A High Risk Strategy

Isn't it absolutely fascinating to watch the car crash idea of holding a General Election in December unfold? The hand of career psychopath Dominic Cummings all over the strategy with the wheels spectacularly coming off the Tory launch on day one with Andrew Neil ruthlessly highlighting typical Tory character traits. This from the Spectator:-  

Watch: Nadhim Zahawi’s disastrous Andrew Neil interview

Oh dear. It’s safe to say the Conservative party’s election campaign has not got off to the best start. On the day of the official launch, the Tories have had a cabinet minister resign and a row over who is to blame for the Grenfell fire drag on. Now, they can add to that list: a minister unsure whether Jeremy Corbyn would have wealthy people shot or not.

Appearing on the Andrew Neil show on Wednesday night, the Business Minister struggled when the BBC interviewer brought up Boris Johnson’s comments comparing Jeremy Corbyn to Stalin on the grounds that he and his supporters hates wealth and aspiration so much that they ‘point their fingers at individuals with a relish and a vindictiveness not seen since Stalin persecuted the kulaks’.

When Neil suggested that this comparison didn’t hold up to scrutiny given that Stalin had people shot, Zahawi was unsure. Pressed on whether Corbyn really wants to have wealthy people shot, Zahawi replied:

‘I don’t know, you will have to ask him that question’

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Having been goading and demanding an election for weeks, it's fun watching the PM trying to row back saying it's not his fault that Christmas is being ruined. What a brilliant wheeze to try and win those working class Labour votes by promising to spend, spend, spend. It makes it rather difficult to repeat that old mantra about fiscal prudence and Labour being reckless with its spending plans! Oh, and good luck too with trying to cancel HS2 whilst trying to woo over the Labour North! 

What could possibly go wrong holding a General Election in December? This from the BBC:-

Nativity play school polling stations row deepens

Election officers have hit back angrily at calls from the education secretary for general election polling stations not to be placed in schools. Gavin Williamson wanted to avoid disruption to school nativity plays and Christmas concerts, which could clash with the 12 December election day. But election officers have written to the education secretary to express their "extreme disappointment". They say in many areas there are "no alternatives" to using schools.

This week Mr Williamson wrote to returning officers telling them that councils would be funded to find alternative venues for polling stations - and not to use schools as places to vote. He said he wanted to make sure that "long-planned and important events" in schools at Christmas, such as plays and carol concerts, would not have to be cancelled. But the announcement has prompted anger from the Association of Electoral Administrators, which is the professional body representing people who run elections.

In a stinging letter to Mr Williamson, they accuse him of a "complete lack of knowledge and understanding. We question why this letter was sent out so late, after most polling stations have already been booked," say the election officers, who warn that arranging a December election at short notice is already challenging enough.

They reject Mr Williamson's claim that "every community" will have alternative venues for voting, so that schools will not have to be used. "That is simply not the case. In many parts of the United Kingdom, including towns and cities but especially in rural areas, there are simply no alternatives to the venues designated as polling places," says the letter from the association.

Chief executive Peter Stanyon says the process of deciding where to locate polling stations has mostly taken place - and the data has been sent to printers for polling cards. He says schools are used as polling stations because they are well-known local venues and are likely to be accessible for people with disabilities - and often there are not any other practical options.

The move not to use schools for polling stations had been backed by head teachers' leader Geoff Barton. He said many schools would have Christmas events scheduled - and he questioned whether schools were really "suitable venues" for voting, particularly when elections had become more frequent.

--oo00oo--

Finally, here's a novel thought from yesterday:-

"And just a personal observation on our politics and the election. I wonder if Tory strategists paid any thought to the fact that calling an election in November would mean that the Tories, from activists to cabinet ministers and even the PM, would be campaigning wearing a red poppy on their lapels, which resembles very closely to my mind the red rosette of the Labour Party?"

Prison Not the Answer

In the wake of a car-crash day one for the Tory election campaign, I find a modicum of encouragement that the celestial bodies might at last be aligning in terms of a shift in our political landscape. So, continuing with a bit of a theme on here, Narey gets some support when yesterday we were pointed in the direction of this comment piece from November 2016:-      

Prisons cannot be places of rehabilitation

There is a growing crisis in Britain's prisons. 2016 will see a record number of self-inflicted deaths as prisons become increasingly unsafe and violent. It is in this context that the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) last month published A matter of conviction: a blueprint for community based rehabilitations prisons.

At a time when prison’s crisis is increasingly becoming a crisis of legitimacy, the RSA's intervention offers a vision of the prison beyond its immediate crisis. As the report boldly states the RSA's blueprint is about ‘imagining a different future and a new “normal” ... in which the future prison would be a safe and secure environment for staff and prisoners’.

Such a vision, at a time of crisis, suggests that the systemic failure, pain, violence and abuse of the prison is both temporary and resolvable.

Prison failure = Prison Reform

Throughout the RSA report, it is the critique of the contemporary prison that is its strongest point. Prison is clearly failing and the evidence for this failure flows through the report. But how is this evidence of failure utilised? By a belief in the potential of a reformed prison.

For example, the report states that ‘prisons are not healthy places’, before utilising this as evidence to support its aspiration to create ‘the healthier prison’. Underlying this insistence that the answer to prison failure is prison reform is the assumption that those incarcerated need to be in prison.

Prison is a punishment, it is ultimately about the deliberate infliction of pain. The epidemic of self-harm and record levels of self-inflicted deaths being experienced in our prisons is clear evidence that imprisonment is experienced as pain.

For the prison to maintain legitimacy requires that its infliction of pain is seen as necessary and beneficial. Whilst the ideologies of retribution and deterrence routinely contribute to this, they are inadequate at times of crisis. The ideology of rehabilitation tends to be deployed to provide a justification that the pain is being inflicted for the benefit of its recipients.

Alongside many other examples of prison’s failure, the RSA highlights high reoffending rates. This, it argues, represents prison's failure to rehabilitate. To remedy this failure, it proposes that government ‘create a rehabilitation requirement’ and impose it on prisons.

If only it were that simple! From Fenner Brockway’s observation, in the 1920s, that ‘if reform is to become the principal object, the prison system must be scrapped altogether’, to Frances Crook's acknowledgement, in 2016, that ‘the idea that we can create a structure that rehabilitates people is flawed’, reformers have acknowledged that prison cannot rehabilitate.

The report offers no new theory of rehabilitation, or indeed practical proposals for achieving it. Ultimately, all it can offer is a belief in the prison system's ‘potential impact on reducing reoffending’, together with some isolated examples of current initiatives which suggest rehabilitative benefits.

These examples are generally on a small scale and generously resourced. Flowers do grow in the desert, particularly if well-watered, but that is no reason to believe deserts are appropriate places for the cultivation of flowers.

Prison Reform = Prison Legitimacy

What makes A Matter of Conviction particularly depressing is that the RSA is an influential organisation with access to significant resources. It is in a privileged position that allows it to make a difference. By refusing to look outside the criminal justice system, and committing itself so totally to the institution of the prison, its impact is likely to be harmful.

In his foreword, the RSA Chief Executive, Matthew Taylor, talks of the RSA’s ‘commitment to social inclusion’ and the ‘need to address the causes of social problems’. The focus in the report on prisons as the solution, and the refusal to examine who is imprisoned, means this initiative ultimately does exactly the opposite.

Prisons are designed to exclude and stigmatise and are used almost exclusively against the poorest, most marginalised and most socially excluded. The RSA initiative has two potential impacts. Firstly, it could improve the experience of some serving prisoners. Secondly, it will help legitimise the prison as an institution and its targeting of the socially excluded for state inflicted pain.

The history of prison reform does show that, on occasions, it can have an impact on the daily lives of prisoners. However, despite the humanitarian motivation of reformers, these impacts are not always beneficial. As former prisoners George Dendrickson and Frederick Thomas observed in the middle of the twentieth century,

"cruelty and good intentions often go hand in hand. So it is perhaps not very surprising that many of the least tolerable aspects of life in Dartmoor and other English prisons are the result of the godly and humanitarian zeal of past reformers"

Progressive reforms tend to be short-term. Despite often being acknowledged as successes they are inevitably subject to punitive clawback.

For nearly all the ‘flowers in the desert’ cited in the RSA report I could cite similar initiatives from the nineteenth century. The only reforms which were sustained were those that added to prisons’ punitive armoury. Solitary confinement may have been introduced by reformers keen to save the prisoner’s soul in the next life, but it was retained by gaolers who appreciated its capacity to inflict pain on their mind and body in this life.

Look beyond prison
It is the success of reforms in re-establishing the legitimacy of prison that explains their failure to be sustained. As the crisis abates, the reforms are no longer needed and however brightly they may have flowered they are left to die, only to be ‘discovered’ by a new generation of reformers when imprisonment faces another crisis of legitimacy. The crisis, reform, legitimacy, claw back and amnesia cycle continues.

If the RSA could have the imagination to look beyond prison and focus instead on how the community can contribute to the lives of ex-prisoners, it would have the opportunity of creating a lasting legacy. It is not prison that we should be seeking to legitimise but social inclusion and solutions to the causes of social problems. These can be found only outside the criminal justice system. That is where we should be focusing.

Dr JM Moore is Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Newman University, Birmingham

Defining Rehabilitation

With the General Election now officially under way and the outcome pretty much impossible to predict, there's a real prospect of a change in direction on a whole number of fronts, such as our policy regarding prison and probation. Following on from the Narey speech, a reader sought to remind us of this yesterday:-  

 
Making rehabilitation work for ex-prisoners

Prison and probation services have traditionally focused on personal rehabilitation, but this focus cannot resolve problems that are social rather than individual. A new rehabilitation model includes three additional aspects beyond personal rehabilitation – expanding to relations in the wider society.

In 1991, there were 45,000 people locked up in England and Wales. Twenty years later this had soared to 85,000 – and despite some reduction more recently, the prison population remains at historically high levels, hovering at 92,500 for the UK as a whole. Prisons are full up, to the extent that Prisons minister Rory Stewart last year suggested we should have a "massive reduction" in the number of people sent to prison for 12 months or less.

Reducing re-offending is one obvious way of cutting down on the prison population. Fergus McNeill, Professor of Criminology and Social Work and part of the research team at the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, explores the mechanisms that support or hinder ex-offenders in their rehabilitation back into society. But what are the societal drivers for putting people into prison in the first place?

"Broadly speaking there are two main kinds of responses. We can take a 'retribution-based' approach, denouncing the wrongs people have done or, at the same time, trying to deter them and others from further similar acts. Alternatively, we might prefer a 'reparation-based' emphasis, where the person is invited to repair the harm done by making some contribution to the wellbeing of the victim or the community," says Professor McNeill.

In either case, rehabilitation is key – ultimately aiming to reintegrate the person into the community as a fully restored citizen. However, what rehabilitation actually entails (i.e., how it is defined) is still highly contested.

Professor McNeill has developed a model including four different aspects of rehabilitation that together can support 'desistance' (the process of ending offending) – going beyond rehabilitation for the individual and expanding to relations in the wider society. "These four forms of rehabilitation are inter-dependent, and influenced by social structures and cultural conditions," he points out.

• Personal rehabilitation is focused on developing any aspect of the individual that will equip him or her for the journey to reintegration. This might mean the development of new or existing skills; the strengthening of motivation; the clarification of related beliefs and values; or support for positive shifts in personal identity.
• Judicial rehabilitation is a process of formal, legal 'de-labelling' where the status of the citizen is reinstated. This is a duty that the punishing state owes to those citizens who have settled their debts; it signifies and secures the end of punishment.
• Moral and political rehabilitation is more informal and focuses on the negotiation between citizen, civil society and state – a civic and civil conversation that looks back towards the offence, that explores harm, repair and renegotiation of reciprocities, and that looks forward to reintegration.
• Social rehabilitation concerns the individual's social position and their social identity. It is about their connections and resources, their social capital; the help and welcome that they require along the path from other citizens.

While prison and probation services traditionally have focused on personal rehabilitation, the other three aspects of rehabilitation are also crucial parts of the picture and must be considered as well, argues Professor McNeill. Personal change cannot itself resolve problems that are social.

“If offending breaks relationships and tears at the social fabric, then both the tear and the repair must be relational – between the people directly involved; and between citizen, civil society and state,” he adds. “Criminal justice policymakers and practitioners can't duck these wider issues; it makes no sense to work on only 'one side of the tear'. If we want to build a safer and fairer society, we need to look beyond personal rehabilitation and include the other three forms.”

Prison : Time to Change?

Once again thanks go to regular reader and contributor 'Getafix for unearthing the following discussion piece from Varsity, the independent student newspaper for the University of Cambridge:- 

Prison should be a place of rehabilitation, not reprimand

Olivia Millard discusses the benefits of pursuing rehabilitory reforms in correctional facilities, and the need for compassion in order to support a functioning, inclusive society.

Seventy percent of prisoners re-offend. This is, of course, for a multitude of reasons, but suggests that the prison system is not achieving what it was designed to do: prevent crime. During a prison sentence, parole seems like light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. But the reality is that it doesn’t get much lighter. People are being given sleeping bags upon their release from jail, so low are the chances that they will secure housing and employment. In 2010, only 12% of employers surveyed said that they had recently employed somebody with a criminal record.

This pattern is blindingly obvious on a worldwide scale. In 2018, 41% of American prisoners did not hold a high school diploma. These statistics show an undeniable link between the education system and prisoner population, suggesting that the necessary reforms in the prison system would mean uprooting a significant sector of society, which would of course take time.

By mainly focusing on punishment, the British penal system is only addressing the ‘effect’ element of a ‘cause and effect’ problem, and there begins the vicious cycle that is caused by reoffending. Prison is actively counterproductive for certain crimes, particularly those drug-related, and as prisoners’ mental and physical health is suffering because of funding cuts, with 83 self-inflicted deaths in 2018, it’s time to use the limited money available on rehabilitation and resettlement programmes.

Prior to governmental funding cuts, steps have been made towards improving the education opportunities prisons offer. In 2016, the RAND Corporation in America released a report showing that the pursual of educational programmes in jail reduced the likelihood of returning to prison by 43%. However, due to funding cuts, the number of people who have achieved A Level grades whilst in prison is now 10% of what it was 10 years ago.

Last year, as part of the Learning Together initiative, I, alongside a dozen first-year French students, visited HMP Whitemoor, a high-security male prison, to discuss French literature with a group of inmates. Founded by Drs Ruth Armstrong and Amy Ludlow, Learning Together is prison-based education in the sense of bringing students from outside and within prison together to learn together. Its motto is “Education as the practice of freedom,” and even if physical freedom isn’t on the cards, what is offered in terms of mental emancipation is invaluable.

The course was inspiring in ways that we’d never considered beforehand, with our course boosting not only the prisoners’ self-confidence, but also our own, which will hopefully open gateways to further education and creativity for both groups. HMP Whitemoor is a prison which focuses on settlement (helping the convicted make positive use of their sentences) and resettlement (reducing the risk of reoffending), but many of these opportunities are not offered at other prisons.

Despite the circumstantial differences between the two groups, which became most obvious to me when one Whitemoor student mentioned “I’ve never seen an iPhone before,” there was a sense of community was far more overpowering. One inmate referred to the “wider community outside prison” he now feels he belongs to, and talked of the hope “for a future where we will one day re-join the community.” A community represents a support network, vital to thriving on the outside. It is all too easy for inmates to become “institutionalized” during extended sentences which can only be detrimental to their return to society.

Speaking to many people about the course, words like “naïve” and “innocent” frequently come up, as I repeat how welcoming and open the atmosphere was inside, as people initially doubt how discussing medieval French verse with prisoners is beneficial. In my opinion, it is more naive to consider the concepts of crime and punishment in black and white: the latter does not necessarily prevent the recurrence of the former. Furthermore, it is important to question the dichotomy between perpetrator and victim: all too often those who have committed crimes are in fact victims themselves of poverty, abuse or addiction. Whilst I acknowledge that a lot of crimes meriting extended sentences do indeed deserve punishment, I maintain that prison is not the correct form of ‘punishment’ for many other crimes.

Horace Mann, an American educational reformer, once called education “the great equalizer,” but surely this concept only works if the most vulnerable members of society have access to it. Illiteracy is a serious barrier to re-entry into society. 50% of prisoners have the literacy age of an 11 year old. Limited phone credit and rare visits mean a lot of letter-writing to stay in contact, but not being able to read these letters means a stronger sense of isolation than ever. On a practical level, not being able to fill out menus or read notices detailing what happens on what day in prison hugely exacerbates the day-to-day trials of living in prison, and can also contribute significantly to mental health issues, like depression.

An important step towards understanding the current system is to acknowledge that prisons today are nothing like the media present them. With the combination of education and a more open societal mindset towards prison and resettlement within society, I believe that rates of re-offence would decrease enormously. Whitemoor is no Shawshank, and there is a definite gap between the way in which the media presents prisons and how prisoners experience them. Britain has the highest incarceration rate in Western Europe, and if it is not benefiting those it is designed to help, surely it is time to change.

Olivia Millard

Prison, Rehabilitation and Reoffending

Despite all the Parliamentary shenanigans distracting us, there's been a lot going on that concerns our probation world, like this from last week reported in the Guardian:-   

Prisoner rehabilitation does not work, says former prisons boss

A former director general of the Prison Service has said rehabilitation of offenders in jail does not work and should be scrapped.

Sir Martin Narey will say in a speech on Tuesday that research to establish a causal link between rehabilitation and reduced reoffending is lacking and short courses cannot fix problems caused by difficult childhoods.

“The things we did to prisoners, the courses we put them on, the involvement of charities, made little or no difference,” he will tell the International Corrections and Prisons Association conference in Buenos Aires.

Instead, the best the prison estate can offer prisoners is an environment where they are treated with “decency and dignity”, he will say. “Decent prisons in which prisoners are respected seem to provide a foundation for prisoner self-growth. Indecent, unsafe prisons allow no such growth and further damage those who have to survive there.”

He will add: “Stop fretting about rehabilitation. Politely discourage those who will urge you to believe that they have a six-week to six-month course which can undo the damage of a lifetime. The next time someone tells you they have a quick scheme which can transform lives – transform is the word of which you should be particularly suspicious – politely explain that life isn’t that simple.”

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Rob Allen made a speedy response:-

Don't Forget Rehabilitation: Remember It in Everything A Prison Does

Sir Martin Narey’s call for prisons to “Forget Rehabilitation” was no doubt designed to provoke a reaction and in that the former head of the National Offender Management Service has succeeded. Canadian expert Frank Porporino found Narey’s presentation at the conference of the International Corrections and Prisons Association (ICPA) in Buenos Aires saddening and puzzling because as Narey himself admitted he had, as prisons chief in England and Wales, overseen a big expansion of education and psychological programmes designed to help prisoners change their behaviour. The disappointing results of the latter have led Narey to conclude that “the real and moral challenge is to make imprisonment humane”.

Much of what Narey had to say was uncontroversial. Prisons should be clean, orderly and respectful institutions and ensuring decent everyday conditions and treatment should be given a higher priority than they often are. His warnings about the risks of jails descending into brutality and violence were powerfully made. But is he right that humane containment is the best that prison should strive to achieve?

International law makes clear “the penitentiary system shall comprise treatment of prisoners the essential aim of which shall be their reformation and social rehabilitation”, and while the reality of most prisons worldwide may be far removed from that lofty ideal, that’s no reason to dismiss it. There’s good evidence that education, vocational training and work in prison reduce recidivism and as a recent manual I drafted for the UN recommends, these need to be expanded not forgotten. It would be a disaster if Narey's headline deters the developing countries represented at ICPA from doing so.

Moreover, without a strong emphasis on rehabilitation, how will prisoners in any jurisdiction be able to prove to a Parole Board that they have made efforts to reduce their risks of re-offending? What conclusions will politicians concerned about violent crime draw about how to protect the public? And how will Prison Services be able to attract the optimistic and skilled staff to work with the people in their care?

Other presentations at ICPA have stressed the need for a more humane and hopeful philosophy and practice in prisons - not in opposition to rehabilitation but as the very foundation of it. A public health approach to incarceration in the US state of Oregon has seen dramatic improvements in wellbeing of prisoners and staff. There and in other states, new practice is informed by prisons in Norway where staff are trained not only as guards but as “facilitators for rehabilitation” and mentors. A similar initiative in Pennsylvania is having to overcome the hurdle of regulations prohibiting fraternisation between staff and prisoners. But good relationships between staff and prisoners is increasingly recognised as the key not only to safe prisons but ones where prisoners can use their time positively.

Shadd Maruna, in a magisterial lecture demolishing the false science of static risk assessment tools, encouraged instead an approach which takes a much fuller account of what has happened to prisoners in their lives - which in many cases includes the experience of trauma. This is not just a matter for psychologists and social workers but for everyone working in prison and making decisions about prisoners.

The emerging consensus is that prisons need both to treat prisoners with dignity and respect and to offer them opportunities to come to terms with what they have done and chart a new course for the future. In fact, you can’t have one without the other. As Debbie Kilroy, the Australian activist and former prisoner told the conference, it's only when prisoners are treated as people and not defined by the worst thing they have done, that they ill take up the opportunities to change.

So, while it may be right to forget the false promise that a short psychological course can repair deep seated problems of disadvantage, a rehabilitative culture should remain a central aim for prisons, alongside all that is required to make it a reality.

Rob Allen

Transfer News

Despite complaints in some quarters recently regarding the apparent lack of visible activity from Napo HQ, thanks go to the reader for forwarding the following from Napo Cymru and KSS (both edited) :- 

NAPO Cymru AUTUMN NEWSLETTER 2019

The transition of CRC staff to the NPS is still scheduled for 2nd December. While there is the festive holidays, a General Election and other distractions this will be uppermost in the minds of many members. Please read all advice and information coming to you from Napo HQ. 

If you are doing that, you will be aware that Napo is in dispute with the employers regarding T’s and C’s with particular respect to Enhanced Voluntary Redundancy. This emergency motion was passed at the recent Napo AGM in Cardiff: 

‘In light of the General Secretary’s announcement today and bearing in mind the urgency of the intended transfer of staff in Wales on the 1st December this AGM instructs Napo’s Officers and Officials to demand that the MoJ honour the principles in the 2014 Staff Transfer and Protections Agreement for the transfer of staff from CRCs to the NPS in Wales in 2019 and in England in 2021.’ 

Agreement has been reached that any subsequent agreement on the issue will be backdated to the date of transfer, but this does mean that CRC staff transferring to NPS in December will do so on their existing terms and conditions. 

Letters to transferring staff: Staff transferring to NPS from CRC should receive letters confirming this imminently. If you are expecting such a letter, and don’t get one by 4th November, please contact Napo immediately 

Campaign for full reunification: its not over yet Napo continues to campaign for the full reunification of Probation in the public Sector, and the inclusion of all our colleagues in Programmes, Interventions and Unpaid Work. 

Health and Safety: There are important H&S considerations for staff moving to new workplaces: we are endeavouring to ensure risk impact assessments are made in advance of moves, please update reps with concerns.

Commission on Justice in Wales: a rebalancing of Justice with rehabilitation at its heart 

The two-year Commission on Justice in Wales launched its report at the Senedd on Thursday 24th October. Napo Cymru submitted written and oral evidence to the commission. National and branch officers attended the launch and pressed for more attention to be paid to the qualifying training for Probation staff. 

The comparison between this painstaking, principled, evidence-based report and the ideological guff regarding crime issuing from No 10 Downing Street is stark. The MoJ is isolated its stubborn adherence to a marketized justice model, centralised bureaucratic control and building and filling prisons. 

While the report is light on detail regarding Probation, despite one of the commissioners being a previous Probation CEO, there is much to welcome, including recommendations regarding Women’s Centres, Victims, ACE informed practice and a greater investment in. Welsh Government First Minister Mark Drakeford opened the event and also addressed our AGM (see below). In Wales, Probation has many friends and champions You can read the summary of the Commission’s report here and the full report here. 

Napo AGM News 

It was a packed and dramatic AGM conference this year in Cardiff, 11th and 12th October, you can see reports on Napo online and in our magazine. First Minister of Wales Mark Drakeford opened the AGM and pledged the support of the Welsh Government for a unified public sector Probation Service in Wales unleashed from the Civil Service. We are fortunate in Wales to have ministers with cv’s which include probation work, and principles and policies that chime with ours.

Welcome to new members! 

At the last count, membership of Napo from Wales had increased by 10% this year. There is a very steady increase in membership across England and Wales. Probation staff are increasingly alive to the need for representation for their own protection, and for heft in the protection of our profession. We were delighted to see so many new Napo Cymru members at the AGM this year. Napo Cymru members worked as stewards at this years AGM, and having worked their socks off doing that, scooped up the unused packed lunches and distributed them to the sadly very evident and numerous street homeless in Cardiff. 

Further AGM News

Serious further offences and workload 

For Napo Cymru, Mairead Finn proposed the motion “This AGM moves that an officer’s Workload Management Tool must be a mitigating factor when in a serious further offence investigation. WMT must be discussed during the Serious Further Offence process and be included in any official documentation or report on the findings of the Serious Further Offence.” 

This was passed unanimously and therefore becomes a campaigning issue for your Union. Napo Cymru proposed (and won) other motions, including a call for an overhaul of the qualifying training, policies which contribute to tackling climate change, and housing and benefits for prison leavers. 

Working for you 

Your reps and officers are working hard in your interests. In addition to national and local negotiations they are lobbying hard (wearing holes in the carpets of both Westminster and the Senedd according to one) and importantly supporting and defending individual members. At the last count, Napo Cymru was working on some 20 individual cases, spanning disciplinary, sickness, redundancy, displacement and grievance procedures. 

Contribute! We have need of additional Napo reps. Please consider offering to contribute your talents: for example, as a Health and Safety rep, you will receive training and as a rep, workload relief and expenses for your time and trouble. Contact your local reps or chairs if you would like to “think about thinking about this”.

We can’t work for you if you’re not joined. Make sure you are paying by direct debit! If you are transferring from CRC to NPS, you must pay your subs by DD. 

https://www.napo.org.uk/SWITCH

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KSS Staff Transfers to NPS Pay Advances

HMPPS is offering pay advances to our staff transferring to NPS on Sunday 1 December. This is to support you with any potential financial pressure over Christmas that may occur due to the change in pay date, and allow you to re-arrange dates for outgoing finances.

The pay advances will be based on a percentage of net pay. Net pay is the amount of pay remaining after deductions (such as tax and national insurance). Net pay is estimated to be about 65% of gross pay. Gross pay is the salary before any deductions. The salary used to calculate pay advances will be the salary paid by KSS CRC on Monday 18 November 2019.

The pay advance dates and percentage of pay options offered as an advance will be:

Wednesday 18 December 2019 – 25%, 50%, 75% or 100%
Friday 17 January 2020 – 25%, 50% or 75%
Tuesday 18 February 2020 – 25% or 50% 

The advance payment, if requested, will be issued on 18 of the month. The remainder of your pay (where applicable) will be paid on the standard NPS pay date, which is the last working day of the month. 

If you receive an advance payment, your payslip at the end of the month will show your full salary and the advance payment will show as a minus figure. 

We have identified a contact for each business unit, who will collate all the advance payment requests for staff within their unit for each month. One list from each business unit will be returned to a central point in HMPPS for processing. Details of the contact for your business unit, and the internal deadlines, are below, along with the form to be used for advance requests. The form must be completed for each individual month.

Latest From Napo 196

There has been recent comment regarding what seems like radio silence from Napo of late and I have to say the organisation and ability to navigate the official website could be improved. However, buried within I've been pointed in the direction of this:-  

Staff Transfer talks ongoing

From the General Secretary

This important update explains the position in the current negotiations on the Transfer of CRC staff to either the NPS (Wales in December, and NPS England in 2021) or one of the proposed new providers of Interventions, Unpaid Work, Rehabilitation and Resettlement, after the cessation of all CRC contracts that year. Napo will of course continue our campaign of opposition to the continued ‘Marketisation’ of any Probation Work.

Following the Government U-turn on Probation in May this year, intense and complex negotiations have been taking place with the HMPPS and MoJ to try and secure a Staff Transfer and Protections Agreement (STAP). This will allow CRC staff to move onto NPS pay and conditions and provide key protections for those staff who will move to new providers if new contracts are established. While significant progress has been made, Napo’s Probation Negotiating Committee met yesterday and endorsed the recommendation from your National Chair, Katie Lomas, and myself, that we are not yet in a position to ballot all CRC members on an agreement, and that we should continue our efforts here.

The below and this link update explains what will happen next in respect of our CRC members in Wales where Offender Management work and Staff will transfer to the NPS on 1st December 2019 and the agreed arrangements for retrospective application of the Transfer Agreement subject to all CRC members eventually being balloted on the final negotiated position.

Napo campaigning results in a significant membership increase.

Whilst our AGM received some encouraging news that nearly all of Napo’s Branches had reported a rise in Napo membership over the last 12 months, I thought that all members would want to join me in congratulating Napo Cymru for achieving a remarkable 10% increase.

This reflects the local efforts of our activists and members in partnership with Napo’s strong central campaign that has been building in momentum since the victory against the proposals to sell off all remaining probation work earlier this year. This demonstrates why there has never been a better time to encourage your colleagues, who are not currently a member of a trade union, to consider joining Napo today.

New members working in a CRC will be guaranteed a vote on the Staff Transfer Agreement and become part of the collective effort to establish pay parity across the whole of probation and the eventual return of all Probation work into public ownership and control.

More news on the Transfer Agreement negotiations will be issued as soon as it becomes available.

Regards
IAN LAWRENCE
General Secretary

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JTU 29-2019 

STAFF TRANSFER TALKS ON-GOING 

Negotiations are on-going to reach agreement on the best possible terms of transfer for CRC staff who are due to move either to the NPS (offender management staff), or to one of the proposed future private probation providers (interventions, unpaid work, rehabilitation and resettlement). 

As previously advised, the unions are seeking an agreement which would allow CRC staff to move onto NPS pay and conditions immediately on transfer to NPS, as well as key protections for staff who are due to move to one of the proposed private providers. 

The unions have insisted that the negotiations for the transfer terms cover all staff regardless of their eventual transfer destination. This means that we will ballot all CRC members in England and Wales on the eventual package of transfer terms. 

Negotiations on the transfer terms, which took place earlier this week, closed the gap between the unions and HMPPS. However, there remain some key outstanding issues regarding redundancy, pensions and allowances which will not be resolved in time for the unions to ballot CRC members in England and Wales on the final package prior to the transfer of offender management work from the Wales CRC to NPS Wales on 1 December. 

The trade unions will continue to work with HMPPS to reach agreement on the outstanding matters until we reach a position where we can ballot CRC members on the best possible transfer terms. 

WALES OM TRANSFER TO GO AHEAD ON 1 DECEMBER 2019 

In England the staff transfers are not due to take place until 2021. In Wales offender management work will transfer to NPS Wales on 1 December this year, with all other work in Wales transferring to the proposed private providers in 2021 on the same timetable as England. 

As advised in our previous joint union bulletin (15 October) the unions asked for the Wales offender management transfer to be delayed to February 2020 to enable the negotiations to complete, but HMPPS were not prepared to do this. 

As a result of the negotiations not being concluded, offender management staff who are working for the Wales CRC, and in scope of the transfer to NPS Wales, will move to the NPS on 1 December on their existing CRC pay and conditions. 

This will be carried out under a statutory transfer scheme which will protect existing contractual pay and conditions. Where there will be procedural changes for Wales CRC staff moving to NPS Wales in relation to measures such as pay date, annual leave year, trade union deductions and other noncontractual terms, these are being dealt with as part of the measures consultation at Wales level with the unions in advance of the transfer. 

BENEFITS OF FINAL TRANSFER TERMS TO BE BACK-DATED 

The unions have obtained an assurance from HMPPS that, as and when the final transfer package has been negotiated, and subject to CRC members voting to accept that package, any enhancements will be applied retrospectively to Wales CRC staff who are due to transfer to NPS Wales on 1 December 2019 and backpay will apply to any increases due at the point of transfer. 

AGREEMENT ON PROTECTIONS DUE TO SEETEC REORGANISATION UNAFFECTED 

The protections secured by union reps relating to the reorganisation of the CRCs in Wales and the South West following the takeover by SEETEC are unaffected by the above negotiations. 

These are separate protections secured around the SEETEC reorganisation and will apply up to the end of the CRC contracts in 2021. 

Ian Lawrence General Secretary Napo

Ben Priestley National Officer UNISON

George Georgiou National Officer GMB/SCOOP

A Parting Shot

In a parting shot before Parliament packs up and we head for a barmy Christmas General Election, Bob Neill and his Justice Committee issues a blistering report on our prisons. The trouble is, no-one will be in the slightest bit interested:-  

Prison estate in “appalling” state of crisis

In a withering report, the House of Commons Justice Committee condemns the lack of a clear reform plan and long-term strategy to reverse the fortunes of a prison system in an “enduring crisis of safety and decency”.

The major report makes conclusions and recommendations in a range of areas. These include:

• Series of “policy by press release” announcements indicating focus on building new prison places to accommodate tougher sentences has refreshed concerns over the near £1 billion maintenance backlog on “appalling” state of existing prison estate.
• The condition of the prison system is such that a multi-year funding settlement is urgently required. Prisons should be safe and decent environments that rehabilitate offenders - this not currently the case. The Committee is calling again for a long-term plan to improve the prison system underpinned by the funding make it work.
• Much greater investment in purposeful activity is needed to reduce the estimated £18 billion cost of reoffending and improve safety in prisons. The Government's recent announcements on sentencing may over time result in a significantly increased prison population, without any guarantees that the necessary infrastructure will be put in place to avoid further overcrowding of prisons.
• Even at a daily operational level, the Committee says current arrangements for facilities management do not work. The Ministry should move as soon as possible away from national contracts for facilities management to much smaller, localised arrangements, so that governors have more control over the service and can adapt it to meet the needs of their prison. Initiatives already in place where teams of staff and prisoners carry out minor maintenance work around the prison show what can be achieved and Government should look seriously at rolling out similar initiatives across the whole prison estate.
• Greater autonomy for prison governors is welcome but will not drive necessary change without clear structures and mechanisms for accountability. Additional responsibilities for governors under the empowerment agenda do not match the rhetoric used by the Ministry of Justice, meaning there is still no clarity either as to what governors themselves are responsible for, or who is accountable for the performance of individual prisons.
• Assessment of prison performance is heavily skewed towards safety and security – though even with that, it is taking too long to get important security equipment like body scanners into prisons, and these processes must be reviewed and made to work more efficiently. The commitment to additional measures on purposeful activity and time spent out of cells is welcome, but there needs to be a whole-prison approach to measuring prison performance, particularly measures relating to health and education provision.
• Too often, prisons are identified as needing extra support, but their performance continues to decline. In the case of HMP Bristol, the Chief Inspector of Prisons invoked the urgent notification protocol despite the fact the prison was under the Ministry’s own special measures. There is little point in identifying poor performance if the necessary resources are not then provided to drive improvement.

Chair of the Justice Committee, Bob Neill MP, said:

“The prison system in England and Wales is enduring a crisis of safety and decency. Too often we have seen what might be called "policy by press notice" without any clear or coherent vision for the future of the prison system. New prison places might be welcome, but they do nothing to improve the appalling condition of much of the current prison estate, nor the prospect of offering a safe environment in which to rehabilitate offenders. Prisons will not become less violent without proper investment in purposeful activity for prisoners to support rehabilitation. At any rate, given Government’s poor track record in building prisons, we now want to see the detailed plans for the promised £2.5 billion for 10,000 more places, what they’ll look like and when they’ll be up and running.”

The Committee also reiterates its wide-ranging concerns about recruitment, retention, training and incentives for prison staff, from governors to officers, and makes a series of practical recommendations to begin to try to address these problems within a coherent framework for reform.

--oo00oo--

This from the Guardian:-

Prisons in England and Wales are facing a safety crisis, warn MPs

The prison system in England and Wales is in an “appalling” state of crisis, lacking decency or security and no clear plan for desperately needed change, MPs have warned in a report that raises questions over the government’s pledges on prisons ahead of an election.

The justice committee, chaired by the Conservative MP Bob Neill, condemned Boris Johnson’s “policy by press notice” approach to prisons following a raft of announcements widely seen as electioneering tactics.

The committee condemned the lack of a clear plan for reform and a long-term strategy to “reverse the fortunes” of the prison estate and called for detailed plans of how the government would meet a series of pledges it has made to increase funding.

Neill said: “The prison system in England and Wales is enduring a crisis of safety and decency. Too often we have seen what might be called ‘policy by press notice’ without any clear or coherent vision for the future of the prison system. New prison places might be welcome, but they do nothing to improve the appalling condition of much of the current prison estate, nor the prospect of offering a safe environment in which to rehabilitate offenders.”

The report added: “Too often, prisons are identified as needing extra support, but their performance continues to decline. There is little point in identifying poor performance if the necessary resources are not then provided to drive improvement.”

Amid estimations that reoffending costs £18bn, Neill said violence would not reduce in prisons without proper investment into rehabilitation and activities for inmates. “At any rate, given government’s poor track record in building prisons, we now want to see the detailed plans for the promised £2.5bn for 10,000 more places, what they’ll look like and when they’ll be up and running,” Neill added.

The report also said the latest government announcements had “refreshed concerns over the near £1bn maintenance backlog on the appalling state of existing prison estate”. There were no guarantees that “necessary infrastructure” would be put in place to avoid overcrowding of prisons in the future, the committee said. It found that the government’s recent announcements on longer sentences for some offenders may over time result in a significantly increased prison population, without any guarantees that the necessary infrastructure will be put in place to avoid further overcrowding.

Peter Dawson, the director of the Prison Reform Trust, said: “This report is a scathing indictment of a political failure. The government doesn’t hesitate to promise more jail time for more people, but it has no plan for how to deliver a decent, safe or effective prison system to accommodate them. People’s lives and public safety are at stake, and making ‘policy by press notice’ isn’t good enough. The people who live and work in prison deserve to be told when overcrowding will end.”

Frances Crook, the chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “Now that we are heading into a volatile election period, it is important that all policy announcements are tempered with the use of evidence – and it starts with this vital report by the justice committee, which lays bare many of the problems in the prison system.”

She accused politicians of too often using plans for prisons for “personal political gain” or to come up with “superficial quick-fix answers when, clearly, a more fundamental solution is needed”. She added: “The idea of constantly expanding the number of people in prison is simply untenable and at the root of the problem.”

The Ministry of Justice said: “We know that many prisons face challenges but we have been confronting those head-on by recruiting over 4,400 extra officers in the last three years. This government is investing tens of millions in security and improving conditions – an extra £156m for maintenance, £100m to ramp up security and tackle drugs issues, and £2.5bn to create 10,000 additional prison places. We also fully recognise the value of purposeful activity to reduce reoffending and cut crime, which is why we launched our Education and Employment Strategy which has led to hundreds of new businesses signing up to work with prisoners and help their rehabilitation.”

Another Omnishambles in Prospect?

I know Brexit and the Westminster shenanigans are continuing to absorb our attention, but it seems life is continuing in the far corners of government and the MoJ has finally got around to answering the questions raised by Bob Neill and his Justice Committee on the future of probation. He's not happy with the answers though:-

In July this year, the Committee published a follow up to its major report last year, voicing its ongoing deep concern about the failure of Transforming Rehabilitation reforms. The Committee welcomed the planned move to a new delivery model for probation - though it was well overdue - and made recommendations to enable the new system to deliver better outcomes for offenders, victims, professionals and the public.

Commenting on the Government’s response to the Committee’s report, published today, Chair of the Committee Bob Neill MP said:

“Years of underfunding and the botched Transforming Rehabilitation reforms have left the probation system in a mess. The Government recognises the risk in moving to yet another delivery model, yet this response provides precious little information on how this risk will be managed.

This response says almost nothing about how the probation service is expected to cope, through this transition, with the extra demand and pressure that will inevitably flow from recent announcements about tougher sentences and more police officers. We are just told that the Government is “considering the potential impact of changes to sentencing practice on probation services”.

It is particularly disappointing that the Government has not provided proposals on the intensive rehabilitative approaches which should be put in place as an alternative to ineffective short custodial sentences. We want to see these as soon as possible.

It gives us no confidence to discover that the Government has quietly disbanded its trumpeted Cabinet Office-chaired Reducing Reoffending Board. This was meant to support cross government work to tackle some of the main causes of reoffending, but the Government has not been able to tell us a single outcome the Board has achieved.

We found that there was a national shortage of probation professionals. We are glad to see that the MOJ has finally agreed to develop a comprehensive workforce strategy for probation, something which we recommended in June 2018. We look forward to scrutinising this urgently.”

--oo00oo--

The MoJ response includes some staffing figures:-

Numbers of NPS staff in post by grade as at 30 June 2019 (Full Time Equivalents) are shown in the table below:

Bands A to D 168
Senior Probation Officer 761
Probation Officer 3,357
Other Bands 4–6 720
Probation Services Officer 2,460
Other Bands 1–3 2,478

National Probation Service Total 9,944

Let's Lock More Up for Longer

Due to a number of factors, including a trip to France, the blog hasn't been getting my full attention of late, but then it doesn't seem to matter given the continuing chaotic state of our politics. The Queen forced to deliver a Party Political Broadcast on behalf of the Tory Party; electioneering but no election; a paralysed Parliament; an embarrassment of a Prime Minister and a government seemingly about to go on strike in a hissy fit - all as Christmas gets under way! A General Election in December?! What could possibly go wrong?

Anyway, electioneering to the Tories means pretending the NHS is safe in their hands, schools are all going to be better and lots more criminals will be locked up and many for longer. Here is Rob Allen's take on these latter points:-   

If You Build it, They will Come

When Boris Johnson announced in August that 10,000 new prison places would be built, commentators - myself included - were quick to point out that similar plans had been made as far back as 2015. What’s very different is that the new policy is not about relocating prisons from outdated city centre sites to modern new facilities. It’s about adding 12% or more to prison capacity in England and Wales. The Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Justice, Sir Richard Heaton told MPs this week that compared to the 85,000 places in prisons today, by the mid 2020’s “the total prison capacity we anticipate ….to be between 95,000 and 105,000.” His boss Lord Chancellor Robert Buckland confirmed that he was not planning any prison closures.

Back in August the MoJ estimated the numbers inside would be lower in 2024 than at present . They estimated a 5% likelihood it will reach or exceed 87,300 in June 2023.So why do we need all these additional places?

One good reason might be to reduce overcrowding in existing prisons so that prisoners are held in a “good decent standard of accommodation” that the Prison Service aspires to provide. There are currently only 75,000 places in use that provide this kind of uncrowded accommodation. So almost all of the new building could be used to improve the basic conditions for a prison population of the current size. But in their evidence to the Justice Committee, the MoJ made no reference to this worthy aim.

Instead they justified the increase in prison places in terms of first, a surge in prison numbers resulting from the 20,000 more police officers who will be available to catch more offenders; and second the longer portions of sentences to be served by sexual and violent offenders.

On the impact of more police, Sir Richard admitted it’s “hard to convert those into prison places” because we do not know if they will be pursuing “high-level crime, low-level crime or crime that results in imprisonment”. Buckland took the view that “we will see quite an increase in volume crime detection. That might not necessarily result in prison sentences; it might result in more community sentences”. The Justice Committee failed to press him on whether investment in probation and other community-based services wouldn’t be a wiser course to take.

The increased portion of sentences served in prison by violent and sexual offenders (not considered dangerous) is estimated to require 2,000 more prison places by 2030. Between the Queens Speech on Monday and the Committee hearing on Wednesday, the Government decided to restrict the group having to serve two thirds from those getting 4 year plus sentences to 7 years plus. Buckland told the Committee he is “trying to make sure that we create a system that is supported by the resources I need.”

The decision that these prisoners should serve a longer portion of their term was ostensibly made following a Sentencing Review announced by the PM in August. Buckland told MPS that the Review “took the form of very thorough advice to Ministers. It is an internal document”. So, nobody will see it.

As for the Review, Sir Richard had already explained to the Prison Reform Trust that “Given the time constraints it has not been possible to undertake any formal public engagement, but we have conducted telephone interviews with some key stakeholders to give them the opportunity to give their views.” The MoJ have listed the 13 organisations they spoke with in the review.* Noticeable by their absence are any sentencers, and the Sentencing Council. This is despite the Government’s Impact Assessment (IA) acknowledging that “it is possible that as a result of this policy the length of sentences handed down by the courts could be reduced in view of the longer period to be spent in prison”.

The contrast between the depth and detail of the IA which is consistent with the Treasury Green Book Guidelines on policy development, and the superficiality of the Review (which is far from it), is frankly embarrassing. The IA notes "potential transitional risk to prison stability" with increased tensions in prison establishments, with consequent impacts on prisoner violence or self-harm; and possible increases in the risk of re-offending; plus a cost over ten years of £710 million.

Woeful too is the lack of proper consultation about the need and use for more prison places. The Green Book recommends that “research, consultation and engagement with stakeholders and the wider public, should be conducted at an early stage” of policy development. “This provides understanding of the current situation and valuable insights into potential improvements”. The rate of imprisonment in England and Wales - 141 per 100,000 of the population - is second only to Scotland’s among the countries of Western Europe. We need to find ways of moving down that league table of shame not cementing our place near the top of it.

*The Association of Youth Offending Team Managers; CLINKS; Criminal Justice Alliance; HM Inspectorate of Prisons; HM Inspectorate of Probation; Howard League; Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody; NPS Victim Liaison Officers; Parole Board; Probation Institute; Revolving Doors; Standing Committee for Youth Justice; Victim's Commissioner (Office)

Rob Allen