Chickens return to Roost

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

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

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

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