+01:00

In reading this recent article in the Guardian about former Prison Service Director Martin Narey joining G4S, I was disappointed to note that apparently the former Chief Inspector of Probation Andrew Bridges has been snapped up by Interserve. You will recall that there has been a steady flow of former senior public servants in the Criminal Justice sector, such as Phil Wheatley another former Prison chief, deciding to 'embrace new challenges' in the burgeoning private sector.

All understandable possibly, especially given the current government policy of slimming down the public sector in favour of wholesale transfers of state functions to either private industry or charities. But I have to say I'm very disappointed that the former Chief Inspector of Probation was not able to use his many skills and talents, honed from a professional lifetime in Public Service, furthering that service rather than going over to the opposition. It's possible he tried and certainly this article from the Guardian in July could be taken as a barely-veiled invitation for job offers from the wider probation family. Surely his expertise would have been invaluable as the Service generally tries to come to grips with how to best position itself and respond to a rapidly approaching competitive market? Were there really no approaches from this side of the fence?

I suppose what we're left with is the very depressing scenario that, in our field at least, the Public Service appears to be a lost cause and all the talent - and it has to be said smart money - is increasingly migrating to the private sector. If you have time, just root around on the Interserve website and you will see that these so-called Facility Management companies turn their hand to just about anything. Depending on your views about capitalism amid the present economic crisis, we're either on a hand cart to hell, or outfits like this will be running whole economies, nay countries soon. I feel one of my heads coming on and need to lie down.

What Does a Probation Officer Do? 1

2011-10-08T08:22:00.002+01:00

I find myself once again staring at a blank blog page waiting for inspiration when it occurs to me that perhaps it might be helpful to try and spell out exactly what a probation officer does - or should do in my view. I'm only too well aware that despite having written extensively on the subject for over a year now, it might still be a mystery to some. So this may well be the first of a series that tries to succinctly sum up what is involved. I suppose a bit like a magician revealing how a trick works, but hopefully without the danger of being expelled by the probation equivalent of the Magic Circle. Lets start at the very beginning, as they say.

Establish a Relationship

When I first mentioned this some months ago I have to say I was genuinely surprised when it clearly raised eyebrows in certain quarters. It served to remind me that what may appear obvious to insiders is not necessarily so elsewhere. Virtually all interactions between officer and client occur in private and normally with only the two people present. I used to feel it was analogous to a doctor/patient relationship, only more so in the past when each officer had the luxury of their own room behind a door with their name on it. My office was one of the last to go over to dreaded 'open plan' and soulless interview rooms, but at least the meeting is still in private. In the past it was not unknown to have comfortable armchairs and sometimes a cup of tea was felt appropriate in order to oil the wheels of a possibly difficult interview.

The thing about probation is that you may see a person just once, say for the purpose of preparing a Pre Sentence Report for court, or someone else over many, many years if you are supervising a long sentence or they are regular offenders. In each case, in order to obtain information and an understanding of that person, you have to establish a rapport with them, possibly at a very stressful time in their life and when they may feel motivated not to tell you the whole story. Much of what you want them to talk about may often be of the most serious nature and disturbing kind and you have to try and gauge when it's appropriate to push, or when it's appropriate to just listen.

Sometimes it's necessary to challenge, or to dig or approach things from another angle in order to get as good a picture as possible as to what they did and why they did it. Only then can you try and help that person understand themselves, their motivations and encourage a path towards altered behaviour. It should be pre-eminently obvious that none of this is possible unless there is a positive, caring, professional relationship between officer and client. There has to be respect and trust between these two people in order to lay the foundations for change to be given a chance. Some things are hard enough to tell one person, let alone a succession of people, so continuity is vital.

Happily, all the research proves that it is this relationship between officer and client that is the single most significant factor in affecting positive outcomes. In many ways I think it's sad to have to say that as to me it's just so damned obvious. It's the reason why I've never really had a serious problem getting clients to keep appointments. I like to believe that they turn up because they want to see me, not just because they have to. Of course the quid pro quo is that I'm there to see them. I cannot say how sad it makes me feel to hear of case after case reported on Prisoners Families Voices of either officers not being in the office or a succession of different duty staff seeing clients week after week.

I know we all have other commitments and sickness befalls us from time to time, but I think it's more than that. When I joined, I think officers were far more 'proprietorial' about their clients than they are nowadays. There was an assumption that you kept clients for as long as it took, whereas nowadays there's lots of anecdotal evidence that it doesn't matter if they're passed around like parcels. I know I always put great thought and effort into who of my colleagues might be appropriate to stand in for me if I'm to be unavoidably absent. Sadly, I don't see much evidence of this sort of individual arrangement nowadays.

Especially amongst newer colleagues, I sense there is less emphasis on the importance of building and maintaining relationships with individual clients. Instead there seems to be a policy of shared responsibility in what might be regarded as the priority to just make sure clients 'report.' There seems to be a prevalent view that it doesn't matter who they report to. I have no idea why this might be. Possibly it's a symptom of stress or workloads. I can't believe it's a policy being undertaken deliberately to avoid clients as that would surely be unprofessional? But I can see how it might look and feel from a clients point of view.

Possibly as a reflection of younger people's more mobile lifestyles and professional aspirations, there appears much more movement of staff nowadays. This is extremely unsettling to clients, especially long-term prisoners and ironically is completely counter to the aspiration enshrined in the doctrine of 'seamless end-to-end offender management' ushered in with NOMS. Whatever, I'm clear that the absence of well established relationships between officer and client will prove utterly self-defeating in being able to effect change in people. If nothing else, it simply doesn't satisfy the self-imposed Jim Brown test of 'how would this make me feel?'

A Day at the Seaside

2011-10-06T08:25:00.001+01:00

Ok it was only the Mersey, but it was a gorgeous sunny day in Liverpool and the terrace of the Conference Centre certainly felt like the end of the pier. Last week I took up an open invitation to attend the Labour Party Conference as a visitor. I do this kind of thing every now and then, I suppose as much out of idle curiosity as any naive belief that you might actually be able to influence anyone.

I've made the journey down to Parliament a few times, but I really wasn't prepared for the security hoops you have to go through to get to a party conference. The comparison couldn't be more stark. Any citizen can just turn up unannounced at the House of Commons, ask to see their MP and without the need to show any ID, they will be ushered straight into the Lobby, following a quick trip through a standard airport metal detector. Not so for Liverpool. A months notice; extensive application form; a referee; passport and driving licence details, and a photo were all required. Fascinating.

Anyway, I digress. Once the novelty of spotting famous people had subsided - and I found myself almost swept up by accident in Ed Milibands entourage - I eventually got to put my question to an open 'fringe' session chaired by Hilary Benn. 'Keep it short and snappy I thought' - (I'm always amazed how long-winded some people are) "Is there any chance politicians might be able to talk sensibly about drug policy soon, for example by supporting a return to the prescribing of heroin, seeing as the war on drugs is failing completely?" To my utter amazement it drew a healthy round of applause and several subsequent speakers picked up on the theme.

In response, Hilary had a stab at trying to sound concerned and provided some positive strokes, but in essence I think it's difficult for a life-long teetotaller to say anything other than "we really don't want a lot of people going round snorting stuff though do we?" I think I can see why he didn't last very long as Prisons and Probation minister before being whisked off into Overseas Development in the previous Labour government. I just don't think he quite gets the whole idea about any mind-altering substances, even legal ones. Anyway, I tried and it had been a lovely sunny day out.

The Beguiling Question

2011-10-05T08:54:00.003+01:00

According to Sir David Frost, John Smith, the former leader of the Labour Party, once said that his skill as an interviewer was to 'ask the beguiling question that had a potentially catastrophic answer.' This gem was contained in the absolutely fascinating recent BBC tv 'Frost on Nixon' programme where Joan Bakewell takes David Frost back to those amazing 28 hours of interviews with disgraced former President Nixon in 1977.

I certainly remember the whole Watergate scandal, but I'm ashamed to say I never got around to watching the fruits of Frost's marathon series of interviews, culminating as they did in a reflective and chastened former President coming as close as possible to a full and frank admission of guilt. When I watched this two hour special programme which included the famous exchange about Watergate, I became absolutely spell-bound by the parallels between what Frost achieved and what probation officers routinely aspire to in interviews with clients.

Interviewing is without doubt a skill. I'm not sure it can be taught as such because in essence it has to be a personal process in order to extract vital information from an often unwilling and uncooperative individual. The circumstances surrounding often horrific crimes are not easy topics for analytical discussion and the process is understandably charged with emotion. The patient skill of the interviewer is to get to the truth not just about what actually happened, but the underlying motive. I can assure you it's not easy and watching this tv programme brought memories flooding back of many hours of intellectual battle with a particular client of mine over more than 20 years.

It was this particular case because I've always found it difficult to admit failure, and maybe I now know why. There never was the 'golden' moment when he just caved in to my forensic and patient questioning. All my efforts over many hours of exhausting intellectual and emotional battle would only ever end with him saying 'just tell me what you want to hear.' To my astonishment when Frost gets Nixon to the absolute knub of the issue, Nixon responds by asking Frost 'What would you say?' A dumbfounded Frost is at first shaken, but then provides a three-point answer that opens the floodgates and triggers Nixon's heartfelt and humble apology.

I now realise that I almost certainly got it wrong. My client really did want to hear what I felt he ought to say and my crass answer 'just tell me the truth' was never going to work. It just might have unlocked the door and enabled me to ring the investigating police officer as he suggested if I ever got to the truth.

Amazing and Unique Opportunity!

2011-09-22T09:41:00.000+01:00

I notice that the London Probation Trust has teamed up with UserVoice in order to set up four pilot Service User Councils as part of the Offender Engagement Project. On the face of it, a good idea worth trying, but I can't help thinking they've slightly over-egged the concept - 'amazing and unique' - especially as funding only seems to be in place till the end of the current financial year. I think there are a couple of dead giveaway signs of a degree of panic amongst senior managers. The blurb talks about 'issue-based groups' and the need for responses to be 'solution-focussed.' If I'm not mistaken code for 'the last thing we want to hear is a lot of carping about how crap the Service is.' But I am an old cynic.

In a funny way it reminds me of my confirmation year having gained my qualifications at University. In those days you served an appropriately labelled 'probationary year' during which support was provided in the form of a First Year Officers group. A great idea that worked well from the new practitioners point of view, but quietly dropped by management when they became suspicious of the potential problems caused by an organised element within the workforce. A familiar story eh?

This initiative by London gives me cause for another wry grin and that's to do with the seemingly interminable internal discussions about exactly what to call people. It would seem that the term 'offender' is well and truely buried, in favour of 'service-user.' At least this is preferable to being called a 'case' but I understand officers who stick resolutely to the traditional term 'client' will not be penalised. Thankfully it looks like the Service nationally is set to drop 'offender manager' in favour of - yes you guessed it - Probation Officer! Well I for one never used it so I can be slightly smug and say 'I told you so.' At least we will now be able to once more differentiate between Probation Services Officers and Probation Officers, although this will not be universally welcome I suspect.

Mixed Messages

2011-09-21T09:47:00.000+01:00

As we all know, a week is a long time in politics and the fallout from the riots seem set to erode yet further many of the laudable aims embraced by Ken Clarke's 'Rehabilitation Revolution.' First to go of course was the 50% reduction in sentence for a timely guilty plea. Then the riots served to focus attention on the whole business of granting bail pending conviction with a widespread suspicion that refusal to grant bail in over 60% of cases was being used as a punishment in itself and strictly not allowed.

Of course in many quarters - lets call them the usual suspects - this has met with warm approval, thus making tinkering with the operation of the bail system less likely. Ken had hoped to be able to restrict remands into custody as one part of his strategy to reduce the prison population, but getting that aspect through Parliament now looks doubtful. Now it seems that the Prime Minister is so concerned about the Daily Mail and Express that he feels it important that the 'Rehabilitation Revolution' becomes the 'Rehabilitation and Punishment Revolution.' The suspicion is that all kinds of extra punishment options might find there way into the bill, like benefit removal and housing eviction. How this will assist with rehabilitation I have absolutely no idea.

I've always had a great deal of respect for normally plain-speaking Ken Clarke. Lets be honest, any politician that incurs the wrath of the right-wing press can't be all bad in my book. The trouble is he absolutely detests the Probation Service and just like a disgruntled son-in-law who can't bring himself to talk about the mother-in-law, simply never mentions us. I listened to him again recently being interviewed on BBC 2's Newsnight and all he could bring himself to say somewhat tardily was 'there are some good probation and prison officers.' But that was in the same breath as his repeated desire to put all our work out to tender in the private sector. He normally fails to mention us at all which you can imagine does nothing for morale. Where is that White Knight coming to our aid when you need him?

Attitudes to Crime

2011-09-19T09:24:00.000+01:00

This weekend I found myself having an unusually long think. In this case it was triggered by the news that yet another burglar had been killed by a householder, but it'd been brewing all day. The Sunday Times had the astounding story of sheep rustling on its front page. Not the usual odd animal dragged into the back of a 4x4 in the dead of night, but an entire flock of 1,500 total value £100,000. This is becoming outright plundering of Britain's green and pleasant land and comes hard on the heels of the desecration of churches by lead thieves and routine stripping of northern streets of yorkstone paving. So many statues are being stolen that copies are having to be made in plastic and sadly not even war memorials appear to be sacrosanct anymore.

Crime is the bread and butter world for probation officers of course and on a routine basis they have to try and make sense of the often tragic consequences of all kinds of human behaviour and depravity. We are always on a quest to answer the question 'why?' Sometimes it's easy, sometimes not, but at the same time we have to deal with our own feelings and attitudes as citizens and human beings.

I well remember this being brought home to me forcefully when still in training and on placement in a busy city probation office. Quite unexpectedly, one of my cases turned into a major child protection investigation with serious allegations of sexual abuse. Clearly this was taking matters out of the appropriate realm for a student and I sought urgent advice from my practice supervisor. Imagine my surprise then when he said 'oh don't bring that to me - I've got kids of my own.' I never did have much respect for the guy and that kinda put the tin hat on it.

As with many of us, I've been the victim of a burglary and experienced the outrage of someone violating my private space, my home. Equally the mindless vandalism of my car. I suspect my initial reactions were not much different to most people, but that's without knowing the story behind the actions. Burglary of an occupied house is pretty unusual in my experience. Even more so if there is a confrontation. On Sunday I found myself contemplating what I would do in such a situation and it's not a particularly comfortable process. I think it highly likely that my 'fight or flight' response would be violent. In mulling it over, I concluded there can't really be any other explanation for a normally non-violent person keeping Dads old truncheon hanging behind the door.

What's in a Word?

2011-09-17T10:01:00.001+01:00

The ramifications of the riots continue and I can't help noticing how many politicians have been talking about making those convicted of riot-related offences do certain things, like meet the victims. No doubt mindful of up-coming elections and criticism of his slow return from holiday, Mayor of London Boris Johnson was quite quick off the mark in telling Justice Secretary Ken Clarke that rioters should be made to repair the damage and meet the victims. Poor side-lined Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said much the same thing in a speech emphasising that those convicted had to be made to face up to the consequences of their actions by meeting the victims.

Now the concept of perpetrators of crimes meeting their victims has been around for a long time and pioneered by the Probation Service. Experiments in this area of work have variously gone under the name of Mediation, Reparation and more recently Restorative Justice. The idea has broad political support and the coalition government signalled early on their intention to encourage its development, dependent on resources of course. It has always been an important part of Ken Clarkes so-called 'Rehabilitation Revolution', so it shouldn't be surprising that the Prisons and Probation Minister Crispin Blunt recently announced some funding for a register of Restorative Justice Practitioners. He said:-

'Restorative Justice is a unique process that helps to repair the damage caused by crime as well as helping to stop offenders committing further crimes. It demands criminals take an active role in acknowledging the harm they have caused, as well as making amends. 'If we are to better tackle the rate of criminals who reoffend, and so bring down crime, we are clear that we must have robust programmes of both punishment and reform available to our courts.

'Making criminals see for themselves the consequences of their actions, as well as undertake tough punishments, can be an effective part of this; and crucially, this gives victims a say in how offenders make amends.'

What caught my eye was the tenor of the statement and choice of the word 'demands' coupled with 'making'. So here we have yet another politician talking tough in the wake of the riots and this time a government minister with departmental responsibility. The trouble is that the sentiments being expressed, involving as they clearly do that of implied compulsion, are completely counter to my understanding of the concept that underpins the restorative justice process.

For it to be effective in its twin aims of encouraging the perpetrator to face up to the consequences of their actions and trying to heal the pain caused to the victim, it has to be a voluntary process on the part of both parties. Not only does it have to be voluntarily entered into, the whole thing has to be very carefully and sensitively arranged and moderated so as to avoid the possibility of it making a bad situation worse. It is definitely not something to be entered into lightly and it won't be suitable in anything like all cases, but where it is deemed appropriate and entered into with good faith, it has the capacity to change lives and help heal tremendous hurt.

So, politicians please note. This is not a magic silver bullet solution to be imposed upon unwilling or unprepared convicted rioters. It is however a very potent process to be undertaken in carefully selected instances and administered by trained professionals.

Stating the Obvious

2011-09-16T11:42:00.000+01:00

Although often ridiculed - remember the 'quiet man speaks out' speech? - I've never-the-less had an increasing degree of respect for the short-lived previous Tory party leader Iain Duncan Smith, now Employment and Pensions minister. I was particularly struck by his sadly limited involvement in one of those reality tv shows masquerading as documentary/social commentary when the producers think it would be fun to mix the social classes up and see what happens.

Along with several other Tory, Liberal and Labour party MP's, they were visited upon residents of an awful estate tower block for a few weeks in order to see 'how the other half lives.' Even though Iains involvement was curtailed because his wife was very ill, he was much more able to adapt and empathise with his temporary hosts than his colleagues. The Lib Dem guy almost had a nervous breakdown trying to come to terms with the sheer awfulness of the surroundings and the attitudes of his hosts and the pompous MP for Grimsby Austin Mitchell insisted on a minder. Only Iain seemed perfectly at ease and I remember thinking if it was because of his military background or just breeding - that very old-fashioned self-assuredness that comes with being a One Nation Tory grandee?

Anyway, it definitely seems that the tv producers time wasn't wasted in their experiment of placing legislators eyeball to eyeball with some serious social issues. This is what Iain said very recently in an article for The Times and widely quoted elsewhere:-

"Too many people have remained unaware of the true nature of life on some of our estates. This was because we had ghettoised many of these problems, keeping them out of sight of the middle-class majority. Occasionally some terrible event would make it on to our front pages, but because they were small in number people were able to turn away from the problem. But last month the inner city finally came to call and the country was shocked by what it saw." He went on to say "it was not possible to arrest our way out of the riots, and a social response was needed."

In picking up on this, Inspector Gadjet quite rightly reminds us that frontline services like the police have known all this for ages and he has blogged eloquently and vividly on the topic. But probation has known too. I well remember paying a visit to an office on the 'frontline' in Liverpool over 20 years ago and being truely shocked. There it was, standing all alone in the middle of the desolate vandalised remains of a grand post war housing experiment, a single storey temporary-looking building covered in razor wire, barred plastic windows, steel doors and all thoroughly decorated with graffiti. Heroin had already got a strangle-hold here and I remember thinking 'God, I wonder how long we've got down our way?'

But of course that was 20 years ago. I don't know for certain, but I bet that office has long gone. As I have previously lamented, probation has been retreating from such 'frontline' locations for years and now typically reside in edge-of-town megga-sized 'service delivery units' pretty well isolated from the communities they supposedly are meant to serve.

Iain has a good track record in terms of thoughtfulness on social issues and of course prior to the last election was the author of the report into child development, stressing the need to address the first signs of neglect and poor parenting as soon as possible so as to save greater heartache and cost to society later on. It's just unfortunate that he now finds himself part of a government unwilling or unable to make the necessary investment. But at least he's an enlightened voice I feel and on the face of it, an unlikely bedfellow of Inspector Gadjet's. I can't help but notice that Gadjet did not quote that bit about 'not being able to arrest our way out of the riots'. But there again, I suppose we're all guilty of some selective quoting when it suits us.

Back to Work

2011-09-13T16:46:00.000+01:00

Yes going away is great - but so is the coming home and to a surprise surge in readers due to a recent plug by the American Association of Probation and Parole Officers. You are all most welcome. I have to say I spent a couple of very interesting days with colleagues in New York some years ago, including a fascinating morning observing a lower court in Manhattan. Of course there are many differences between our respective criminal justice systems, but lots of similarities too.

Whilst away, I couldn't help but hear several snippets of news, one of which made me utter expletives in an uncontrolled manner. Has prime minister David Cameron taken leave of his senses bringing in the dreadful Louise Casey to advise on the aftermath of the recent riots? Yes the self-same person plucked from obscurity by Tony Blair to advise firstly on homelessness "stop soup runs - it only encourages it", then to champion the utterly failed Anti Social Behaviour Order that criminalised whole swathes of people, going on to spearhead the so-called 'respect' agenda and subsequently gaining promotion from Gordon Brown to Victim Commissioner. One can only hope that she's there for window dressing and wiser counsel will prevail in coming up with sensible lessons to be learnt from the recent civil disorder.

I notice that much is being made of the fact that 75% of those appearing in court as a result of the riots have an offending history, thus providing proof of the failure of our criminal justice system. I don't think it does any such thing and it certainly is no great surprise. If anything, it's the other 25% with no previous that should be of concern and serve to remind us that lurking just beneath the surface of our supposedly civilised society there are some very unpleasant forces capable of release when normal controls become absent. I hate to say it, but I did predict both this aspect and that harsh sentencing would result.

The discussions continue as to whether the sentences being passed are justified or not and the prison population breaks historic records each week. I can't help but feel echoes from history, whether that of the Luddites, the Suffragettes or Miners even. Some might say that they were very different examples of civil unrest, borne of social changes, inequalities or perceived grievances. Surely this was 'just' criminal activity by 'feral' youth? Hang on a minute - a group sidelined by social change, victims of an unequal society and harbouring grievances......

As a footnote and because I love history and believe it always informs our present situation, citizens of London particularly might like to reflect on why so many of their old or not-so-old police stations have flights of steps up to them? Clearly not very access-friendly in the current age of the Disability Discrimination Act, but a design feature conceived many years ago just in case the unruly masses ever revolted and decided to attack the forces of Law and Order in the shape of the local police station. Much easier to repel people coming up a set of stairs. That actually happened at several stations during the recent disturbances. It's also worth noting that fire stations were attacked and crews threatened and prevented from attending major fires during the riots.

As I go to press, the Metropolitan Police are absorbing what the new Commissioner will bring to the party and with the London Olympics just around the corner, we must all hope his are indeed a safe pair of hands. The appointment of acting Commissioner Hogan-Howe was no great surprise with Sir Hugh Orde effectively ruling himself out by being far too gobby for government's liking and lets be honest, bringing in an American, no matter how illustrious, was never really a possibility was it? After all, he would never have been able to accept the knighthood that goes with the job.

Anniversary Fever

2011-08-31T12:32:00.003+01:00

I'm conscious that this piece of self-indulgence will shortly reach it's first anniversary and being somewhat sentimental, I can't let my impending enforced sojourn from the computer interfere with marking the occasion in some way.

It's been quite a journey of surprises, enlightenment and not infrequent laughs. I've been genuinely surprised by the amount of interest, especially from clients and I must admit I had never considered myself particularly well prepared for the role of 'agony aunt.' It's been a great relief not to have attracted so-called 'trolls' that seem to be the bain of so many blogs and I'm not being platitudinous in saying that feedback in the form of readers comments really does lift an authors spirits when it seems you might just be 'whistling in the dark.' Thankyou to everyone who took the trouble to comment.

This blog started out of my personal outrage and pent-up frustration about a vocation I care very much about. Probation as a concept or as a 'job' has never been particularly well understood and if my mission has been about anything, it's been about trying to convey the subtleties, skills and workings of a simple idea that's been around for well over a hundred years. But sadly too often I've found myself responding to it's systematic marginalisation and without mincing words, impending destruction.

It's quite ironic really that at a time when our still fairly-new government is using rhetoric such as 'localism', the same government is doing its best to further centralise major aspects of the criminal justice system such as Magistrates Courts, Police and of course Probation. All this whilst imposing across-the-board cost savings and at the same time encouraging an explosion in prison numbers as a result of recent riots. A truly effective Probation Service is needed now more than ever.

A year on I wish I could say that I felt more optimistic about our future, but I can't. The recent Justice Select Committee report failed in my view to get to grips with OASys and it's fundamental negative effect on Probation. The Pre Sentence Report, an absolute cornerstone of our work, is all but dead, killed off by OASys and Probation Management no less and now seemingly with the full support of senior Judges. This is a recent quote from the Director of Operations of a large metropolitan service:-

"In respect of our work with courts, we are looking to shift the bulk of offender/defendant assessment from pre to post sentence........This approach has been endorsed by two senior Judges........We are currently in discussion about the relevance of this approach in the Magistrates Courts."

So that's it then. No need for PSR's. I'm not sure there's much of a need for Probation any more. But maybe I'm just getting carried away with anniversary fever and the feeling will pass? All being well, I hope to be back in mid September.

What Price a PSR?

2011-08-22T08:15:00.000+01:00

Regular readers will be aware that I have previously discussed at some length the disgraceful fall in standard of computer-generated Pre-Sentence Reports and have gone as far as to predict their complete demise. When the history comes to be written, I believe that the blame will be placed fairly and squarely at the door of OASys. It's been pretty much a self-inflicted double-whammy, not only making the production of a quality piece of work nigh on impossible, it's more than doubled the time it takes to prepare and hence doubled the cost.

Rather than admit that the whole thing has been a disaster, management ushered in the so-called Fast Delivery Report which had the handy aspect of avoiding the time-consuming OASys completely. They could be completed by non qualified staff and within a matter of an hour or so. But, according to Jonathan Ledger's NAPO blog, even this is being dispensed with by some courts in the rush to deliver speedy justice to some of the early riot defendants. Of the two young men sentenced at Chester Crown Court recently to four years each for Incitement on Facebook he says:-

"Word is that in this case the Court did not want either a standard or even a fast delivery report but merely an on the spot assessment of the impact of custody on the defendants by the Probation Service. I don't know how common this practice is becoming but it is a disgrace and runs against the state's duty to properly assess background and behaviour."

If correct, it seems my ominous prediction some time ago has come to fruition rather sooner than even I predicted. It will be very interesting indeed to see what the Appeal Court makes of this aspect of these two cases. According to press reports, Lord Justice Judge has cleared his diary in order to fast-track any appeals, so we should find out what the higher courts' view is pretty quickly. My feeling and hope is that the sidelining of proper probation PSR's in this somewhat unseemly rush to summary justice for the rioters will be scrutinised thoroughly by the Appeal Court and Judges reminded of their duty to commission full reports.

As an aside, I notice that there are several urgent appeals on the Guardian website for qualified probation officers in London required immediately for court work.

Reflection

2011-08-18T17:47:00.002+01:00

I'm probably being a little presumptuous, but regular readers might have wondered why the silence of late, particularly given the vast quantity of comment and analysis that has been flowing on the airwaves and via the blogosphere in the wake of the riots. I haven't been away on holiday yet, but to be honest I've been having a long think.

Thank goodness the rioting stopped, but the row between police and politicians about who should take the credit has been unseemly to say the least. The Criminal Justice System has sprung into action rather quicker than most felt it was capable of and I've certainly been amazed with the speed some committals to Crown Court have been effected, and weighed off indeed. The first cases dealt with at Manchester Crown Court, by the Recorder no less, clearly had the benefit of fast probation Pre Sentence Reports, but it seems most if not all were current clients with significant offending histories.

The two young men of previous good character and who received four years imprisonment at Chester Crown Court for Incitement has attracted much adverse comment as being far too harsh for what friends described as 'a prank or just having a laugh on Facebook'. I've been trying to decide what I might have put in their PSR's in terms of sentencing recommendations.

Firstly, had they related the 'having a laugh' line to me, they would have been on the receiving end of a lecture, a form of client engagement I haven't used much but which can still be appropriate at certain times. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm not sure any appeal will succeed significantly because of the context in which these two lads decided to 'have a laugh.'

Mayhem was breaking out in many parts of the country, some initiated by incitement via social networking media, and these two decide to 'copycat' with a geographic location, time and invitation to rampage. As a result it necessitated deployment of significant police resources at a time of emergency and when they might have been required at other locations urgently. It is not unlike the making of malicious phone calls to the fire service at a time of serious emergency. Not unlike the joke of 'having a bomb' on a plane at a time of heightened security, or shouting 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre even.

To me these and other examples such as stealing lifebelts or in the past vandalising phone boxes so they are not available for emergency use, all serve to underline the fact that every citizen has shared responsibilities as well as rights. It underlines that actions have consequences, some unintended but serious nevertheless. Normally society can get along relatively well when there is a clear majority of people acting responsibly, but when the balance tips as it did the other week, that is the context in which punishment has to be assessed.

Secondly, just because a riot did not result from this particular act of incitement, is not greatly significant in my view. As far as I know, the act of attempting arson endangering life can be treated as seriously as if arson resulted and lives were put at risk. Only lack of skill or good fortune might have averted a much worse situation, but if either intent or recklessness were present, the perpetrator would be likely to receive serious punishment.

I think my report would have made a not-too-serious suggestion for Unpaid Work, but with an acknowledgement that if the Judge felt only imprisonment was appropriate, it could be suspended. I don't think this would have been an appropriate occasion in which to turn up at court in person in support of my report. In short, I don't think it would have been a full blown, fully articulated and argued plea for a community disposal, because of the context in which the offence had been committed. I notice that Inspector Gadjet is making much of the courts demonstrating that they can hand out 'decent sentences', but as I say, they have to be viewed in context.

Perhaps I might not go as far as saying they got what they deserved, but I do say I'm not surprised. In relation to some of the first cases dealt with at Manchester Crown Court, the sentencing judges' full reasoning is well worth reading.

Beware Politicians

2011-08-12T09:19:00.002+01:00

Having seemingly recovered from the ignominy of the expenses scandal and bruising from the universal aprobrium heaped upon them as a result, but emboldened by the facing down of Rupert Murdoch, politicians now seem hell bent on flexing their muscles. The recent pronouncements by prime minister David Cameron in the wake of the riots were clearly designed to sound tough and have played well both in Parliament and the country at large. But not everyone is happy with the tough rhetoric and indeed there are mutterings that our senior politicians having exceeded their authority.

A piece in yesterday's Guardian written by an experienced lay magistrate and popular blogger raises concerns over what appeared to be instructions by the prime minister as to how the courts should deal with those arrested and charged with riot-related offences. We all know that under our famously unwritten constitution the Judiciary are supposedly independent and historically don't take kindly to being pushed around by government. This is particularly true of the Lay Bench, as recently demonstrated here.

But it would be naive to think that as a result of the unprecedented public disorder and numbers arrested that the Criminal Justice System would just tick along as usual, but possibly at a slightly higher gear. Huge numbers of arrested people had to be shipped out of the capital to surrounding police custody suites and Magistrates Courts in several cities undertook all-night sittings. The thing is, unless I can be corrected, these all night courts have not been the preserve of Lay Benches, but rather exclusively District Judges.

Ever since the few Stipendiary Magistrates were renamed and increased in number, there have been understandabe tensions between them and the Lay Bench. There was a widespread suspicion that it was all part of a grand plan to do away with unpaid, amateur justices, not withstanding their 700 year-old history, and replace them all with highly paid professional judges. Although this has been regularly denied and further recruitment slowed down, tensions still remain that all the interesting or difficult stuff get reserved to the DJ.

To some extent this is an understandable consequence of having paid Judges, but the suspicion now is that they have been influenced by political pronouncements over how to deal with rioters. Many being processed through recent all night sittings have been denied bail and there is just a tad of a suspicion that denial of bail might be being used as a punishment in itself. As 'Bystander' makes clear in his recent article, very naughty indeed.

But it's not just worries about political influence on the judicial process, it's also surfaced in relation to the police. Sir Hugh Orde, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers has reacted angrily to the suggestion that it was the home secretary that ordered Chief Constables to cancel leave and flood cities with officers. He has stated what I think is the true constitutional position that she has no authority at all to order Chief Constables to do anything. I believe that the position, at the moment at least, is that Chief Constables hold their post as a direct Crown Appointment and as a result have complete authority to act as they, and they alone, see fit. Ok they can be censured, suspended, arrested or sacked even, but they cannot be ordered to do anything. Some might say a pedantic point, but I think we ought to think very carefully as a society what it will mean if we go further down the road of political influence over chief police officers, or judges even.

Chickens return to Roost

2011-08-11T08:42:00.000+01:00

One positive aspect of the recent public disorder and looting is that the whole issue of the underclass and disaffected youth is getting a thorough airing. Ok there is a degree of unhelpful heat being generated - I thought personified perfectly by Kelvin Mackenzie's astonishing outburst on Newsnight recently - but also a genuine thirst to try and understand how we've arrived at this particular point and more importantly what we can do about it. Pretty much it's the only topic of conversation in the pub and probably the Clapham omnibus too.

The reasons are complex and there are certainly no quick fixes, despite what some emerging 'experts' have been saying in the media over recent days. What I'm clear about though is that the seeds of our present problems were sown some time ago and have coincided with the fundamental change in ethos and operation of the probation service. I always used to say to friends and interested parties that one great strength of the Service was that it was embedded in communities and had unrivalled knowledge concerning what was going on.

Probation officers always got to know pretty quickly what aspects of social policy were and were not working. The Service had the flexibility to respond to perceived need and gaps in service provision and innovation was actively encouraged by management. I used to think that a wise government listened to what we were saying and trusted us to respond in appropriate ways that addressed social problems that led to offending. I thought I knew what our role was as a specialist part of a broad Welfare State, dedicated to improving society and individual people's lives that had been damaged in a variety of ways. I thought I knew and clung resolutely to this concept for as long as possible as successive governments rode roughshod over my beloved career.

Lets be clear about what happened. We allowed politicians to get involved. They hijacked the debate about various social issues and imposed upon us the usual 'quick fix' simplistic supposed answers to complex problems for political gain. Whether it was 'short sharp shocks' or ASBO's or any number of other failed 'sound bite' solutions, the fact is that politicians emasculated and disabled a fine public service with years of experience in tackling the root causes of the behaviour we are now experiencing. I have no doubt at all that we would not be in the position we are now if the Probation Service today had the same freedom of operation it had when I first joined over 25 years ago. We used to be an agent of change. Now we're just a victim of it. Damn you Jack Straw, Michael Howard and all your ilk!

London's Burning

2011-08-09T17:12:00.000+01:00

Like many, I've been listening and watching the news and trying to make sense of what is happening and why? Does a probation officer have anything useful to say I wonder?

It's certainly true that colleagues will be writing many reports for court in the coming weeks and despite disparaging comments in some quarters, a lot of people are going to end up doing lengthy prison terms. As with the public disorder earlier this year in London, I suspect the repercussions of some 'moments of madness' will be devastating for some people previously of good character. Very strange things seem to happen when the normal balance of civil society breaks down. Remember those scenes a few years ago of ordinary-looking people plundering washed-up shipping containers on a normally deserted Devon coastline?

I know it's not the same, but when the story comes to be told I think it will turn out that people from a variety of walks of life have been involved in wholesale looting. The people who started the disorder are a different matter. Almost certainly they will turn out to be the disaffected youth who have little invested in their neighbourhood, are the products of a failed education system and have scant hope or aspiration. If they haven't been arrested already, in the coming weeks their identity will be revealed either through cctv, forensic evidence or Blackberry message trail. What might be appropriate punishment for the younger-end participants will no doubt prove a moot point in the weeks to come. In a sense it's too late for them though. We really must try and ensure there isn't another similar generation coming up behind them.

The whole business has come as a nasty shock and a brutal reminder that basically our policing model in mainland UK is based on mutual consent. For most of the time it works reasonably well and as a society we're not really used to regular mass civil unrest. As a consequence we're probably not adequately geared up for it. By that I don't mean water cannon in strategic store and fleets of armoured vehicles. I suspect it's much more prosaic like an experienced police command structure not on leave (it is August after all) and a certain amount of disbelief that things would 'kick-off' so spectacularly, and all over the place.

Somewhat unfashionably I suspect for a probation officer, I do think there is something in the observation that we now have a police service rather than a police force and possibly current command is simply not confident or experienced enough in dealing with this situation assertively. I suspect the police are collectively suffering from a degree of loss of self-esteem. They are certainly mightily pissed off with government over attacks on their terms and conditions, but the rub as always is that in times of crisis or trouble, we really need them. It would not be that surprising if there might be just a tad of bad feeling in the ranks and a less than gungho attitude in dealing with the present troubles. Having said that, I'm sure that when the chips are down and the Queens Peace is threatened, the significance of having sworn an oath will not be lost on the rank and file.

Society has a funny habit of throwing up new challenges unforeseen by the forces of law and order, and government for that matter. Remember the amazing organisational aspects of the fuel blockade in 2000 when an astonished prime minister visiting Hull had to be told to 'leave for London immediately as fuel supplies could not be guaranteed anywhere.' I seem to recall it was as a result of this whole debacle that the Civil Contingencies Act amongst other things provided for the temporary suspension of mobile phone networks on police or government instruction. I wonder if Blackberries will work tonight with a reported 16,000 police officers on London's streets, many having been drafted in from surrounding counties?

One thing I'm pretty clear about. The case for the routine arming of the police will recede further into the distance. Can you imagine how bad things could get with police officers in riot situations and with adrenaline pumping, being able to resist the urge to draw and use their weapons. It simply doesn't bear thinking about. However, a chastened government might now begin to review just how appropriate it really is to be reducing front-line police numbers with the London Olympics just around the corner. It's been plain sailing up till now for next summer, but I bet there will be some urgent phone calls from the International Organising Committee over the next week or so.

Have We Been Wasting Our Time?

2011-08-04T08:05:00.000+01:00

It has come as some surprise to many that throwing an imitation custard pie can result in a prison sentence, but such can be the outcome of our sentencing system here in the UK. Admittedly the offence did take place in the Mother of Parliaments, before an international audience of millions and the victim was a defenceless 80 year-old billionaire media mogul.

As a consequence, the perpetrator found himself appearing before one of the most senior remunerated JP's in the land at Westminster Magistrates Court - it just doesn't have the same ring as Bow Street does it? Interestingly, it's reported that the District Judge announced that she was minded to award a community sentence before adjourning three days for a Pre-Sentence Report. One can only speculate on the content and quality of this report as it subsequently resulted in a prison term instead.

Now I have previously written about my concerns regarding the quality of PSR's and that many are now being prepared by unqualified Probation Service's Officers. Even more worrying is the edict from the National Offender Management Service that far too many full PSR's are being written, thus posing a costly and unnecessary burden upon the Probation Service. Again, I have written at length that the reason for this is due to the fact that full PSR's have to be written through OASys and as a result preparation time has escalated to 7.5 hours.

This situation led to the widespread introduction of Fast Delivery Reports a few years ago which do not have OASys involvement and can be routinely prepared by PSO's. Well things have now moved on apace because NOMS now insist that all PSR's are written in FDR format, unless there are exceptional reasons to warrant the preparation of a costly full report that requires a three week adjournment. The distinction between FDR and SDR has been removed, thus everything is now termed a PSR even if prepared 'on the back of an envelope' in an hour.

I had not realised until quite recently that all probation budgets have been reduced since last year in order to reflect the fact that far fewer full reports will be prepared from now on. The whole 'dumbing-down' of the PSR as a vital part of our Criminal Justice System is an astonishingly retrograde step that again seems to have gone unnoticed by the recent Justice Affairs Committee report. But then I do begin to wonder whether we've been wasting our time over the years because sentencers don't seem to have noticed the steady decline in PSR quality. I take the deafening silence, especially from the Crown Court, to indicate satisfaction. Or may be as some of us suspected, only the final paragraph ever got read?

Good and Bad News

2011-07-30T08:46:00.002+01:00

Wednesday was a good day for probation. From early morning to late evening it was all over the news. Friends outside the Service noticed. Even my mother said she heard something about 'probation officers not seeing people long enough.' For a Service that normally has such a low profile it was good to hear blanket media coverage of the Justice Affairs Commitee report earlier that day. Ok there are 46 recommendations and the figure of only 24% of our time being spent seeing people is old news from a NAPO survey, but at least we had the public's attention for a day and the message about form-filling got through.

I'm all too aware of the danger in repeating myself, but the blame for all this time being spent doing other stuff was not placed firmly at the door of OASys, the Offender Management System that makes grown men and women weep and drives them to drink, or worse. It's not just me that thinks this. Take a look at this article from the Guardian yesterday by a colleague with 10 years experience and their thoughts on it. The Justice Affairs Committee really don't understand what OASys is in reality and the damage it is doing to the Service. The trouble is that words are really insufficient to adequately describe the futility of the whole damned thing. Not only does it take hours and hours to fill in, it really doesn't deliver what it is supposed to: -

"It's remarkable that the justice committee largely confines discussion of eOASys to a single section, bizarrely entitled "the management of risk". eOASys do not provide a statistical calculation of the risk of a person causing serious harm to others, merely a "rubber stamp" of reliability for an officer's own comments, entered repeatedly under pages of headings. Seeing eOASys and risk assessment as synonymous does practitioners a disservice: it's a demoralising sign of how little trust is placed in our judgment and experience, and can rob us of confidence in our own abilities by institutionalising reliance on a limited tool."

On occasion I have been accused of being an old stick-in-the-mud, a dinosaur unwilling to move with the times and embrace change. The other day I had reason to read a file on a case that I was unfamiliar with. This happens all the time and it can be important to get up to speed quickly. The age-old method is to pick up a PSR. On this occasion I forced myself to resist and read the OASys instead which helpfully, if in unfriendly environmental fashion, had been printed out in it's unumbered entirety, including full risk assessment. I'd estimate over 60 pages in total, not of narrative - if only - but confusingly laid out pro-forma question boxes with associated text boxes varying in position, size and length. At every stage it's not always clear what is pre-printed text and what is a response.

This OASys had been prepared by a very experienced and capable officer of many years standing, initially for the purpose of preparing a PSR for court. It had subsequently been updated as the person progressed through their prison sentence, thus adding further layers of text to the original. One of the things that hits you is the sheer repitition. Every entry beginning with 'Mr X this or Mr X that'. It has to be like this because each answer to a question is written in such a way that it can be stitched seamlessly into the finished Pre Sentence Report when the 'create report' button is pressed. Now if you believe in fairies, this might be a reasonable view to hold.

The author later confirmed to me what I know to be true. That in reality the computer-generated text is not fit for purpose and has to be redone. But I digress. In essence, was it possible to understand a case effectively from reading the OASys? Answer 'No!' Not in any reasonable time frame and not without taking notes as part of a forensic search of the document for key information. So, can someone please explain why we are all wasting our time, silting up vast computer data-bases with almost meaningless crap that almost certainly will never be read from end to end, except by inspectors when the shit sometimes hits the fan? Until this elephant in the room is dealt with, until the Emperor is recognised as having no clothes, we will still be spending 76% of our time not seeing clients.

Some Observations 7

2011-07-27T07:07:00.001+01:00

Regular readers will recall that I made mention of David Cameron's statement in the House of Commons last week about major reforms for the police in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal. In particular he mentioned that 'progression' through the ranks from constable to the top would be swept aside, in favour of recruitment from outside for senior positions, including that of Chief Constable.

In drawing attention to the historical precedent of having men of military rank in charge of police forces up to the Second World War, I rather jumped to the conclusion that the Prime Minister did not have a return to such a state of affairs in mind. So, imagine my surprise to see 'Ministers want battle-hardened colnels to shake up police' as a headline on the front page of the Sunday Times. (I think it's ok to buy it again now that the Murdoch spell is broken).

Whitehall sources are quoted as saying 'army officers who had been axed as part of the spending cuts could become chief inspectors, superintendents and chief constables.' The funny thing is, much the same was said when the Berlin Wall came down and the resulting 'peace dividend' would allow unemployed officers to join probation. I guess it might actually happen this time though as there's probably a shade more synergy between the army and police, so far at least.

Talking of the future of probation, the Justice Affairs Commitee have just published their report into the current state of the probation service, and it is not very complimentary of NOMS. They blame the prison takeover of the probation service for a huge amount of micro-management and tick-box filling that results in 'staggeringly' only 24% of an officers time being available to see clients.

The committee calls for an urgent external review of NOMS to assertain if it is delivering value-for-money, or if it requires massive further reform. Pretty much everyone accepts it has been a very expensive mistake by the last government and could do with a decent burial. This report is certainly good news for us in returning attention on NOMS where it definitely belongs. The response from government is entirely predictable of course, coming out with that classic feeble line 'oh that was in the past - things are improving now' but this simply won't stand up to detailed scrutiny.

There is a lot in this report and it will require some careful reading. However, my concerns that members had simply not grasped the true effect of OASys have sadly been borne out. The topic does not get much of a mention and it's obvious that they have no idea just how time-consuming the thing is. It is the single most relevant reason why officers have so little time to see clients and it doesn't even deliver the robust and accurate risk assessment that it was designed for.

Finally, I can't help thinking that the Norwegian serial killer is going to be found unfit to plead. I'm no psychiatrist, but he must have a personality disorder surely, if not some mental illness as well? My hunch is that all the warning signs were present many years ago and it just needs teachers, family, colleagues and friends to fill in the gaps.

The View from the Top

2011-07-22T09:08:00.001+01:00

To say these are worrying times for probation staff would be putting it mildly. Since the Michael Spurr letter to Probation Chiefs, NAPO have responded angrily and there is understandably talk amongst some members of balloting for industrial action. The theme of this years AGM is somewhat ominously 'resistance.' Not all members feel this approach is sensible and there are signs of old tensions between moderates and radicals coming to the fore once more. But what do the bosses think about it all? More importantly, what do they intend doing about the mess we seem to be moving inexorably towards?

A key person in all this is Sue Hall, Chief of West Yorks and current Chair of the Probation Chiefs Association. Back in May she wrote an article for the in-house magazine giving her thoughts on what the future was looking like, and to be frank it makes for pretty depressing reading.

"For me this is one of the most important but unanswered questions at the moment. You will search in vain in the Green Paper to find a vision for trusts - and the word 'probation' does not feature once in the MoJ Business Plan, even in the section on rehabilitation revolution. We know it is likely we will retain responsibility for advice to courts and for supervising the most dangerous offenders. Everything else is potentially up for grabs, to be sorted out by competition or Payment by Results. In theory we could end up with probation trusts having a residual role, just one of a range of providers. Nothing reflects this better than the title of our new Director - the Director of Probation and Contracted Services! In the current arena probation trusts have to make their own future. If we believe that the public sector should have a core role in providing probation, we will have to fight for it."

Sue goes on to say that she feels trusts will begin to look very different from each other and she would be surprised if there were still 35 in three years time as cuts and competition 'dig in'. She predicts that if probation is to remain a profession, there will have to be a fight to keep proper training arrangements and that there will have to be registration for probation officers, as with doctors, nurses and social workers. Interestingly the issue of 'registration' is shortly going to become an issue for the police as well. So, a whole new set of QANGO's then! I seem to remember this government started out having a bonfire of those, but that seems an awful long time ago now. Sue ends up saying that she's not pessimistic about the future of probation - Really?

Police in Trouble - Shock!

2011-07-21T08:25:00.001+01:00

Even before the whole phone-hacking firestorm errupted, the Police were in trouble. They appeared to be firmly in the sights of the Conservatives well before the General Election, which always was surprising given that they were said to be the party of 'law and order.' But there have been long-standing concerns about working practices and post election there is the need for urgent cuts in all public services.

However, supposedly with a 63% satisfaction rating with the public, serious reforms that didn't meet with Police Federation approval were still far from assured. Add to that many, including myself, who felt that the whole elected police commissioner thing didn't sound like a good idea at all and had all the hallmarks of a political gimmick, meant getting 'reforms' through was far from assured. But I still say insulting Theresa May the Home Secretary when a guest at the Federation conference was a big mistake.

Speaking as part of a Service that has regularly been 'done over' numerous times by successive governments for purely political ends, I have a great deal of sympathy with the Police, especially front-line officers. As I have previously posted, they alone have been left to deal with all the well-documented social problems of our neglected and disadvantaged communities, because agencies such as Probation have retreated ever-further into edge of town bunkers, now somewhat mis-termed 'Local Delivery Units,' FFS!

But politics is a strange, mystical dark art. With his back to the wall, the Prime Minister, at long-last released from the iron-grip of the tabloid press and keen to seek revenge from any appropriate quarter, announced yet more massive changes for the Police yesterday in Parliament. It sounded like he intended to settle some very long-standing scores with a Service that up till now he had felt needed to be approached with care for obvious reasons. It's almost certainly unfair, but the deepening horror stories emerging from New Scotland Yard seem to have provided the perfect excuse to introduce even more sweeping 'reforms' to the whole Police Service.

Not just changes to working practices, employment terms and conditions, but now the spotlight turns to recruitment, training and management. It looks like the age-old principle of progression through the ranks will be swept aside in favour of non-police appointments to senior ranks, including the office of Chief Constable. I think it's unwise, but it's now impossible to argue against, due to emerging evidence of nepotism and possibly other very worrying information yet to be made public fully.

In a sense it's turning the clock back to the days before the Second World War when it was quite common for the office of Chief Constable to be filled from the ranks of the military. I don't think that is on David Camerons agenda - 'if only' some might say - it's much more likely that such posts will be filled by captains of industry, foreigners or even worse, bureaucrats. I was struck by a comment from the BBC political editor Nick Robinson who said afterwards that he felt the Prime Minister had announced the 'smashing' of the Police. That is very strong and serious stuff indeed.

When the time comes to write the history of this whole extra-ordinary phone-hacking saga, I'm sure there will be a very large chapter devoted to the Police. In particular there will need to be an explanation as to how things got to the point they did, necessitating major reforms. To me it serves to confirm the importance of how every individual in any organisation must take personal responsibility for their actions, lest it bring that body into disrepute, but also how important it is that any organisation has a healthy collective culture within it.

There is no doubt in my mind that there was the distinctive sound of chickens coming home to roost in the Prime Ministers announcement on the need for Police reform. Since I started blogging nearly a year ago, I have been genuinely shocked and dismayed by some of the 'canteen culture' displayed in the comment section of a certain very popular police blog. I hasten to add that I find the entertaining and informative blog itself compelling reading for anyone who wants to understand the constraints and travails of modern policing in Britain today - but the tone and substance of some of the comments are truly shocking. Being the huge success that it is, I'm sure it is read in high places.

By a very strange co-incidence, there has been a recent echo from the past. Over on the jailhouselawyers blog, John Hirst has written about the disgraceful case of David Oluwale. I well remember this scandal being reported in Private Eye at the time and of course the subsequent findings of serious misdeeds, attitudes and behaviour ultimately led to radical changes to policing during the 1970's. It seems history may be about to repeat itself.

Parole Board Getting a Grip

2011-07-20T09:56:00.000+01:00

My attention has been drawn to the annual report of the Parole Board and by any measure it seems to be good news. Following a significant increase in Board members last year, the number of Oral Hearings has increased significantly and at last some real progress is being achieved in reducing the backlog, especially in IPP cases. Interestingly, the release rate for lifers has increased from 11% to 15% and for IPP cases from 5% to 6%.

Of course decisions regarding whether to release a prisoner or not are determined by making a judgement call based on an assessment of risk. I have written previously about the fact that the Parole Board has become increasingly risk-averse in recent time and the possible reasons for this. One area of concern has been connected to the introduction of OASys, the Offender Assessment System that was foisted upon the Probation Service during the forced marriage with the Prison Service under NOMS. Because of it's design, there is evidence to suggest that it has resulted in an increase in the number of negative recommendations to the Parole Board by Probation Officers.

Assessing risk has and never will be an exact science and regular readers will be aware of my contempt for OASys and it's ability to inform decision-making in this area - precisely the reason it was introduced I might add. I notice that it does not get a mention in the Parole Board annual report which I think speaks volumes in itself. Something has changed though as the release rate has improved. Possibly the Parole Board are getting more adept at casting a rather more sceptical eye over the often misleading, confusing and contradictory OASys assessments?

In discussing this whole subject it's interesting to hear a viewpoint from the 'other' side as it were. I notice that John Hirst on his very well-read blog jailhouselawyerblog advocates the abolition of the Parole Board and pours scorn on the whole notion of assessing risk at all:-

"Instead of hiding behind hazy concepts such as public protection and risk assessment, surely a better system would be where a judge hands down a sentence, that is, time for the crime, and when the prisoner serves his time he is simply released?

Basically, in making a risk assessment, the Parole Board, in effect, gazes into a crystal ball and makes a prediction for future offending and passes down a sentence for a crime which has not yet been committed. This not only gives the Parole Board too much power, it is an abuse of power which leads to an injustice for the prisoner."

It's an interesting concept, but one I would not subscribe to. In this country, following abolition of the death penalty, we have adopted the use of indeterminate sentences for the most serious offences. We do not have the farce of 'determinate' sentences of say 99 years common in the United States. The key to both approaches though is the separation of an appropriate period of custody in relation to punishment, from the opportunity of release for either good behaviour or a reduction in risk. This seems humane and appropriate to the alternative of many more prisoners languishing in custody with no hope of ever being released.

But it all comes back to the assessment of risk. John distills the issue succinctly:-

"Basically, in making a risk assessment, the Parole Board, in effect, gazes into a crystal ball and makes a prediction for future offending and passes down a sentence for a crime which has not yet been committed."

But what's the alternative? It is possible for a sentencing Judge to impose a 'whole life' tariff in respect of the most heinous crimes, but it's quite rare. I believe there are only about 50 such cases in total. So in respect of all other serious offences of murder, manslaughter, rape, arson etc are we really going to arrive at an appropriate determinate sentence that reflects the seriousness of the offence and just leave to chance the possibility of repitition upon automatic release? We all know re-offending rates are too high as it is in relation to prisoners being released generally. Would it really be sensible for any society to move towards the universal doctrine of 'do the crime : do the time' whatever that crime and merely hope for the best? I don't think so.

Public Bad : Private Good?

2011-07-19T09:14:00.002+01:00

It's unfortunate, but probably inevitable, that the debate about privatising further areas of the public sector generally and probation in particular, will be distilled essentially to arguing the toss over a shorthand mantra that says 'public bad : private good.' Some comments on here have already started to be expressed in this vein - to essentially polarise what is in reality quite a complex issue. The truth is that in a mixed economy and democratic state, we need both in order to function properly. There are some things that can only be undertaken or done better by the state and others that can be done better by private enterprise. It's a question of degree, balance and philosophy. Not political dogma.

Actually it can also be about compromise and coming to a mutually agreed accommodation, as in the the case of doctors in the NHS. When plans for a National Health Service were being thrashed out by a Labour government after the Second World War, a compromise had to be reached with a very suspicious British Medical Association. As a result to this day, most GP's are in fact part of businesses called 'practices' and are only contractors to the NHS. After the passage of so much time, I'm not at all sure how much this is widely understood by the general public, but it's a model that seems to have served us well. Of course the same is true of dentists, and hospital consultants only continue with 'private' patients because of the historic settlement with the Labour government that was famously designed to 'stuff their mouths with gold.'

In deciding to enter the world of probation, I made a conscious decision to become a public servant and follow a vocation. At no time did it ever occur to me that probation, or prisons come to think of it, might be areas of human endeavour that would lend themselves appropriately to being run by private enterprise and in order to turn a profit. Surely they are public services, delivered for the benefit of all citizens and that only have to contend with issues such as quality, fairness and integrity, not profit for shareholders? Our 'shareholders' are all of us and we are accountable by democratic processes.

However, we have all had to accept the notion of privately-run prisons. I've never been happy with the concept of the state incarcerating people by operation of the profit motive and I'm still not. But upon reflection many would argue, including the prisoners themselves, that limited privatisation has brought about improvement in conditions. There remains a debate to be had as to whether they have delivered real cost-savings and some would say that up to now the type of establishment has not posed undue problems. Pragmatically though, for me it's now a question of degree and appropriate balance. I suppose it could be said, reflecting the balance in provision of private education.

It's clear that the political consensus that pretty much held sway concerning the boundaries between the public and private sector has shifted considerably over recent years. Both Labour and Conservative governments have each responded to powerful lobbying by the likes of the CBI and tabloid press in the hope of gaining political favour. Complex issues and the subtleties of debate have regularly been lost in the headlong urge to 'spin' and create political soundbites on a whole range of issues.

The Probation Service has a significant history of working in partnership with other agencies, but now finds itself having to respond to the headlong ideological drive for privatisation. The danger is that we are considerably hampered in being able to adequately respond because we have lost our independent voice. NOMS clearly do not understand us because of domination by the Prison Service. We give every impression of being like the proverbial rabbit caught in the car head lights. We desperately need a voice and quickly. In the mean time, it is to be hoped that the Probation Association's plea for Trusts to become responsible for the commissioning of services will be heeded as a way of trying to retain a coherent Service.

It was whilst thinking about the predicament Probation finds itself in that I stumbled across an article written by David Scott, the former Chief Officer of London Probation and written specially for the Probation Journal in October 2010. It's well worth reading in full. Remember, he was the Chief who decided to take responsibility and resign in the wake of the infamous Sonnex case. Amongst other things, he highlights the fact that:-

"Arguably no other agency has been as affected as Probation by the political short-termism and opportunism which have prevailed in a period of heightened public anxiety and frustration about law and order failings."

Given the incredibly cursory way in which Michael Spurr of NOMS chose to inform Probation Chiefs that they were to spend the summer preparing for the privatisation of possibly every area of probation work, it's interesting to see what David Scott goes on to say somewhat presciently less than a year ago:-

"How can Probation continue to exist, let alone flourish, without its own national leadership? Who represents Probation in the corridors of power and argues its corner when crucial decisions about resourcing and public profile are made? Is Probation best placed in the Ministry of Justice when many would argue it belongs more with the Police in the Home Office? What model best enables Chief Officers to deliver high quality local services? Why is probation practice so desk-bound, and why is there no real time inter-agency training simulation to build confidence and share learning across cultures?"

He ends with what could well be regarded as good a rallying cry as any:-

"Probation staff have a remarkable history of adaptation and courage against the odds. These qualities and a willingness to speak up for the Service will be crucial to its imperilled future."

Before it's too late, I think the government needs to be encouraged to look rather more closely at Mr Spurr and the whole NOMS management structure before they set about engineering our demise. Members of the House of Commons Justice Select Committee particularly, please take note!

We're All in This Together

2011-07-18T09:06:00.000+01:00

With all the excitement focussed on the Murdoch empire, I've neglected to mention the Criminal Justice in Meltdown lobby of Parliament on 6th July. This was in effect the launch of a joint campaign by NAPO, PCS, POA and Police Federation against cuts and further privatisation within the Justice sector. The full joint briefing document can be downloaded from a link to be found here.

Things are speeding up somewhat because Ken Clarke has announced two further prison closures, HMP Latchmere House in West London and HMP Brockhill in Redditch. Latchmere is a 'Cat D' establishment with an interesting history. It was initially used in the First World War as a hospital for soldiers suffering from 'shell shock' and in the Second World War by MI5 for the interrogation of enemy agents when known as Camp 020. Brockhill is a relatively modern but run down 'Cat C' establishment.

Along with this annoucement, a further nine prisons are to be the subject of 'market testing'. These are HMP's Lindholme, Moorland, Hatfield in Yorkshire, Wolds in East Yorkshire, Acklington, Castington in Northumberland, Onley near Rugby, Coldingly in Surrey and Durham. If the private sector win these contracts it will mean 15% of the total will move out of public control. It should be noted that following the HMP Birmingham contract being awarded to G4S, they have announced 130 redundancies. It remains to be seen what the POA response will be to all this, but they are between a rock and a hard place in having to try and win these contracts against private sector competition.

Following Michael Spurr's disgraceful letter from NOMS HQ, in addition to a robust response from NAPO, it's gratifying to see a joint statement from one employer, the London Probation Trust signed by NAPO and UNISON:-

"As highlighted in today's LPT Direct message, Michael Spurr, Chief Executive of NOMS, has written to the Chairs of Probation Trusts outlining NOMS' intention to review the future shape of probation services. The review will include considering the possibility of putting "core probation services" out for competition.

This announcement is in line with the government's agenda to increase competition for public services and introduce payment by results. This is a challenging time for probation staff and the letter, which was copied to Chief Executives and the recognised trade unions, has caused considerable anxiety about the future of our service.

The continued delivery of probation work by highly skilled and trained probation practitioners in the public sector is a shared aim of the Trust Board, Senior Management Team and trade unions alike. The realisation of this in a commercial and competitive environment will rely on mounting strong bids to retain our work. It means that some aspects of service delivery may need to change and we will have to look at new ways of engaging partners.

A joint approach to these challenges will be underpinned by our shared values:

Delivery of probation work requires highly skilled and trained probation practitioners.

Advice to Courts and the Parole Board must be based on a sound and impartial professional assessment.

Rehabilitation is based on a positive working relationship between practitioner and offender.

Broad consultation and inclusive decision making is key to the future success of London Probation Trust.

We want London Probation Trust to influence the discussions and to help shape our future so that the voice of frontline staff is heard. We are jointly committed to keeping you informed about developments."

In addition to significant closures of courts and cuts in legal aid, the Police have their own problems in relation to cost saving measures and wider reforms. At the same time they find themselves engulfed in a public confidence row as part of the widespread collateral damage from the phone-hacking scandal. They shouldn't worry too much though as I think I heard their confidence rating is currently running at 63%, compared with MP's and journalists in the low teens. I'd love to know where probation stands?

The 5 Minute Interview

2011-07-17T13:17:00.002+01:00

I've heard a lot recently about the '5 minute interview', otherwise known as the 'tick box interview' over on the Prisoners Families Voices website. I know exactly what they mean because I've seen it myself. A car pulls up outside the probation office, a guy gets out and he heads for reception and the friend keeps the engine running while he 'reports.' There is clearly no need to bother stopping the engine because just as quickly the guy reappears and is driven off.

A pointless exercise many would say and I have to agree. There's no wonder significant numbers of clients think it's a waste of time and don't turn up, thus triggering either breach or recall action. So, what's been going on, especially as it's long been known that it's the relationship between probation officer and client that is fundamental in effecting change in behaviour? Well by a handy coincidence, the explanation is contained in the latest edition of the newsletter for sentencers produced by the London Probation Trust and I'm grateful to a reader for passing it on to me. It's basically about one of the latest buz issues within the Service generally at the present time, and called 'engagement.'

"London Probation Trust is committed to improving the quality and effectiveness of service delivery, which also means improving our engagement with offenders. Over the past decade, there has been a national emphasis on achieving performance targets. Although it has been essential for probation to demonstrate our effectiveness against performance targets, this approach has resulted in some unintended consequences, in particular a lack of focus on how we engage and motivate offenders.

The renewed emphasis on offender engagement has been driven by a recognition by the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), that although we may be "hitting the targets", we may also be "missing the point" - the point being that "the relationship between offenders and probation practitioners can be a powerful vehicle for changing behaviour and reducing reoffending." The NOMS Offender Engagement Programme (OEP) is a three year initiative working in collaboration with Probation Trusts to improve offender engagement. This fits seamlessly with the journey which we have already begun in London to rebalance our work and refocus on the quality of practice.

London Probation Trust is listening to the staff who deliver our frontline services and to the offenders who receive these services to ensure we understand how best to maximise our influence with offenders in order to reduce reoffending. We are delivering four pilot projects, two in conjunction with NOMS, which are aimed at improving the way in which we engage with offenders."

It's stuff like this that alternately makes me very angry and want to weep. Don't you just love the bit about there being some 'unintended consequences' of an approach that was based on targets? 'in particular a lack of focus on how we engage and motivate offenders.' If it wasn't so serious it would be funny I guess. A casual admission that an absolutely fundamental aspect of probation work was overlooked for the 'essential' business of measuring the effectiveness of probation against targets. The tragedy is that in undertaking this 'essential' business at the behest of NOMS, we lost the bloody plot.

"Hitting the target and missing the point." Oh dear! Of course some of us remained unimpressed by all the target-driven nonsense and have continued to operate according to well-tried and tested methods that include seeing people as-and-when-required and for as long as it feels necessary in order to try and achieve something. I've even been known to indulge in the heinous activity of seeing a client 'voluntarily.' In my experience, effort put into making interviews worthwhile often pay off in the form of clients repaying the courtesy by turning up.

It's quite a sobering thought to come to realise that what at one time was quite a dissident and reactionary activity, is now at the cutting edge of probation practice. Sadly I think it might all be too late though as the damage has been done. Just as we could do with some public support, websites like Prisoners Families Voices are full of very negative stuff. Anyway, the London Probation Trust goes on to trumpet some of their new initiatives:-

Skills for Effective Engagement and Development (SEED)

"This project is a 12-month pilot sponsored by NOMS currently on trial in Barking, Dagenham & Havering, and Merton & Sutton. The SEED programme focuses on training practitioners and their line managers in effective engagement skills and techniques. Practice is embedded through continuous professional development including quarterly follow up training, observation and feedback from line managers and monthly practitioner-led action learning sets.

SEED draws upon the Strategic Training Initiative in Community Supervision (STICS) research from Canada which demonstrated a statistically significant reduction in reoffending by offenders whose supervising officers had been specifically trained in engagement skills. SEED is providing a real opportunity for the Trust to refocus on "what happens in the room" in terms of the offender-practitioner relationship and practice skills, including a unique professional development experience. It will be externally evaluated by Sheffield University."

How about that?! Training probation officers in engagement skills AND wanting 'to know what goes on in the room?!!'

I can feel one of my heads coming on and need to lie down.

What Are We to Do?

2011-07-16T09:59:00.000+01:00

It's a wet Saturday morning and I have no idea what to say. I should be happy but I'm depressed. Rupert Murdoch accepts his well-earned invitation to an arse-kicking party at the House of Commons and the end of the Probation Service is casually announced in a letter.

Over on the Prisoners Families Voices website probation is regularly getting a kicking and you know instinctively much of the criticisms ring true. You can try and explain that our role sometimes means public protection has to take priority over the niceties of informing either the client or their family, but that only gets you so far. I hope the author of this recent contribution to the NAPO discussion forum won't mind me quoting it:-

"...what crap has been dumped on us over the years,I dislike all this messing with words and sticking on straplines and logos but whats worse is how some of us have helped not only spread this rubbish around but been busy composting it and increasing its foul potency and idiotic ideology -eg as Boateng said "Law enforcement it's who we are and what we do" so reductionist in the worst way and we still have colleagues who strut around boasting of how many clients they breach/recall or those who are fearful/impatient with angry/aggressive clients and will not see them to try and find out what's going on if they kick off but want a manager to call the Police instead so they can be "cleared off."

I have posted many times on the subject of the structural changes within the Service over recent years and how unhelpful they've been. I've been highly critical of the change in ethos from 'advise, assist and befriend' to 'punish, enforce etc' and the consequent change in methodology and attitude to the job by many colleagues. I'm absolutely clear in saying it's all been a mistake and not assisted the cause of rehabilitation at all and to add insult to injury our 'failure' has placed us in the position where we are to be rewarded by wholesale privatisation. Our arses are being kicked by clients, their families and now by the government. But what can we do about it?

Of course there will quite rightly be calls for industrial action and some skillful lobbying of decision-makers in Parliament. But there has to be more than that. We have to try and win some public support and explain to people where we've been, what we're about and why we're worth saving. I would contend that in order to do that we need some constructive self-analysis. The sad irony is that many newer colleagues were already beginning to question the direction of travel in the Service and ask older colleagues about how things used to be. National Standards have been seriously relaxed, discretion and judgement are no longer terms of abuse and there is much talk of 'offender engagement.' By extension I take that to mean family engagement also, so the landscape is already changing for the better within probation.

Since starting this blogsite I've always been conscious that the readership is varied and diverse, from clients to Judges and from colleagues to police officers. In order to save the Probation Service from the disaster that privatisation will bring, we really do have to try and win friends and influence people. To my mind one of the absolute key groups in all this are families who are indeed 'experts' and as many say, are often doing much of the work of a Probation Officer 24/7. All Probation Officers know full well that there is nothing quite like a young male offender who, having gained a girlfriend, finds their activities and liberty considerably scrutinised and curtailed as a result. I think we really do have to try and engage with partners and families more and take the time and trouble to explain why we are embarking on a particular course of action.

Before closing, I want to end by again quoting the same author from the NAPO discussion forum site. It's written from the heart, says it all and I think represents what many officers feel about what is essentially a vocation, not just 'a job':-

"I began work in the 80's and loved the creativity around then but could never understand this diagnosis that "nothing" was working so we had to accept the "what works" medicine of worksheets from Targets for change and Programme manuals. It was like making the client fit the book or treating them like broken jack-in-the- boxes where we had the tools (such nonsense. Despite all the talk about evidence and effectiveness I suspect much of it was spurious and scraping the bottom of the barrel to tick a(nother!)box). I'm not convinced buying into all the pseudo-scientific Oaysology (who said everyone's got to have an ology) was so clever and doubt promoting ourselves as risk-masters or rate of re-offending reductionistas was so smart either).- I think our best practice is more simple yet subtle than this sort of thing and requires a great deal more focus on the client to work out what the issues are and what room for manoeuvre/growth there may be rather than pinning us down to being 1984 type people-stampers of a "tier"/status/label or tag with the ready prescription of that wretched "what works" stuff again as if we had all whats needed even if we could be assured we knew in every case just what they need. Its hardly surprising the clients get resentful. I prefer to look at where do you want to be, where do I want you to be and how can we make these potentially divergent goals merge, become jointly respected and achieved and how cope with /handle the bad baggage/circumstances that may or may not get in the way... "

"The best thing about this letter is that it reveals all areas of our work are at threat so no-one with any sense or soul should be left unperturbed. If we all get angry and organised and can focus on responding in the ways that reveal what is best about us-values/principles and practice skills we should be able to save what it is proposed they endanger but it will take focussing on what we do best, organising and replicating best practice values in this broader arena where the clients become a wider audience and include MPs/public/media etc-listening/reflecting back honestly/having faith in change/accepting others as they are but broadening vision and respecting autonomy and individual rights including those of others outside the family."

A Cruel Irony

2011-07-14T08:23:00.003+01:00

Life has a habit of throwing up the strangest and cruelest of ironies and yesterday 13th July 2011 provided just such an example. As many of us found ourselves gripped by the momentous developments being played out in Parliament and Rupert Murdoch for the first time ever having to bow to the inevitable and concede defeat, some of us became aware that the end of the Probation Service as we know it had been announced.

In a disgraceful letter from Michael Spurr at NOMS headquarters and addressed to all 35 Probation Trust Chairs and Chief Executives, it was announced that every Service must begin preparing for core tasks such as PSR writing and offender supervision to be outsourced in a bid to save money. Without doubt this signals the beginning of the end of the Probation Service as we know it and as a distinct and unified public service. In my view it pretty much makes a nonsense of the work that has been on-going into the role of the probation service at the Justice Affairs Committee since last year, particularly as they have now completed taking evidence.

The letter states that only a limited amount of consultation is intended at this stage, but that the Government intends to announce its preferred options in the Autumn. So, as we enter the summer holiday period and Parliament prepares for recess, those at NOMS headquarters are clearly going to be busy over the next few months preparing plans for our demise. Once again we find ourselves in the invidious position of having to call upon our many friends in the Judiciary, other professions, academia and Parliament to come to our aid in order to save an honourable and vital public service. If anyone has anything positive to say about what is still sadly a much-misunderstood service, now is the time to do it.

In a recent lecture by criminologist Prof Peter Raynor at Cambridge University and entitled provocatively 'Is Probation Still Possible?' he explained that 'Probation in the post war reconstruction period was seen as important, progressive and part of the development of the Welfare State.' He quoted fellow criminologist Leon Radzinowicz who said in 1958 "If I were asked what was the most significant contribution made by this country to the new penological theory and practice which struck root in the twentieth century....my answer would be probation."

But of course that was another era when much of social and criminal justice policy was developed by means of careful consideration and deliberation and not reduced to sound bites traded in tawdry fashion as a way of gaining some short-term party-political advantage. There was a degree of consensus about such matters and politicians broadly were content to be informed by academics and learned committees. Oh for the good old days! My temporary euphoria has faded and I just know it's going to be a very grumpy few months ahead.

A Day is a Long Time......

2011-07-13T09:04:00.002+01:00

Who would have thought it possible that consensus would break out amongst our politicians, and on a subject other than their own terms and conditions? But such has been the sudden shift in the power balance between Parliamentarians and the press that almost incredibly we will see them all troupe through the same division lobby later today in order to 'put the boot' into the previously feared Rupert Murdoch.

Ok the cynical might say that the politicians might only be doing it in order to seek revenge for their mauling over the expenses scandal, but it doesn't really matter what the motive might be. I think this re-balancing of power within our democracy can only be good news for politics and ultimately for future social policy. If you think about it, successive governments have been heavily influenced by the power of the press in being able to whip up very unhelpful public opinion on issues ranging from drug policy to treatment of paedophiles.

Tony Blair felt driven to embark on his whole 'tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime' agenda in order to pander to the tabloid press. Serious discussions about many aspects of social policy and criminal justice policy have become mired over recent years because of constant consideration not to be perceived as being 'soft' on crime. It was happening right up until very recently with the tabloid press always keen to whip up bogus outrage of some sort or another. Politicians felt obliged to take notice because basically they were scared witless of being branded or worse, 'outed' in some way or another.

Well things are never going to be the same again and I believe one result is going to be a more healthy and reasoned debate on a whole range of things. If consensus can break out between political parties on this issue it can happen on other issues. There has long been evidence that the public dislikes the often manufactured charade in the House of Commons that supposedly passes for debate and that they would prefer some consensus. This has never been in newspapers interests of course as it probably wouldn't sell many papers, but it just might be in the country's interest.

I think in the coming weeks we can look forward to hearing politicians talking sense on a whole range of topics from drug policy to treatment of offenders. They've started speaking out on the evils of a corrupt press and just might find it becomes a habit to speak their mind on other issues too.

It's All in the Timing

2011-07-12T08:59:00.001+01:00

The timing was exquisite. Just as prime minister David Cameron was on his feet and extolling the virtues of privatising further swathes of public services, the nation was absorbing the news that the largest private provider of care homes in the UK was packing up. Southern Cross serves as an absolutely perfect example of what can happen if public services end up being treated as businesses or 'investment' opportunities.

I absolutely loved it when a spokesperson for the private care home sector had the audacity to say on the radio that "the problem was that fees paid by Local Authorities for looking after the elderly had not gone up." Err no, the problem is that 751 care homes that used to be owned by Southern Cross were sold off to asset strippers who pocketed the £1billion pounds and saddled the management with rent bills instead! According to him, the public sector should be paying the inflated rents due to property speculators.

We all know that publication of the Public Services White Paper has been delayed for months due to spirited opposition from Lib Dems inside the coalition government. It's a really confusing mix of trying to encourage 'localism', which many feel is no bad thing, with doctrinaire insistence on breaking up public services such as probation. This, despite Cameron saying that public services "are the backbone of the nation."

Well I think the public are going to take some persuading that the Southern Cross debacle is anything other than a stark warning of further disasters to come and that would be inherent in this sort of public service 'reform' plan. Pictures of the elderly and frail being moved out of their care homes as they inevitably close over the next few weeks will quite rightly further embarrass the government and should serve to nicely highlight the differences between public and private service.

A Week is a Long Time......

2011-07-09T16:24:00.001+01:00

I've been wracking my brain over the last couple of days trying to think how I could justify a post about recent momentous political developments on a blog with such a restricted remit? What on earth might the connection be between Rupert Murdoch and probation? But then it came to me in a flash whilst in the bath.

Only a week ago prime minister David Cameron had been scared witless of the tabloid press in general, and Murdoch's media empire in particular. In this regard he was no different to all party leaders including Ed Miliband, and predecessors Gordon Brown and Tony Blair who each spent much time paying humiliating homage at Murdoch's court. Of course it was precisely because of this unedifying power relationship that key aspects of Ken Clarke's carefully-prepared sentencing proposals were unceremoniously scuppered by a rattled prime minister. The tabloid press were able to trumpet the u-turn as yet another of 'their' successes.

But that was last week. Everything changed this week and the print media know it. It's payback time and suddenly the list of individuals and institutions wanting revenge has grown considerably. You could almost sense the hint of glee as hourly BBC news announced yet more advertisers pulling out of the News of the World. Of course the BBC has had to suffer years of being lectured to by the Murdoch family as representing 'unfair' competition. The power balance has shifted and things will never be the same again for newspapers in this country. The death knell was sounded for the ineffectual Press Complaints Commission and the all-too-cosy relationship between the Metropolitan Police and the print media will finally be the subject of a proper enquiry.

Up until Monday it was astonishing how little the press had to say about the whole thing and one of their own. After all, 'dog never eats dog.' The story had no legs as they say over in the US. There seemed no way to stop Murdoch claiming 100% of BSkyB and the government was resigned to just quietly caving in to him saying 'there was nothing they could do.' Well suddenly the story is everywhere, including the US where people are now asking 'maybe we need to know what's going on over here.'

Internet power proved it's potency with 'Mumsnet' orchestrating an advertising boycott of the NoW and astonishingly 'Avaaz' drumming up 100,000 e-mails from an outraged public to Jeremy Hunt, media minister, in just 24 hours. News International share price started sliding and all of a sudden the world began to look very different from No 10. The BSkyB deal is no longer a foregone conclusion with dark mutterings about whether the licence owner was 'fit and proper' emanating from the media regulator Ofcom.

So first it was the banks, then MP's expenses and now the tabloid press. Those who know say there is far worse to come and speculation is rife as exactly what that might mean? The term 'Watergate' has already been mentioned as suspicion grows that a million archived e-mails at News Corp have been deleted. But you can bet some of the juicier ones exist on other computers - I always keep interesting stuff - so where will the proverbial brown stuff be landing next? Well I'm going to suggest that the next few months are going to be exceptionally difficult for the police and I don't believe it will be confined to the Met.

Once the whole can of worms gets opened to the air I believe it will shed light on some very long-standing, endemic and highly illegal activity between journalists and police officers all over the country. Now that we have an insight into how Met officers were able to hide their activities by setting up scam 'informant' identities, it may well broaden out into uncovering much more sinister illegal activity.

As a probation officer for many years, I've always been mystified as to why the police never seem able to apprehend any 'Mr Big' drug dealers? Only ever the minnows in their pathetic hundreds. As a probation officer one hears things. Unsubstantiated gossip and rumour possibly. But I've always had my concerns and if truth be known doubts about just how effective internal police Standards and Compliance really are? And then there's the Independent Police Complaints Commission. I think they are treated with derision by the police and not feared at all. I wonder why?

Of course all this is coming at a very bad time for the police with Home Secretary Theresa May at last showing signs of having the bottle to tackle some of the long-standing employment issues ducked by previous governments. The Police Federation may yet come to regret humiliating her at their last conference if public opinion moves as fast as it has done in relation to banks, MP's and more recently tabloid journalists. It's astonishing. Only last Sunday 2.7 million copies of the News of the World were sold. In less than a week the brand became so toxic that ditching it became a reasonable idea, rather than the humiliation of facing a boycott by readers and advertisers alike.

PS One happy consequence of this fast-moving story was to knock the dreadful Louise Casey off the news agenda on Tuesday when the Victim Commissioner launched her ill-thought-out ideas for victim legislation. That's the thing about politics - it's all about luck and timing. Hopefully it will go the same way as her last big idea on limiting jury-trials.

Silly Season Starts Early

2011-07-06T08:31:00.000+01:00

Back in April I drew attention to the negative publicity Heather Munro attracted when as newly-appointed Chief Executive of the London Probation Trust she was taken to task for talking about the Service having 'customers' rather than 'offenders.' There was some serious backtracking as a result, but the issue of just how to refer to people that the Probation Service have a statutory responsibility for has been a thorny one for years. The subject regularly crops up at NAPO AGM's and invariably induces some lively debate.

For many years following the birth of the Service proper under the terms of the 1907 Act the term 'probationer' sufficed, but eventually gave way to the more neutral term 'client', no doubt as a way of acknowledging our civil work as Divorce Court Welfare Officers. When this work was hived off to CAFCAS and the government of the day re-branded us as a Law Enforcement Agency, the term 'offender' became more widely adopted. Of course some of us were deeply unhappy with such a change and resisted this particular nomenclature, sticking resolutely with the neutral term 'client'. At least it's less cynical than the Department of Work and Pensions insisting on claimants being called 'customers'.

Basically, as with many aspects of the Criminal Justice System, there has never been universal acceptance with regard to terminology and recent interest being shown by some probation trusts in desistance theories have raised the whole issue again. I note that over in West Yorks staff are scrambling to win a £20 gift voucher for coming up with a new name, but only for internal use. Presumably the politically-correct external term 'offender' will remain? A classic piece of paternalistic window dressing nonsense as I've ever come across. It's a shame that it coincides with an unfortunate term used by their Trust Chairman at a recent lunchtime speaking engagement. He called them 'scrotes.' Oh dear.

The Unwelcome Guest?

2011-06-30T18:29:00.002+01:00

When asked what I do for a living, on more than one occasion I've joked about earning my living from crime. Of course although in a sense it's literally true for many of us in the police, prison, court and probation services, not to mention the legal profession, it never was a funny joke. Even less so now that some of us will inevitably find ourselves doing something else next year when the cuts really start to bite.

I guess all of us in the criminal justice system have always had that thought lurking at the back of our mind that if we were really successful at what we were doing, we wouldn't have a job. We never give it much thought though as clearly nothing much seems to work and hence up till now there's never been a real danger that the mortgage wouldn't get paid. It doesn't stop us trying to be more effective of course and many a career has been built on introducing new initiatives, or just plain old re-inventing the wheel, depending on your view and place on the career ladder.

Following on from casework theory, in recent times we have embraced the 'What Works' agenda, explored all the accredited programme routes via cognitive behavioural therapy and are currently discovering desistance theory and engagement strategies. Oh, whilst restoring a degree of autonomy and discretion to officers in how they supervise cases. It's been quite a party, but suddenly we seem to have a cheeky uninvited and possibly unwelcome guest.

Mark Johnson, an ex-offender and former drug user is a regular contributor to The Guardian and recently officially launched his charity User Voice

Their Mission statement says:-

"Only offenders can stop re-offending. User Voice's mission is to engage those who have experience of the criminal justice system in bringing about its reform and to reduce offending.

User Voice is a charity led and delivered by ex-offenders. This gives us the unique ability to gain the trust of, access to and insight from people within the criminal justice system."

Whilst many probation trusts have recently been pondering the whole issue of 'engagement' and how that might be achieved, Mark has some forthright views on the subject and some may feel they don't make for particularly comfortable reading. Although the Guardian article was mainly aimed at the prison service, I think the sentiment extends far wider.

"Anyone who thinks that the inevitable cuts that lie ahead mean the criminal justice system can carry on doing things the same old way is kidding themselves. We have to recognise that we're chucking too much money at interventions that don't deliver. They've been carefully crafted, and with the best of intentions, by the educated for people whom they can't begin to understand. The only way to stop wasting money is to engage, and I'm talking about real engagement, not superficial consultation, with the frontline users of services.

Participation at this level cannot be led by people who design or implement interventions. They should not create an agenda, nor can they attempt truly receptive dialogue, with the offenders who take part in their interventions. There is only one way to deep trawl for the truth, and that is by allowing offenders their own forums, facilitated by peers, many of whom will be ex-offenders. Anything else is consultation.

Engagement will save a fortune in the long run but doing it right is not a cheap option. It costs. We're talking partnerships, contracts and proper pay structures for respected work. My organisation is 90% staffed by ex-offenders and I believe one indicator of true engagement is the number of ex-offenders on the payroll (another is how high up the internal ladder they are allowed to climb)."

He goes on:-

"That's what scares some service providers. The provider who has devised, nursed and implemented an intervention for offenders seldom welcomes the offenders' scrutiny and honest appraisal. The provider wants the intervention to work, and he can usually manipulate figures to convince himself it does. It's hard for him to hear the voice of the offender saying it hasn't helped and should be modified or abandoned. At worst, such scrutiny could put the provider out of a job. He'll try to defend his intervention no matter how redundant it is. Only the bravest want people like us coming inside the jail or community and promising to deliver the truth.

We'll always remain the unwelcome guest at the criminal justice party. We stand for true engagement, we offer a scientific level of scrutiny, we're asking for power, we want to be paid for the work we do. And we believe that our participation in the process of government is the key to a lower crime rate and a more economic prison service. It will take years. But now we've launched, we're on our way."

It's funny but this got me thinking of the good old days again when we had a very active volunteer group and a flourishing day centre. I well remember the fascinating but interminable discussions in team meetings about how much control or supervision was needed. Some of us got really excited about the active involvement of clients and how it could only be beneficial; how we should just let things develop organically; how it would be great if clients could progress to become accredited volunteers themselves.

But that was all rather too much for management at the time as sadly the Service was already moving inexorably towards one of command and control from the top. Well you know what they say - things go in circles eventually - you've just got to wait long enough.

Trust Me - I'm a Probation Officer!

2011-06-29T09:30:00.002+01:00

I've always felt that a bit of self-analysis is no bad thing. Indeed I would say it's an absolutely vital trait for any aspiring probation officer and it's certainly something we would wish to encourage many of our clients to embrace. Trying to understand why we do things is almost certainly a healthy pre-requisite for trying to understand why other people do things. Uncomfortable though it may sometimes be, in order to aid this process it can often be helpful to hear what others feel about us. In this context I have recently drawn readers attention to the Prisoners Families Views website which often contains worrying and uncomplimentary examples of probation involvement.

On the Prisoner Ben website there has been some wide-ranging and healthy discussion about various issues, including the role, responsibilities and effectiveness of probation. I have taken the liberty of quoting some comments and views from a recent post entitled 'World's Apart' in order to give a flavour of the discourse.

"These guys give every indication of believing that they help us, supports us, try to get us out.

Prisoners believe that they are inept, dishonest and look for any excuse to keep us in."

"The word Probation officer is red rag to a bull to me. I have only ever met one decent one ........... I dare say there may be one or two well meaning ones, but on the whole, most of them have got my back up. It is like dealing with nethanderals, they are so terminally stupid, they can't even write acurate notes in your file. Which is a worry if your liberty depends on it. They are not to be trusted, anyone with any sense should just tell them what they want to hear. God help the poor people who could really use a helping hand when they get out. By the way, if anyone reading this thinks the problem is me, i would understand why you would think that, but no-one else on this earth has made my blood boil like my old probation officer. Prison staff, some good ones, some bad. like everywhere, (except probation, all with micky mouse degrees from some third rate college."

"Its the new generation probation officers, or, in my case social workers who I am more worried about. What they get taught in college these days especially psychology is closer to victim blaming than anything. They then come to the 'profession', maybe with huge financial debts due to the high cost of education or supported by their parents, but know little and want to do as they are told which is to put the blame squarely back onto those who they are supposed to be helping.

These days the gap between social workers (as I have more experience of them than prison staff or probation) is even bigger and from what I can gather, nobody is happy, not the 'clients' nor the staff. Only those reaping in the dollars from costs cuts and privatisation, they are the ones sporting big cheshire cat got the cream smiles, while we suffer."

Many would agree that much of this, whilst making for uncomfortable reading, is not particularly surprising given the position we occupy in the criminal justice system. After all a prisoner is unlikely to agree or be happy with an officer making a negative recommendation for early release on Parole Licence. Or if recommending release, for suggesting conditions that might include hostel residence, exclusion zones, programme attendance or curfews. But even back in 'the good old days', public protection has always been part of the job when we were all social workers and 'helping' people. Being a probation officer never has been about winning a popularity contest with clients, but even I can see that things may have gone a bit too far.

From all the quotes above it's this one that seems to sum the issue up:-

"They are not to be trusted, anyone with any sense should just tell them what they want to hear."

Obviously there is only one way in which trust can be achieved and that is by earning it. I well remember many years ago and being the 'new boy' in the team, listening to my senior in supervision telling me that the best thing to do was not to listen to my colleagues, but go to him instead as he 'could be trusted.' I remember thinking 'not bloody likely mate - I decide if you can be trusted or not.' Similarly I wouldn't necessarily expect a client to trust me from day one, but rather it would be my aim to build trust and mutual respect as time went on, both when we agreed on things and hopefully when there were differences of opinion.

A very long-term lifer of mine illustrates the issues raised in this quote perfectly. He has spent many years denying the index offence, whilst blaming his co-accused. I always made it plain that I didn't believe him and regularly reminded him that neither did the Jury or Appeal Court. He would regularly say to me 'just tell me what you want to hear.'  To which I would reply 'just tell me the truth.' He would say 'how will you know it's the truth?' and I would reply 'just try me.' This impasse has not assisted with his sentence progression.

I've seen this sentiment expressed quite a few times on various internet sites 'just tell the probation officer what they want to hear', seemingly in the naive belief that we can't tell fact from fiction or bullshit from sincerity. Trading insults is never attractive or useful but I can honestly say probation officers are not stupid. Indeed it could be argued that if there is any stupidity at all it is often evident on the other side of the desk because the one thing all our customers have in common is that they got caught.

All probation officers only want to hear the truth or honestly held opinions. Getting to the truth means reading the evidence, observing behaviour, listening carefully, investigating sources, questioning, challenging, assessing. It really is nonsense to think that our views or opinions can be swayed by simply 'telling us what we want to hear.'  It's nonsense for all sorts of reasons, not least because it should surprise no one that many people facing criminal proceedings quite often lie a lot. It's often an automatic default position - just watch a few real-life police programmes on tv if you don't believe me.

One of the real skills of a probation officer is to try and build trust with a client and get them to consider options other than this automatic default position. It often takes time, but in the end enables the officer to try and help them sort out their life. It means that court reports or parole reports can be written with real conviction on the part of the officer trying to make positive recommendations. It means that the officer's integrity has to be of the highest order and sometimes that officer will be faced with professional dilemma's that are not easily resolved.

Trust is a two-way street and has to be earned, but I believe remains the cornerstone of our work if we are to be helpful and effective.

DV Knows No Bounds

2011-06-23T09:29:00.000+01:00

An extra-ordinary saga has been running at Bradford Magistrates Court for some time and one which serves to shed a little more light on the often-hidden subject of domestic violence. The case is unusual in several respects, but most particularly because it finds the tables turned with a respected High Court judge as the defendant.

Following a trip away, Judge James Allen QC returned home hungry and became irritated when his wife was prevented from supplying any sustenance due to her pre-occupation with the 'daily help.' A row erupted during the course of which Melanie Allen, a Deputy Coroner for West Yorkshire, received certain injuries, including to the face. An eight-year-old child in the house at the time became so concerned that they dialled 999 and told police that 'he was trying to kill his wife.'

The police arrived shortly after Mr Allen had left for his parents home and duly noted injuries to Mrs Allen's face. Mr Allen was subsequently arrested, interviewed and charged with common assault on his wife. The subsequent trial was heard by a District Judge who made it plain that she did not accept the evidence of both parties that the injuries had been self-inflicted and duly convicted Mr Allen.

Following what must have been an extremely interesting PSR process, the District Judge made Mr Allen the subject of a Community Order with a condition of supervision, warning him in the process that she expected full co-operation with the Probation Service as he was 'no longer the master, but rather the servant.' In addition she awarded costs against him of £5,000 for a 'dangerous and unpleasant attack' on his wife.

Whilst confirming that domestic violence sadly occurs in all strata of society, this case also serves to illustrate a not untypical situation whereby the victim either seeks to alter, minimise or retract their evidence, thus making the job of the prosecution that much more difficult. In such cases it is also quite common for the perpetrator either to be in denial, or intent on significant minimisation. For these reasons attendance on a Domestic Violence groupwork programme would not be appropriate as acceptance of culpability is a pre-requisite.

Clearly the District Judge felt that in this case being sentenced to a period of some serious talking to by a probation officer might be beneficial. In terms of punishment, it would seem most unlikely that he can continue to sit in judgement of others. My sympathy goes out to whichever officer finds themselves having to supervise the case because I think they will certainly have to earn their salary. I don't think Mr Allen is likely to be the most unchallenging and co-operative of probationers. In my experience the middle classes are invariably more trouble.

So,What Now?

2011-06-22T07:07:00.000+01:00

Ken Clarke has followed orders and executed his non u-turn with panache. The 50% guilty plea discount is now a dead duck, which leaves a hole in his departments budget that is not unadjacent to £130 million. Suddenly there's no mention of the 'secret' deal with the Treasury that supposedly would protect Ken's rear end if, for whatever reason, the reduction in prison numbers did not materialise.

The suspicion now is that virtually all the shortfall will have to be found from 'efficiency' savings elsewhere in the MoJ and the Prime Minister's singular failure to confirm the position regarding the Probation Service almost certainly means that significant cuts are round the corner. In a piece of exquisite timing, you can almost hear the vultures circling with this upbeat launch of the new Community Justice Partnership. Consisting of a consortium involving Nacro, Working Links and Sodexo, they intend to bid for a good chunk of the forthcoming contracts in the prison, probation or other services that will becoming available shortly.

"The Community Justice Partnership will harness the shared values and goals of each organisation to deliver a fresh and innovative approach, delivering at large scale and through new collaborations with the public sector. Beginning with Essex Probation Trust, the Community Justice Partnership will be joining forces with public sector bodies across England and Wales to help provide better services for less cost."

Of course the whole tenor and purpose of David Cameron's announcement on sentencing is to reassure the right wing that the government intends to 'be tough on crime.' So although announcing that Indeterminate Public Protection sentences would be phased out, apparently they will be replaced with more mandatory Life Sentences. This will seriously upset judges who, quite rightly, object to having their room for manoeuvre constrained.

Mr Cameron said that the government intended ending the practice of prisoners being released automatically at the half way point if they had committed rape or other violent crimes. This seems to indicate a return of the involvement by the Parole Board in such cases which should be beneficial, not least in encouraging participation in prison groupwork programmes and in reducing recall rates.

The suggested imposition of automatic prison sentences for offences involving threats with a knife, whilst sounding tough and reassuring to some, will indoubtedly lead to problems further down the line in terms of being able to define exactly what is meant by 'threatening' as opposed to mere possession. The suspicion is that this measure alone will result in significantly more short term prison sentences, when the aim has been the opposite of course. But then the whole charade only serves to illustrate yet again how criminal justice policy remains firmly trapped between the competing demands of either political or economic expediency, rather than any rational debate.

We Really Don't Know

2011-06-21T09:03:00.000+01:00

I believe it's generally accepted that most types of crime have been falling in the UK over recent years with only sex offending appearing to buck the trend. The same has been noticed in the United States with a steady decline recorded over the last 20 years, but to everyone's surprise there has been a dramatic drop in the last 2 years. This is particularly surprising as it appears counter-intuitive at a time of economic recession and high unemployment.

In this article 10 possible reasons are put forward to try and explain what exactly is going on. They range from the rather nebulous concept of an 'Obama effect' to the proliferation of camera phones. It could be due to a reduction in the use of crack, smarter policing, crime mapping of hotspots, an increase in abortions, a reduction of lead in petrol, the baby boomers having grown up or kids all being inside watching video games.

Of course it could be because all the bad guys are already in prison.

"A sociologist at Tufts University, John Conklin, says a significant factor behind the fall in crime in the 1990s was the fact that more criminals were behind bars and therefore unable to offend. In his book Why Crime Rates Fell, he says sentencing was lenient in the 60s and 70s, when crime rose, and then more prisons were built and more offenders were imprisoned. But others question why crime has continued to fall recently when budget constraints have kept the prison population relatively flat."

So in reality we don't seem to know, which is a sobering thought because if that is the case, I'm pretty sure we don't really know what works in terms of rehabilitation either.

Drug Treatment Isn't Working

2011-06-20T06:38:00.000+01:00

I've been saying it for ages and pretty well every Probation Officer has known it for ages too. Our one-size-fits-all approach to drug dependency by prescribing methadone isn't working. The utterly flawed case for this treatment method is comprehensively demolished in a recently published report by the right-wing think tank Centre for Policy Studies. The whole policy has been a disgraceful waste of time, money and effort and done nothing to reduce the problem - in fact it's almost certainly made the whole situation worse.

During the period that the Labour government was imposing this strategy through the National Treatment Agency, they oversaw the disgraceful demise of almost all residential rehabilitation facilities, thus leaving prison as the only 'residential' drug treatment facility available. Of course this is nonsensical, both in terms of cost and the need to commit offences in order to get a prison 'rehab' bed. But sadly in prison there will invariably be little counselling and only prescribed methadone as an alternative to illegal drugs that are widely available. Despite this, many people find it a viable and preferential option and some do manage to detoxify or become 'stabalised' on a methadone script.

In addition to ridiculing the accepted professional view that methadone prescribing works and is cost-effective, the report makes it clear that in their view the only answer is to work towards total drug abstinence. Whilst not cheap as it would involve the financing of new residential bedspaces, they make the point that if the outcomes are improved, it would be money well spent.

Whilst I agree fully with this view and have long-lamented the disappearance of residential treatment places, I think I need to sound a note of caution. This report is in danger of falling into the same trap of believing that there is only one answer to the drug problem and that it lies with total abstinence. Every person is different and their drug problem and attitude to substance misuse will differ. The solution therefore has to be tailored to that individual and it might involve the opposite option of prescribing heroin, rather than encouraging total abstinence. Understandably perhaps this gets no mention in a report advocating abstinence, but there is evidence that such a policy can work well for some people. It seems that in some instances heroin can be less addictive than methadone and ironically can be easier to withdraw from.

This report is extremely important and timely in serving to highlight how the situation might well get worse due to impending changes being introduced by the coalition government. Whist the new government accepts that current policies are not working, their answer is to change the payment method to drug agencies rather than change the underlying policy. The report explains that 'Payment by Result' experiments will begin in October this year tailored to proxy outcomes such as housing or employment, but specifically excluding projects that wish to pursue an abstinence route. This is completely misguided and I agree entirely that such agencies ought to be included in PbR schemes with their payment linked to rewarding evidence of abstinence outcomes. That seems a sensible idea to me, rather than just rewarding the present methadone treatment industry differently.

To Lie : Or Not to Lie?

2011-06-17T08:10:00.000+01:00

A couple of recent contributions to the Prisoners Families Views blogsite about having to lie on CV's in order to get a job got me thinking. Of course this issue about whether to tell a potential employer the truth or not has been around for as long as I can remember. When I say truth, I don't just mean being a bit 'economical' by inflation, exaggeration or omission, I mean direct lies about criminal convictions or fictitious information to cover periods of imprisonment. I'm pretty sure I'm right in saying it is an offence in itself and certainly leaves the individual open to instant dismissal should the truth come out.

The argument seems to be that a person is left no choice because in an age of high unemployment, what employer is going to take the risk of taking on a person with a criminal record and possibly history of imprisonment? I have a degree of sympathy with this argument and would be the first to acknowledge that the whole employment landscape has changed beyond recognition over my lifetime. For instance, I can recall the halcyon days of full employment and seemingly endless opportunities for unskilled labour, apprenticeships, supernumerary posts and even dare I say, jobs paying 'cash-in-hand' only. A criminal record was certainly no bar to many of these positions and I well remember my father employing people straight from prison just on a phone call from the local probation officer.

But this was an age before managerialism and everything became bureaucratised. We didn't have CV's back then, just a simple application form that didn't even mention criminal convictions. Now we live in an environment of health and safety, CRB checks, litigation, employers liability insurance etc. The question will come up and therefore the issue cannot be avoided - to lie, or not to lie? It will be no great surprise to anyone that a Probation Officer's advice is almost certainly to tell the truth. Fortunately, as CV's have evolved, they have become much more about experiences, qualifications and expertise than just a list of dates and employment. The aim of a CV is to get to interview stage and have a strategy prepared in advance in order to discuss any offending history.

Now I can almost hear the cries of 'get real.' But before either giving up reading any further, or reaching for the comment box, bear a number of things in mind from a potential employers point of view. Firstly, there are many, many people out there in society who have criminal records and are now in settled employment. The person interviewing you may well have been in trouble with the law years before and minded to give someone a break, indeed just like the break they got. Secondly, there are many responsible and enlightened employers who realise that a person with a criminal history, but one who is well-motivated towards change, could well be just that loyal and hard-working employee they are looking for. Thirdly, potential employers will always be interested in candidates who give of themselves and demonstrate honesty. In the end an employer not only wants staff who do a good job, but also that are honest.

Over the years I've known many clients successfully gain employment, even including former prisoners subject to Life Licence. In my experience barriers to employment are much more likely to be because of issues such as illiteracy, attitude or presentation than criminal history. Serving long term prisoners gain employment all the time as part of resettlement plans through Open Prisons on day release. The scheme works because there is honesty between the individual and the local employer. Employers don't agree to take such people on out of a sense of civic responsibility or paternalism, although there may be elements of both. They do it because they know they are getting good, well motivated employees.

It may surprise some people to know that there are companies that positively discriminate in favour of people with criminal histories and there are some that only employ ex-offenders. An example of the former is Timpson's, a well known high street chain of shoe repairers and photoshops and a new company Blue Sky is an example of the latter. Basically there are signs of a return to a much more enlightened attitude towards ex-offenders generally amongst employers. The fact is that they often make excellent employees. So, for all these reasons, I would say think very carefully before submitting that dodgy CV.

Justice Affairs Committee 10

2011-06-16T09:52:00.003+01:00

Thursday 7th June saw the Committee taking evidence from a further range of people, including John Thornhill Chairman of the Magistrates Association. I was particularly struck by this opening exchange:

Q556 Karl Turner: Thank you very much indeed, gentlemen. Very generally then, I wonder whether the Probation Service has changed over the last five or 10 years. It was initially established to provide a service to the magistrates’ court. Has that changed in any way?

John Thornhill: In terms of whether those services have changed, the changes are that there have been developments and improvements in those services. You refer in the document here to a reduction in custodial sentences over a particular period of time. I think that is partly due to the fact that a wider range of services have been provided for magistrates to impose community orders with attendant programmes. Also, the quality of reports and assistance that is now given in the courts has significantly developed over the years and it is now possible if we are lucky enough to have a probation officer in court-we are in Liverpool-to engage in a dialogue and debate with the probation officer, the defendant and defendant’s representative about what might be appropriate penalties, punishments or disposals that could be used in the courts. So, yes, we believe that the Probation Service has considerably improved in the last 10 years. It has changed its focus. It was social services at one time. It is no longer that. It is a deliverer of sentences and, overall, a very positive deliverer of sentences.

With the greatest respect to Mr Thornhill, I don't think this paints a fair representative picture. He refers to the quality of reports and assistance in court having been 'developed' over the years and being lucky enough to have a 'probation officer' in court. Well I think the trend in reports over the period has been one of steady decline, both in the quality of SDR's, the inexorable move towards inferior FDR's and the removal of Probation Officers and their replacement with less experienced and often unqualified Probation Services Officers.

Later on he says:-

We talked about fast delivery reports. We welcome that. In my court, where we have probation in attendance, I can get a fast delivery report in one or two hours and deal with the offender. That is in the best interests of justice. But what about the court where the Probation Service is 30 or 40 miles away? What we need to do is look at how we can use the Probation Service effectively to get a fast delivery report, even if it means using modern technology via video links, so that the court can sentence expeditiously and in a proportionate way.

Of course there is a place for FDR's, but surely this was the time for the Chair of the Magistrates Association to flag up concern that NOMS have recently instructed Probation Trusts to make the FDR the standard pre-sentence report. Probation Officers are finding it increasingly difficult to justify to their managers the preparation of a full SDR, for which 7.5 hours is allowed, rather than an FDR, requiring only 2.5 hours maximum. There is growing evidence that officers who attempt to challenge the use of the cheaper and inferior report are being bullied and pressurised by managers. Unless this issue is brought up as a matter of urgency, SDR's will all but disappear and serious offences will be dealt with on the basis of a 'tick-box' FDR.

The Fairy Jobmother

2011-06-15T08:29:00.000+01:00

I've previously said that in my experience very few clients ever set out with the positive intention of wanting to live a life without work. However they often find themselves in a self-fulfilling cycle of despair at ever being able to gain sustainable employment by virtue of a whole host of factors ranging from illiteracy to drug addiction. Having a criminal record and virtually no employment history just makes matters worse and at a time of rising unemployment and personal low self-esteem in the jargon means that they remain 'difficult to place.'

This is not a new phenomena and successive governments have tried to address the issue in various ways, the most useful in my view being the old job creation schemes introduced in the 70's and 80's. Indeed I benefited from one called STEP, the Short Term Employment Programme which by a convoluted route eventually resulted in my gaining a place at University as a mature student. Virtually no one is 'unemployable' in my view but again in the words of the new terminology, getting some people 'job ready' may take quite a bit of special effort.

The coalition government has decided to use rather more stick than carrot in an attempt to get as many people off state benefits and into employment as possible. Contracts have recently been awarded to a range of organisations who will deliver the new Work Programme and the Channel 4 tv series 'The Fairy Jobmother' follows Hayley Taylor a so-called job expert as she attempts to get small groups of long-term unemployed 'job ready' through a two week Job Club.

I'd like to think that I'm a fairly easy-going sort of person, but I would find Hayley's particular approach to her work insufferable. I know many clients who would be tempted to smack her in the mouth in response to her particular style of patronisation. As if that wasn't bad enough, I can't help feeling that her particular brand of home-spun philosophy and 'mind games' could potentially be extremely damaging.

I've watched her in operation a few times during an earlier series and been shocked at the sheer ineptitude and insensitivity of her approach to often emotionally vulnerable people. She appears to delight in that old army training trick of first breaking people down and then when the tears flow, picking them all up. Despite most participants gaining employment, which is great, I think Hayley Taylor is dangerous and I take my hat off to the patience of the participants because I know I couldn't suffer her at any price. Oh, and she needs to lose those irritating neck scarves in my view.

Dispatches from Bristol

2011-06-14T08:59:00.002+01:00

The latest episode of Channel 4's 'Dispatches' screened on Monday 13th June and entitled 'The Thief Catchers' helped shed a bit more light on what dealing with chronic long term users of heroin was like when they're not a rich banker or wealthy bond trader. In order to feed their habit, each has to steal a small fortune on a regular basis either through shoplifting, street robbery or burglary. There is a general trend towards escalation in offending as their faces get well known to shopkeepers and they get moved on. Lying to all and sundry becomes automatic and consummate, even to friends and family in order to satisfy the constant craving for another fix.

In Bristol this type of offender comes within the remit of a Safer Community Partnership
initiative called IMPACT, but run in close co-operation with the local Drug Intervention Programme. The documentary served to illustrate just how the police have become key players in the whole 'offender management' business as a result of the last Labour governments 'tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime' policy. I know partnerships are a much vaunted thing nowadays, but it still struck me that PC Dave was just doing PO Declans job.

The film followed the fortunes of three long-term male drug users, each of whom had earned the title 'prolific offender.' I found this slightly confusing because I don't think IMPACT is a Prolific and other Priority Offender project (PPO), but there are so many acronyms in offending nowadays it might be. Such schemes are similarly made up of all relevant agencies and undertake to offer clients a so-called 'premium' service. The IMPACT initiative did seem to be run on similar lines as supported accommodation appeared to be on offer pretty quickly, as did drug treatment or 'rehab' as it was continually referred to.

Unfortunately the makers of the film never told us exactly what sort of drug treatment the three guys received. My guess is that it would have been methodone replacement and I don't call this 'being in rehab'. The trouble is that definitions have changed as proper residential drug rehab beds have become like hens teeth. A place in a hostel and community prescribing through DIP I guess now counts as 'rehab, but as Shaun's case in particular demonstrates, changing entrenched attitudes and long-term addictions is a mighty uphill struggle and failure is routine. Well it is when we insist on not using alternatives like prescribing heroin. I suspect Shaun wouldn't have felt quite the need to blow his entire Community Care grant of £2,000 on street gear if he could get a script.

Actually Shaun highlighted how the whole person and all their needs have to be addressed in order to try and effect change. His arm-slashing whilst in prison was not so much a mental health issue as an emotional issue, but this is often misunderstood as the recent 'Strangeways' documentaries showed on ITV.

Overall a useful insight I suppose into just how difficult and depressing the whole subject of drug-abuse is. I did chuckle at one point early on though when we saw a typical new-looking probation officer, or probation services officer, walk into the interview room with several large ring binders, one of which looking suspiciously like an OASys manual. We watched her telling the guy that she wanted him to do a victim empathy test and place various offences in order of seriousness. Unfortunately we didn't hear how she dealt with his reasoning that maybe murder was quite understandable in certain circumstances and possession of a firearm wasn't that serious.