MoJ Undermine Rehabilitation

As I continue to ponder on my own despair regarding current criminal justice policy, I see InsideTime are in despair at latest decisions by the MoJ in the prison estate that astonishigly undermine rehabilitation programmes:-  

The MoJ: Look on their works and despair

I want to start with a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, written in 1818. It is entitled ‘Ozymandias’ and describes a large stone in the Egyptian desert bearing an inscription from the great king Rameses II. It says “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair”. It was Rameses intention that the city with magnificent buildings and monuments on which it was placed would last forever, and that all those passing by would be jealous of his fame. Yet this stone was just lying on the floor amongst ruins, the city having been worn down and destroyed by the baking sun and the sandstorms. Nothing remained.

I thought of that because there were great works within the prison system that are now lying in ruins, not because of sandstorms but because of the action of the Ministry of Justice’s own team of investigators, the National Framework for Interventions Panel. They did not take 2,000 years to tear down the structures, just a couple of days of sitting in an office, putting ticks and crosses into little boxes on a sheet of paper during a Teams meeting, and then pulling the plug and stopping hundreds of those in prison from having the chance to improve and progress. So here is why I despair.

Hard to believe

The Ministry of Justice have informed Inside Time that the highly praised rehabilitation course Time4Change that has run in Pentonville since 2019 has been scrapped. They tell us that it “does not meet the evidence standards required for approval” as an “intervention designed to reduce reoffending”. These are the same standards that led to the cancellation of the Sycamore Tree Restorative Justice scheme without any replacement being provided, a decision that was much-criticised by contributors to this paper.

The Ministry of Justice told us their “system provides a consistent and transparent process” to assess such schemes. We asked, as it was transparent, if we could interview someone who undertook this particular study and receive a copy of their points based assessment process to find out how they reached the decision but, despite the ‘transparency’, they refused to arrange an interview and told us to apply under Freedom of Information for the marks. That is not my understanding of transparency at all.

Time4Change was commended by Charlie Taylor, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, when he issued an Urgent Notification for Pentonville in 2024. He called it “valuable” and praised the “experience and ability of the facilitators with this hard to engage age group of men”. In September 2024, Lord Hastings raised the scheme with Prisons Minister Lord Timpson in the House of Lords telling him: “I am attending a graduation for 100 young men in Pentonville along with men who have been through the Time4Change course and moved on to positive lives.” Lord Timpson responded: “I am always pleased to know of schemes like this that succeed in this all important task.”

A source close to the course told us that the assessors said that they wanted changes in the key role of psychologists which the course team feel would undermine the programme, and they would not run a third-rate version. It is in limbo unless the MoJ review their decision.

A modern history

The scheme was created in 2016 when a group of the men talked to CM Ricardo Lafuente-Dyer about how lockdowns could be avoided. It was arranged for Rapper Big Narstie to come in for a large gathering in the prison, and following that a series of one-off events was staged. CM Dyer then developed the concept with more activities.

In 2019 the first Time4Change course was run, for young adults, with debates, counselling, conversations about consent, knives, parenthood, and more. It was run by officers with specialist support, and changed the atmosphere on the wings. During COVID this was the only course that continued with face-to-face sessions, as it was considered essential. Funds were provided through charities approached by the Revd Jonathan Aitken, one of the prison’s chaplains, and also from the prison Governor’s discretionary budget. Courses ended with a graduation ceremony, with speakers with lived and life experience. Previous graduates came and acted as mentors.

Key staff were CM Lafuente-Dyer, officers Green and McCracken, and Jason Brown. CM Lafuente-Dyer was awarded the Butler Trust award for his work with young adults and in creating Time4Change, whilst officers Green and McCracken have just received community awards for their success in changing lives and making society safer. The MoJ says Time4Change does not meet its standards, but will not explain how they reached that view which is clearly not shared by others.

Because the MoJ assessors do not visit prisons – they “are too busy”, and just do a paper exercise – they did not meet anyone who had been through the course. They did not see Godfrey Poku, whose attendance in Time4Change turned his life around. He now teaches in a primary school, stopping children drifting into crime. The assessors also failed to meet the headteacher who gave Godfrey the post, and who attends the graduations. Godfrey says: “I cannot believe this is happening.” Mr Aitken told us: “I am astonished and appalled at this truly bad decision by the MoJ umpires.” He has seen every course and every participant.

The assessors did not talk with the other officers in the prison, who tell me whenever I visit that schemes such as Time4Change are exactly the sort of thing they joined the prison service to run. They did not meet the motivational speakers who join the graduation ceremonies to share their life experiences, many of whom spent time in prison and have moved on to either great success, or to leading happy and healthy lives outside.

They did not meet the families who attend the graduation. They did not speak with Nur, a young woman who was standing outside Pentonville looking lost at one graduation and who told me her brother was graduating. She said he had been excluded from school, got caught up in crime, was arrested with a knife, and sent to prison. Her parents were ashamed of him, but she knew how proud he was of taking Time4Change, and how proud she was of him. She has kept in touch. He now works for Transport for London as a Customer Assistant and is going to college. I told her of this decision. She says she will pray during Ramadan that this decision is overturned, and for those who will miss out on the chances her brother was given, and then accepted, to get a future.

They did not meet the father of the young man who played a classical improvisation on his violin and received a standing ovation from the 18-25-year-old men, or the mother who cried when her son performed a rap starting “I wish I had listened to my mum.” I cried too, as did everyone there. If they had met the families who come along, with children, they would have understood that this is an important part of the course as it reminds those in jail what they are missing and what they can go back to.

They would have seen the mutual respect and appreciation of those members of what Mr Taylor says is a “hard to involve group” and understood that this course not only impacts on the future lives of the graduates, but actually makes a difference to day to day life on the various prison wings, as people on the course mix together regardless of their previous postcodes and backgrounds. But they don’t visit. It is a paper exercise. And they will not talk about it with us.

If it was me

I love the Winter Olympics. If I were asked to judge the Ice Dance competition I would jump at the chance, even though I know nothing about it. But I would go and watch, not just stare at sheets of paper, and if my scores were different from those given by experts such as Torvill and Dean, I would question my judgement. Perhaps I gave too many points because it is so slippery out there.

Here, however, the judgements were made with absolute certainty. And regardless of what people like Charlie Taylor, who knows quite a bit about prisons, and Lord Hastings, who knows about rehabilitation, and Lord Timpson, who has it in his job description, think. Also they ignore what the students did, and how it impacts on the prison. I do not blame those who carried this out, but think they could explain. I blame the ridiculous system.

Look at Sycamore Tree. Its Restorative Justice sessions ran for 25 years around the country, so it would not have been hard for any assessors to get to one near them. The sessions featured victims of serious crime talking directly to those in prison about how crime has wider implications than just losing a few quid to a thief, or having stuff stolen from your home. One such victim, whose brother was beaten up by a gang and thrown into a pond where he drowned, told me that he felt his brother was with him when he walked into prisons, and that Sycamore Tree being scrapped killed his brother again. He knew he was steering people away from crime. I would not sleep if I was responsible for his renewed sorrow.

There is a long list of people who changed completely after Sycamore Tree, and dedicate their lives to stopping others from getting involved in criminality. That is not happening now as there was nothing better to replace it, thanks entirely to this exercise. It is clearly bringing down great schemes. That is the work of the Ministry of Justice, and I despair. And yet nobody will come forward and explain why it is a good thing.

You cannot assess anything properly on paper, you have to look at it to understand it. It is an academic exercise but it is all about people’s lives, futures, and chances in life. They should not be subject to a superficial analysis like some sort of cheap TV game show. I am sure those doing this work mean well, but this has to stop before other schemes are destroyed.

Final thoughts

Two last points, the first of which is a hope and expectation. I know CM Lafuente-Dyer will not run a third rate version of Time4Change, as it would betray the young men. However, I am certain he will want to produce something new that will meet their aspirations, as he did back in 2016. I know those who have been through the scheme, and the inspirational speakers who attended graduations, will help him. So something will come from this, and I trust the sad, dead, hand of the Intervention policy does not try and crush that.

The second is this. Perhaps this is not the story of Ozymandias with the crumbled stones. Perhaps this is the story written by Percy’s famous wife, Mary Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein. A side issue here; she finished that notorious tale in a house in Marlow in Buckinghamshire which still stands though it is now a number of small cottages. Years ago a friend of mine owned one of those properties, and so I spent a number of nights sleeping in the room in which Mary Shelley completed her horror story. That is of no importance at all, but I like to remember it once in a while.

Anyway, apologies for that pointless digression and back to Frankenstein. The doctor was an academic who put together a plan to create a living creature from various parts, but instead made a monster that went around destroying life and hope with wanton abandon. In the end, people got together with pitchforks and burning torches and drove both Frankenstein and his creation away. They vanished, never to be seen again.

Perhaps, metaphorically speaking, that could happen here. If enough people are angry over this academically-invented monstrosity of a scheme, administered by the National Framework for Interventions Panel, then they could make a fuss with metaphorical pitchforks and metaphorical burning torches. If anyone has a metaphorical pitchfork, I could provide some metaphorical matches. This monster must not harm any more lives.

--oo00oo--

As an aside and given the astonishing Green Party victory in Thursday's Gorton and Denton by-election, AI reminds us of their criminal justice policies:-

The Green Party criminal justice policy focuses on rehabilitation, crime prevention, and reducing the prison population through a "justice reinvestment" approach. Key proposals include a presumption against custodial sentences under two years, investing heavily in probation services, ending routine stop and search, and legalising or decriminalising drugs to treat addiction as a public health issue.

Key Criminal Justice Policies:

Prison Reform & Alternatives: Proposes a presumption against prison sentences of under two years, favoring community-based rehabilitation, especially for women and young people.

Sentencing & Courts: Advocates for a £2.5bn investment to repair the "crumbling" court system and reduce case backlogs.

Drugs Policy: Supports the decriminalisation of personal drug possession, focusing on harm reduction programmes, with leadership discussing the legalisation of all drugs.

Policing & Rights: Seeks to repeal the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act and the Public Order Act, which they argue restrict the right to protest.

Stop & Search: Calls for an end to routine stop and search and the use of facial recognition, citing disproportionate impact on Black and minority communities.

Victim Support: Promotes restorative justice to give victims a greater voice and help offenders take responsibility.

The Greens argue that many crimes are driven by poverty and austerity, advocating for investment in social services rather than building more prisons.

Leadership Death Spiral

As I continue pondering what to do about this blog and take enormous heart from the many recent reader contributions, it's situation normal as far as HMI Probation is concerned with the usual "strong leadership", but "delivery of work not meeting required standards". 

There are "significant shortfalls" in the West Midlands probation service, inspectors have found.

HM Inspectorate of Probation undertook a review of public protection measures across the region, inspecting 84 cases.

Martin Jones, chief inspector of probation, said: "Despite strong leadership commitment and clear strategic priorities to improve public protection, the delivery of work to keep people safe was not yet meeting the required standard. Staff understood its importance however, worryingly, this was not reflected consistently in the quality of assessment, planning, and delivery."

A report by the inspectorate said its findings revealed significant shortfalls in practice across the region, with effective work to keep people safe being evident in 49% of the assignments inspected. Of the cases they inspected, most involved white men, aged 36-55, with violence and sexual offending the most frequent offence types, with concerns about domestic abuse and risk to children also prevalent across the sample.

According to the inspectorate, child safeguarding practice in the service was found to be "underdeveloped and an area for urgent attention". However, inspectors found that domestic abuse information sharing had improved as a result of joint efforts by probation and police leaders.

'Systemic barriers'

The report added that managers were not consistently identifying practice deficits and opportunities to protect the public were missed.

Recruitment was also hampered by excessive vetting delays, while pay and workloads were frequently cited as retention concerns. While staffing challenges were less acute than in other areas of the country, resourcing was found to have remained a challenge for rural areas in the region such as Herefordshire, which had acute recruitment difficulties and resulted in high workloads.

Jones said: "Systemic barriers, including resourcing, organisational complexity and insufficient multi-agency communication remained significant challenges for the West Midlands region to overcome. Strengthening the skills and improving the confidence of practitioners will be essential in ensuring the region can consistently meet its public protection responsibilities."

The report made seven recommendations, with four for the West Midlands region, including to develop practitioners' confidence and skills in the use of professional curiosity, and using challenging conversations to identify and respond to indicators of risk effectively.

There are a further three recommendations for the HM Prison and Probation Service, including to develop a national strategic approach to information sharing with police and children's services.

--oo00oo--

What does AI make of this intractable paradox?

Reconciling "strong leadership" with "poor delivery" requires recognizing that a leader can be charismatic, visionary, and authoritative (strong) while lacking the operational, supportive, or strategic skills needed for successful execution (poor delivery). This paradox is frequently caused by a misalignment between high-level ambition and ground-level execution, often leading to a "leadership death spiral" where increased efforts by the leader actually hinder performance.

Here is how this misalignment can be reconciled and addressed within an organization:

1. Identifying the Root Causes

"Ideation Infatuation" vs. Follow-Through: The leader excels at dreaming up new ideas but lacks the discipline to execute them, moving on to the next "flavor of the month" before the first is completed.

Micromanagement: Strong, controlling leaders may feel they need to handle everything themselves. This stifles team autonomy, creates bottlenecks, and limits organizational growth.

Lack of Psychological Safety: Strong, dominant leaders can create a fear-based culture where employees are afraid to report mistakes or voice concerns, leading to hidden failures.

"Cement Mindset": The leader believes they know everything and stops seeking growth, training, or feedback, while ignoring the operational realities of their team.

Disproportionate Focus on Strategy over Execution: The leader focuses on high-level vision but fails to provide the "execution-level" detail needed by their teams.

2. Reconciliation Strategies

Bridge the Gap with "Operational" Leadership: Pair the visionary, strong leader with a "doer" (e.g., COO, Project Manager) who excels at implementation, structure, and accountability.

Shift from "Push" to "Pull" Leadership: Instead of pushing for results through micromanagement, the leader should focus on creating a "pull" environment—inspiring and motivating teams by fostering a, vision-aligned culture.

Implement 360-Degree Feedback: Utilize 360-degree feedback to bring awareness to the leader about how their strong, dominant behaviors are limiting, rather than enabling, team performance.

Formalize Accountability Structures: Reconcile the gap by setting clear, measurable goals and holding regular, structured check-ins that focus on "lead indicators" (progress) rather than just "lag measures" (final results).

Encourage "Respectful Dissent": Foster a culture where team members can safely challenge the leader's decisions, preventing costly mistakes.

3. Structural & Cultural Changes

Redefine "Strong": Shift the definition of strong leadership from simply being "commanding" to being "supportive and empowering".

Focus on Development: Provide coaching to help the leader transition from a "doer" to a "multiplier" who empowers others to deliver.

Align Incentives with Delivery: Ensure that the leader's incentives are tied to successful delivery, not just the articulation of a vision.

In summary, this scenario is reconciled by recognizing that "strong leadership" is often just "passionate direction," and it must be coupled with "systemic discipline" to deliver results. If the leader is unwilling to change, they may need to be moved to a role more suited to their skills, or "forced" to adopt better operational habits.

--oo00oo--

A leadership death spiral is a self-perpetuating, downward cycle of declining performance, morale, and trust caused by poor management decisions like micromanagement, lack of strategy, and poor communication. It often starts when leaders, feeling overwhelmed, try to do too much, resulting in chaos, high staff turnover, and, ultimately, failure.

Key Stages and Causes of the Leadership Death Spiral

Initial Overwhelm & Mismanagement: The cycle often begins with new or stressed managers trying to "do it all," leading to broken processes, lack of prioritization, and micromanagement.

Loss of Trust and Credibility: Leaders stop acting as mentors and focus on theory rather than practice, creating a disconnect with their team.

"Half-Delegation" Trap: Leaders assign tasks but fail to provide necessary context or authority, leading to inevitable failure and frustration.

Cultural Decay: A "blame culture" emerges, where negative feedback becomes self-perpetuating, resulting in low morale and disengagement.

The "Firefighting" Mode: Instead of fixing root causes, leaders focus on desperate, short-term fixes, which causes further, deeper, dysfunction.

How to Break the Cycle

Prioritize Ruthlessly: Stop trying to fix everything at once and focus on core, high-impact tasks.

True Delegation: Empower employees by providing them with both tasks and the context required to succeed.

Focus on Communication and Empathy: Actively listen to the team and rebuild trust by being consistent and transparent.

Address Root Causes: Shift from "firefighting" to addressing the underlying issues, rather than just treating symptoms.

Letter From a Vanished Profession

To whoever now performs the functions once known as probation,

We are writing from what you would probably describe as an earlier model - back when this work was considered a profession rather than a process.

We were trained to exercise judgement, not simply to apply guidance. We were expected to challenge decisions, including those made above us, if we believed risk or fairness required it. Disagreement was not automatically treated as non-compliance. It was part of the craft.

That word 'craft' may sound strange to you. It implied something learned slowly, through experience, supervision, mistakes, and reflection. It could not be downloaded, standardised or accelerated without loss.

Much of the work happened in conversations that were not scripted and outcomes that could not be guaranteed. Change, when it came, was uneven, fragile and often invisible to anyone not directly involved. That was understood. It was still considered worthwhile.

You may have inherited a system that prioritises consistency, auditability and risk transfer. We recognise the logic. Systems prefer certainty, and human judgement is inconveniently unpredictable.

What disappears, however, is the relational core that made probation distinct from surveillance. Once the relationship becomes secondary, the role changes even if the title does not.

We watched this transition happen gradually. New language appeared first. Then new metrics. Then new technologies. None of them individually abolished the profession. Together, they reshaped it until something recognisable only in outline remained.

The public narrative suggested modernisation. Internally, it often felt like subtraction.

Experienced practitioners left faster than they could be replaced. Those who arrived later were expected to perform complex work without the apprenticeship that once sustained it. The system called this resilience. We recognised it as exposure.

If you now work in an environment where discretion feels risky, where time for reflection is scarce, and where success is measured primarily by compliance rather than change, please understand this was not the original design.

Probation once assumed that people desist from crime through human connection, accountability, and the slow rebuilding of ordinary lives. It was imperfect, inconsistent and sometimes frustratingly slow. It was also profoundly human.

We are told progress required something more efficient.

Perhaps it did.

But efficiency answers a different question from rehabilitation.

If you find yourself wondering why morale is fragile, why turnover is high, or why the work feels heavy in ways not captured by workload tools, it may be because you are carrying responsibilities shaped by a profession that no longer exists, without the authority or conditions that once made those responsibilities sustainable.

Should you encounter references to “advise, assist and befriend,” or to probation as a service grounded in social work values, treat them not as myths but as artefacts. They belonged to a period when public protection was understood to depend on relationships as much as controls.

No formal announcement marked the end. There was no closure notice, no ceremony, no final day. The profession dissolved through incremental change while everyone was busy managing the consequences.

If this message reaches you at all, it is because someone believed a record should survive, not of policies or structures, but of what the work once felt like from the inside.

Whether that matters to you will depend on what the job has become.

We hope you have more room to be human than we did at the end. If not, then probation did not evolve it was replaced.

Signed,
A probation officer from before

Future of Blog

Jim,

I can understand the weariness in that conclusion. After years of writing, arguing, documenting and warning, there must be a temptation to step back and say: “What’s the point?” If the prevailing mood — as aired on Free Thinking — is that the public and politicians want revenge, then perhaps the honest response is simply to accept it and move on. But from where I sit — retired, yes, but still profoundly attached to what probation once meant — I don’t believe it is quite that simple.

It is certainly true that political rhetoric increasingly trades in punishment. “Toughness” wins headlines. Nuance rarely does. Yet in over four decades of practice, I never found the public to be a monolith baying for vengeance. I found fear, yes. Anger, certainly. But also confusion, contradiction and — when given the space — a surprising appetite for prevention over spectacle. The appetite for revenge is often amplified; the appetite for effectiveness is simply quieter.

What troubles me more is not that politicians talk tough — they always have — but that we in probation risk internalising that narrative and conceding the ground. If we say, “All anyone wants is revenge,” then we effectively declare the rehabilitative project obsolete. And that feels less like realism and more like surrender.

Your blog has not been shouting into the void. It has been documenting — patiently, persistently — the slow re-engineering of a service away from relational work and towards managerialism and surveillance. It has provided testimony. And testimony matters, particularly when institutions are being reshaped in ways that future generations will struggle to understand without a record.

If you wind it up, I would understand. No one is obliged to carry the burden of bearing witness indefinitely. But I would gently suggest this: the moment when it feels most futile is often the moment when the record becomes most important. Revenge may be fashionable. It may even be electorally useful. But probation was never meant to be fashionable. It was meant to be principled.

If those of us who still believe in that principle fall silent, then the narrative really does become “End of story.” And I, for one, am not yet ready to concede that the story of probation — real probation — is over. And by the way, you deserve a medal for your work on this blog overall the years!

*******
Hi Jim 

I think it is time to call it a day. Probation as we knew it no longer exists. Once you accept that it is a relief. An old friend fondly remembered has died. You have mourned. Let it go and move on. You did your bit. When HMPPS want advice and inspiration they head to Texas the workforce has no voice. AI is very much in ascendancy with the aim of replacing Probation professionals with call centres and Tags. Is Probation even fit to call itself a profession- where is the independent professional association? Those who manage AI are the new bosses with all the power and the money. Who are they even and all others like the laughably named Chief Probation Officer are all froth, frills, and window gazers. How is this blog even relevant. It is wailing in the wilderness. We will all be slaves to the machine with everything we say and do will be recorded and scrutinised and scripted by the machine. We are living the Orwellian dream.

Unions watch in bewilderment as the white heat of AI tools  march on crushing them and drowning their feint cries in the relentless onward surge. At best we will have some oversight as rubber stampers. I would wrap it up now and admit defeat. Defiance was admirable but in the words of the late great Douglas Adam’s ‘We’ll see who rusts first!!!’ but then the Vogons destroyed the world and nothing much else mattered from that moment. It was good while it lasted. So long and thanks for the blog.

*******
"probation was never meant to be fashionable. It was meant to be principled."

There are too few people left in the world who understand those words, the work they do & the weight they carry. This blog took a principled stance. It has been a cheerleader for commentary on the realities of probation work, the positives and negatives, and it has always delivered; having been managed with considerable skill & judgement whilst retaining the option of allowing contributors to post anonymously. Relatively few have abused that privilege, save for a handful of disruptive posts.

Was I hallucinating or do I recall some way back that Jim announced the blog was being saved as a contemporaneous record of the probation story?

For what its worth, given the mindless vandalism being dished out by politicians & civil servants, I think now is as important a time as any - maybe more so - to keep the running reports on record. Then the eyes of the future can understand that not everyone was in thrall to the liars & bullies & greedmongers... some of us are fucking furious at the disgraceful, shameless, amoral shitshow.

*******
Jim, don’t wind the blog up, this is a safe space for discussion and getting rid of the frustrations of working for buffoons. The current Our Future Probation Service 2026 update just highlights how the work has and will change. Courts will no longer gate keep PSR’s all will be FDR’s , no layer 3 OAsys, reduces the input and knowledge base which means you can get Band 4 staff back into operations. Justice transcribe means that you can have a queue of punters and just roll them in and record the conversations, so no need for QDO’s they can get back into the operational roles as well. It is pointless releasing prisoners they just get recalled so let’s get all the POMs back into operations and save money from additional pay. Get all Band 4 qualified operational staff on the same pay banding if you’re not a qualified probation officer you don’t need band 4 pay or put all band 4 probation officers up to band 5 like NSD.

Do you see where we are going? The management have been divisive in splitting probation into groups playing staff off against each other, promoting non-qualified operational staff into higher pay bands , promoting more SPO’s and PDU Deputies forcing larger caseloads on already overworked staff, forcing an increased stress, sickness absence and resignation of those experienced staff close to pension maximum and leaving a group of newly qualified staff to take the hits with SFO’s etc. AI is here, it is 1984 come to fruition, Animal Farm is the management model and I am off to buy a De Lorean.

*******
Jim,

I’ve been reading your blog a long time and I can understand why you are thinking it might be time to wind the blog up – but I really hope you don’t. Whatever else has changed, this space has become something far more important than commentary. It’s a record. A living archive. A witness statement. Probation as many of us knew it has, for all practical purposes, been dismantled, reshaped, centralised, rebranded and bureaucratised beyond recognition. Structures have come and gone but what this blog has done – patiently, stubbornly, week after week – is document it as it happened. And that matters. Because memory is fragile. Institutional memory even more so. The official version of events will always tidy things up. It will speak of “modernisation”, “improvement”, “alignment”, “public protection outcomes”. It will rarely speak of what it felt like on the ground: the loss of professional discretion, the hollowing out of relationships, the quiet exodus of experience. This blog does.

If it disappears, a primary source disappears with it. Future researchers, practitioners, historians – even policymakers with a conscience – will have one less window into what really happened during these years of fragmentation and centralisation. Penal policy has long been vulnerable to populism. But that’s precisely why spaces like this remain necessary. When the public mood hardens, when nuance gets drowned out, when complexity is inconvenient – someone still has to say: this is what probation was for. This is what it did well. This is how it was undone. And crucially – this blog has never shied away from an uncomfortable truth: that what happened to probation cannot be laid entirely at the feet of politicians or civil servants.

Yes, there were catastrophic structural decisions imposed from above. Yes, ideological experiments caused damage. But the profession itself was not blameless. There were times when practitioners disengaged from leadership. Times when we failed to articulate our value clearly enough. Times when managerialism was tolerated in the hope it might pass. Times when professional confidence ebbed and collective voice weakened. Acknowledging that isn’t self-flagellation. It’s honesty. And honesty is the foundation of any meaningful record.

The strength of this blog has always been that it allows complexity. It holds anger and affection in the same space. It publishes dissent. It captures disagreement. That in itself reflects the best traditions of probation: reflective, critical, rooted in evidence and experience. Even if probation never returns to what it once was, the story of how it changed deserves to remain accessible. Not as nostalgia, but as evidence.

And there is another reason to continue: morale. For those still inside the system – often feeling isolated, unheard, or professionally diminished – knowing that there is a space where their experience is acknowledged has real value. It reminds them that what they remember wasn’t imagined. That standards once existed. That principles mattered.

You may feel the tide has turned irrevocably. Perhaps it has. Recording what has been lost is not futile; it is an act of professional integrity. If all the public and politicians want is revenge, then it becomes even more important that someone keeps writing about rehabilitation, proportionality, and the human realities behind risk labels. The blog has become part of the historical record of probation’s transformation. To close it now would be understandable. But to continue it would be quietly defiant – and profoundly useful.

*******
Jim,

I think the previous comment captures something fundamental about what this blog has become. It is no longer simply commentary. It is, as they say, a record — and not just of policy decisions, but of mood, morale, dissent, disillusionment, stubborn hope and professional memory. That matters. It really does. But I also think there’s something important to say that perhaps doesn’t get said enough: you have carried this thing for a very long time. Through restructures, privatisation, reunification, centralisation, endless “operating models”, shifting ministers, and more than one cycle of collective despair — you kept it going. Through thick and thin. And not just institutional upheaval, but your own health challenges as well. Most readers will never fully understand the toll that takes.

Producing a sustained, thoughtful, moderated space like this is work. Emotional work as much as intellectual work. It absorbs frustration. It absorbs anger. It absorbs grief for what was lost. That doesn’t come without cost. So yes — this blog is an archive. Yes — it is a witness statement. Yes — it has documented what the official narrative will never quite capture. But you are not an institution. You are a person. You should absolutely feel proud of what this blog has achieved. It has outlasted governments. It has outlasted policies that were once presented as irreversible. It has given practitioners a place to recognise themselves when the formal structures around them seemed designed to erase professional identity. That is no small thing. At the same time, you owe it to yourself to put your health first. No archive is worth your wellbeing. No act of quiet defiance should come at the expense of your recovery or peace of mind.

Perhaps the answer is not closure, but evolution. If the burden has become too heavy, then sharing it seems the obvious path. Bringing in someone trustworthy — someone who understands the history, the tone, the complexity — could both preserve the record and ease the load. Getafix certainly springs to mind as someone with the intellectual grounding and steadiness of judgement to help carry it forward. There may be others too. Succession is not surrender. It’s stewardship.

Whatever you decide, no one could reasonably accuse you of giving up lightly. If you chose to stop tomorrow, the blog would still stand as a substantial and important body of work. If you choose to continue — alone or with support — it will remain what it has always been: a place where probation’s story is told without slogans. You have done more than enough to justify stepping back if that’s what you need. But if there is a way of preserving this space without it costing you further personally, that would feel like the best of both worlds — for you, and for those who still find strength in reading it.

*******
Hi Jim,

Personally, I hope you’ll keep going. The blog has been a steady and important voice for probation through some very turbulent years, and that still matters. There is always something to say about probation; even when things seem to go quiet for a while, it’s rarely long before new issues emerge that deserve reflection or challenge. If, however, there were to be another structural upheaval on the scale of TR, particularly something as symbolic as a name change, that might be a natural point to pause and reconsider. Not because the conversation lacks value, but because it would signal that something more fundamental had shifted, locking probation into a quickening death roll.

And when I talk about an end, I don’t just mean for the blog. I mean for this particular chapter of probation as we’ve known it and worked within it. If it did ever come to a final post, it would need to be something fitting, somewhere between symbolic and a cracker, with comments closed after a few weeks, then left to stand as an ever-present record, resurfacing in conversations and Google searches for years to come. Whatever you decide to do, thank you for the thoughtful reading over the years, and for keeping our mini-rebellion alive.

--oo00oo--

Thanks to everyone for taking the trouble to respond so eloquently to my feelings of despair - it's important to know how people feel and it's giving me much to ponder on. One thing I need to be clear about is that the collective memory must be secured and I'm currently giving thought to the matter of Digital Executor and how the record can be archived safely. I'm genuinely unsure about this, but wonder if some academic institution might be an appropriate avenue?   . 

Thought Piece 12

I was reminded of the following from a previous read, more relevant now than ever:

“Similarly, if probation is unable to develop a clear and credible identity, distinct from narratives around punishment, public safety, use of technology, cost-effectiveness, or custody alternatives, and to resist the urge to overpromise on risk management, public protection, and crime control, then it may continue to face the challenge of misrepresentation.”

Probation 2026 isn’t really a “parallel universe” anymore. It is reduced, forgotten, and often airbrushed out of existence in policy and public imagination.

This is made more urgent by the Sentencing Act, and expanded technological monitoring. Technology and AI are presented as solutions to efficiency pressures, managing caseloads, reducing admin, analysing data, increasing remote supervision. Used properly, these tools can support professional judgement and reduce bureaucracy.

But if probation is to be a sentence and agency in its own right, not just a cheaper alternative to custody or an extension of surveillance, then how can it rehabilitate people and improve practice when the focus shifts to security, tagging, remote monitoring, and efficiency metrics?

AI can process information and flag patterns, but cannot build trust, hold difficult conversations, exercise moral judgement, or navigate human realities that underpin change. If efficiency and security dominate, and probation does not define what must remain human and relational, technology then replaces relationships with surveillance tool.

The question is not whether technology has a role, whether it serves probation’s rehabilitative mission, or quietly reshapes it into something else. At that point, it is no longer simply misrepresentation; it is existential if being used to serve probation’s purpose by redefining it beyond recognition.

Anon

A Parallel Universe?

Free Thinking : Crime and punishment medieval to modern 

Now here's a question. How can you have an hour long BBC Radio 4 radio discussion on the English criminal justice system and talk a lot about how prisons don't work, but never once mention the Probation Service? Lord Sumption mentioned pre-sentence reports, but only in the context of mental health and community service as an alternative punishment. He was completely dismissive of rehabilitation being possible in any meaningful way. He was correct in saying the public, and consequently politicians, were only interested in 'revenge', so we were highly likely to carry on spending vast sums of money on a system that makes people worse. Other guests felt people needed 'help' with issues such as drug addiction or mental health, but there seems to be a complete systemic bout of collective amnesia as far as probation is concerned, like it never existed. Maybe we've all been in a parallel universe for the past 100 years or more. Listen to it and either get angry or weep.

Crime and punishment medieval to modern 

How have attitudes to punishment changed over time, and what ideas about the rationale for punishment are circulating today? 

In Radio 4's roundtable discussion programme, Matthew Sweet and guests explore the criminal justice system through history. With: 

Stephanie Brown, Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Hull and BBC / AHRC New Generation Thinker on the scheme which puts research on radio 

Scout Tzofiya Bolton, poet and broadcaster who presents on National Prison Radio, and for Radio 4 the Illuminated episode called The Ballad of Scout and the Alcohol Tag. Her poetry collection is called The Mad Art of Doing Time 

Joanna Hardy-Susskind, criminal barrister and presenter for Radio 4 of a series called You Do Not Have To Say Anything 

Stephen Shapiro, Professor of American Literature at the University of Warwick 

Jonathan Sumption, former Supreme Court judge and now Moral Maze panellist for BBC Radio 4 and author of a five-volume account of The Hundred Years War

--oo00oo--

As an aside, this got a mention (AI generated):-

In January 2026, UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood expressed a desire to modernize the criminal justice system by using AI and technology to replicate the surveillance goals of Jeremy Bentham's 18th-century "Panopticon" prison design.

Here are the key details regarding her remarks:

The Vision: In an interview with Tony Blair, Mahmood stated her "ultimate vision" was to achieve, "by means of AI and technology, what Jeremy Bentham tried to do with his Panopticon".

"Eyes of the State": She explicitly stated that her goal is for "the eyes of the state can be on you at all times," aiming to use AI to get ahead of criminals.

AI-Powered Policing: The proposal is part of a broader, £140 million plan to overhaul policing, which includes a massive expansion of live facial recognition (LFR) technology, increasing surveillance vans from 10 to 50.

Criticism: The comments have been heavily criticized by opposition politicians and civil liberties groups, with some describing it as an "authoritarian" or "dystopian" move towards a "Big Brother" state.

Context: While the original Bentham Panopticon was a design for a prison where inmates could be observed without knowing they were being watched, Mahmood’s vision extends this concept to the use of data, AI, and facial recognition in public life.

MoJ Grabs Youth Justice

Thanks go to the long term friend and supporter of this blog for pointing us in the direction of the recently published paper A Modern Youth Justice System that many feel will be anything but bad news for the one part of the criminal justice system that works reasonably well. Rob Allen has this to say about it:-   

Youth Justice - A Missed Opportunity?

There are some things to welcome in the government’s youth justice policy statement presented to Parliament today. Improved funding arrangements should enable local services to divert more children from crime, particularly knife crime and develop more effective alternatives to custody especially for those on remand. Plans to better incentivise local authorities to keep children awaiting trial for serious crimes in the community look promising.

But does the package really add up to the self-proclaimed “foundations fit for the future” of a modern system?

Yes, the government’s making some structural change- but it’s of questionable merit. They’re going further than the independent review of the Youth Justice Board (YJB) (also out today), by relieving the YJB of its roles in developing youth justice standards, overseeing how well they’re being met and advising ministers accordingly- as well as disbursing funds. These functions will revert to the Ministry of Justice, in line with cross government plans to cut spending and give ministers more decision-making powers.

The Board has at least survived, something of a surprise following its last minute reprieve from the 2010 bonfire of the quangos and loss of its responsibilities for youth custody in 2017. It would certainly have been odd to scrap entirely a New Labour creation which has been at the heart of what today’s statement calls “one of the great societal success stories in modern Britain.” The YJB will be a shadow of its former self however much it can make of its new mission of driving continuous improvement.

David Lammy’s statement also has some honest words on the dismaying conditions for children in custody, particularly Young Offender Institutions “too old and too big, they are austere and unsafe, and they were often not designed to hold children at all”. It’s just what Charlie Taylor said in his 2016 review since when the distraction of the Secure School has led to 10 wasted years. Work is now promised on a plan that is realistic, affordable, and focused on achievable outcomes, getting children safely out of their rooms and into education. Key to that will be investment in the right kinds of values and skills among staff.

That indicates where today’s proposals don’t go far enough. This was an opportunity to move youth justice policy out of the Ministry of Justice into the Department for Education. Developing the best response to children in trouble of course involves many departments and agencies. That’s why the variety of experience and expertise among YJB members is so important. Taking responsibility from them and giving it to MoJ officials seems a mistake; better the YJB report to a department more centrally involved with promoting the interests of children.

Youth Justice Minister Jake Richards recognises that successful policy and practice relies predominantly on activities outside his department’s remit. He recently expressed frustration at how long the Health department took to get the best child psychologist in the country to write a one-pager for staff at the Secure Training Centre on how to manage girls locked up there.

Lammy will “soon set out our plans for the system as a whole and, taken together, we believe these proposals will amount to the most fundamental reform of the youth justice system in a generation.”

To do that should paradoxically mean a significant reduction in his own responsibilities and a shift to a more fitting place in the machinery of government. After all, he who opens a school door, closes a prison.

Rob Allen

Staff Responses

James,

Your sudden concern about the impact on our families is difficult to take seriously. For years, staff have been overworked, underpaid, and stretched beyond reasonable limits, and the strain that has placed on our families has gone largely unacknowledged.

It rings hollow to hear about “extraordinary” people and work while sitting on a six-figure salary and defending a 4% pay offer that is, frankly, abysmal and does not come close to reflecting the value of the work being done or the cost of living. If we are truly extraordinary, then an extraordinary pay offer — somewhere in the region of 12–20% — would demonstrate that far more convincingly than repeated messaging ever could.

You continue to point to London weighting and prison supplements, yet the majority of probation staff do not work in London or in prisons. Those examples are not representative of the reality most practitioners face.

The follow-up communications insisting the current offer is generous feel less like engagement and more like pressure. Staff are not asking for rhetoric. We are asking for fairness, respect, and pay that reflects reality.

Had the hundreds of millions currently being poured into tagging, IT and AI contracts none of us want — designed largely to relieve prison overcrowding by shifting the burden onto probation — been used more wisely, probation might once again stand as a sentence in its own right. Practitioners would be able to do the good, traditional probation work that actually supports rehabilitation and protects the public.

So no, I won’t be voting to accept peanuts. There, I’ve had my say.

Anon

******
After a while you stop reacting to this stuff. The delays, the careful wording, the reassurance that someone somewhere thinks it’s reasonable. It all blurs into the background noise of the job, like the constant “temporary” pressures that never go away.

Calling the work “extraordinary” is becoming almost ironic. Extraordinary work, ordinary pay, permanent shortages, and a steady stream of communications telling us to be patient just a little longer. There’s always another explanation, another comparison, another reason why this is actually better than it looks.

For many of us, progression isn’t even relevant anymore. We’ve been at the top of the scale for years. Including that in the headline figure just confirms how far removed these conversations are from the reality of experienced staff.

What’s hardest to take isn’t even the number. It’s the sense that this is presented as the best that could possibly be achieved, as though the last decade hasn’t happened, as though people haven’t quietly left in large numbers, as though morale isn’t already on the floor.

You mention families. Most of us have been managing the impact on our families for years — the late finishes, the stress, the constant feeling of carrying too much risk with too little support. That part didn’t start with this pay round, and it won’t end with it either.

At this point, people aren’t angry so much as tired. Tired of being told to wait. Tired of being told this is progress. Tired of hearing how valued we are while watching the service hollow out.

The ballot will say what it says. I don’t expect miracles from it, but at least it’s one of the few moments where staff get to express a view that isn’t filtered, reframed, or summarised on their behalf. Until the next email arrives explaining why whatever happens is also a good outcome.

Anon

******
Recent times seem to have brought us an embarassment of riches when it comes to bullying by overload; Trump, Johnson, Netanyahu are but three prime examples of many. In effect they swamp everyone with a tsunami of bullshit, of lies, of misdirections, of extreme positions - and everyone is left reeling, unsure of which to react to, which is the most heinous, which deserves to be taken seriously as a threat. So people become tired, exhausted & almost bored, unable to respond in any meaningful way... and thus something slips through that would otherwise have been derided & defeated.

And thus we have experienced MoJ/NOMS/HMPPS acting in a similar manner over the last decade or so, albeit at the behest of the elected government. They are happy to gaslight, reframe, lie & deceive in order to achieve their targets. They have swamped, overwhelmed & bullied staff until their resistance is virtually gone. Many hundreds of experienced & knowledgeable staff have left, replaced with several 'cohorts' of new, eager lambs who are unaware of the slaughter they are about to experience. The justifiable cynism about Napo has left them without union membership; the joy of this is barely hidden in the sarcasm of mcewen's email: "please consider joining one of our excellent unions and have your voice heard."

Join a union and vote NO. It's time to show Whitehall that probation does have a bark AND a bite to be reckoned with; it isn't merely a pack of whmpering puppies.

Anon

******
This is a brilliantly articulated comment. The analogy to the political "tsunami of bullshit" is spot on—it's the perfect description of how organisational leadership, just like the populist politicians you mention, creates a state of permanent crisis and exhaustion. It’s a deliberate tactic: flood the zone, blur the lines, and make everything so noisy that no single scandal or failure can gain enough traction to actually stick.

Your point about the exodus of experienced staff and the arrival of "eager lambs" is the tragic core of it. The institutional memory is gone, and without it, the new cohort doesn't have the historical comparison to know just how far standards have slipped. They just think this chaos is normal.

And that McEwen quote you pulled—"please consider joining one of our excellent unions and have your voice heard"—does reek of a tick-box exercise. It’s the kind of placating gesture that does indeed barely hide the sarcasm. It says "we've done the consultation," not "we value your input."

You're absolutely right. The only counter to being treated like a whimpering pack is to show some teeth. Joining a union and voting No isn't just about this one issue; it’s about proving that the workforce isn't broken yet. It’s about saying that while they may have swamped us, they haven't sunk us.

ANARCHIST PO

Thought Piece 11

We need to be real about the future of probation. You couldn’t make it up really. A new Sentencing Act, £700 million invested in AI and IT, and 1,000 new trainee probation officers promised, yet here we are on the precipice with rising workloads, growing uncertainty and a carefully packaged 4% pay offer presented as progress. We’re told probation is “extraordinary work”; the glossy recruitment adverts insist on it. But scratch beneath the surface and a different picture of probation in 2026 begins to emerge.

Imagine every probation office of the near future. An offender walks in, places their bag in a locker and pauses at the door to be facially and bodily scanned. If the system does not recognise them, or flags an unknown object in a pocket, a security wand completes the ritual. Efficient. Controlled. Managed. They sit and wait for their probation practitioner, who is likely newly qualified, recently out of university, bright and well-intentioned but learning the craft in a system that no longer appears to value craft. It isn’t their fault. They need employment and income like anyone else. Many will leave when something more stable or better paid appears, unless they are accelerated into management within a year if their psychometrics fit.

They move to a supervision room. An induction, a toolkit session, a review of licence conditions, delivered through structured prompts. Tick boxes completed. Risk assessment refreshed. Every word captured in real time by Justice Transcribe AI and uploaded directly into the case management system. Reports drafted instantly. Risk tools auto-populated. Supervision records formatted before the conversation has properly settled. The practitioner informs the individual that their risk level has been lowered. Not necessarily through nuanced professional judgement shaped by experience and relational depth, but because the algorithm indicates it. The outcome is eligibility for automated reporting. Instead of attending weekly or fortnightly, the offender now logs into an app once a month, speaks to an AI interface and confirms everything is fine. Compliance recorded. Case maintained. Human contact reduced to exception management.

Meanwhile, the probation practitioner holds a caseload exceeding 100. With no short sentences going into custody, probation absorbs the volume. Post-Sentence Supervision has ended, everyone is electronically tagged and tracked, and recalls recycle through the system with predictable speed of less than 2 months. Reports are AI-drafted. Risk assessments AI-assisted. Supervision notes AI-transcribed. Enforcement actions processed by administrative teams prompted by automated flags. Half the caseload reports digitally. The practitioner’s role becomes one of oversight rather than engagement, validation rather than intervention. Professional discretion narrows as the system standardises responses. Time once spent building motivation or challenging thinking is redirected into monitoring dashboards, tracking offenders on tags, and ensuring the technology has functioned correctly.

At that point, the question becomes uncomfortable. If supervision is automated, reporting is automated, monitoring is tagging and tracking, enforcement is automated and risk assessment is automated, what exactly are the 1,000 new probation officers for? What is the long-term workforce plan in a service increasingly shaped around digital compliance? Perhaps the 4% pay offer was not misjudged after all. Perhaps it was transitional, and intentional. It is easier to contain pay when you quietly redesign the profession to be less.

On a shelf somewhere in that office sits a book with that old motto: advise, assist, befriend. It reads almost like an artefact from another era. Now replaced by scripted prompts, app notifications, dashboards and tracking. This may sound exaggerated, even dystopian, but the building blocks are already visible. Technology and AI isn’t enhancing probation, it’s replacing it now.

Anon

Thought Piece 10

Don’t panic Mr. Mainwaring!  Extended like the last two deadlines, they will never hit the target unless they pay existing staff the right salary. Trainee probation officer programme deadline extended – don’t miss out! There’s still time to apply for the trainee probation officer programme (PQiP).

The deadline has been extended to Monday 2 March at 11.55pm in:

East of England
Kent, Surrey and Sussex
London
South Central

The deadline has been extended to Monday 23 February at 11.55pm in:

East Midlands
Greater Manchester
North East
North West
South West
Wales
Yorkshire and Humber

If you’re interested there’s still time to submit your application. This is your chance to earn while you learn, gain a degree equivalent qualification, and play an essential role in your community and the wider justice system.

*******
Nothing says “high demand, thriving profession” quite like repeatedly extending the application deadline. We’re told the staffing pipeline is being strengthened with 1,300 trainees. Yet deadlines keep shifting. Almost as if the issue isn’t awareness… but attractiveness.

And while we’re here, just a small but important point. PQiP leads to a Level 6 professional qualification. That sits at the same academic level as a bachelor’s degree. It is not the same thing as being awarded a university degree. Calling it “degree equivalent” is shorthand for level, not status. That distinction matters not because the training lacks value, but because clarity builds credibility.

The bigger question isn’t the label. It’s whether newly qualified staff enter a service where:

• Experienced mentors are available
• Workloads are manageable
• Professional judgement is respected
• Pay progression makes staying worthwhile

You can rename a qualification and you can extend a deadline. But unless the job itself is sustainable, recruitment campaigns become a revolving door and that’s the part no advert fixes. No panic though. Everything’s fine.