A glance at the stats shows that another blog has flagged up a post I wrote last week about payment by results entitled Smoke and Mirrors. As is invariably the case with the internet, I found myself inexorably drawn into what this other blog Guerilla Policy is all about. It turns out that it's an initiative to try and stimulate a different way of designing social policy by the novel method of asking people that might be affected, or are in some way involved professionally.
I have to say my immediate reaction is one of immense scepticism, and especially when I learn that 'open policy' is officially endorsed by the current coalition government. You see the track record isn't good and I'm getting older and grumpier all the time. Despite having a strong belief that everyone has the capacity to change, in probation we also have a mantra that says past behaviour is a strong indicator of future behaviour.
Actually, when considerably younger and greener, I held onto the naive belief that because the probation service was so close to the 'frontline', we were able to act as an invaluable conduit straight back to government via the Home Office as to what social policies were and were not working. Clearly I was naive enough to believe that it was a two-way dialogue and not simply a command and control system that has got steadily more powerful under successive governments.
It's quite ironic really as I can't help noticing what store the people behind Guerilla Policy place on the computer as it was precisely the widespread introduction of this device that enabled central control by management to flourish so completely, turning our formerly small and benign Head Office into a vast and sprawling micro-managing command bunker.
Before I get too excited about this supposed new way of developing social policy, I feel I need a few answers to some questions that have been nagging away at me for years. How is it that I can go to the pub with some of my mates and over several pints of the landlords finest we can solve most of this country's pressing social problems? How does knocking down hundreds of thousands of homes do anything for a chronic housing shortage? How does withholding money from a 'failing' school help make things better? How does closing youth clubs assist with teenage delinquency?
You get the gist. On the day when former housing minister Grant Shapps admits he 'made a mistake' in signing-off thousands of house demolitions in Liverpool illegally, I want to hear some more real explanations and grovelling apologies before I can begin to believe in a better way of making social policy.
Jim,
ReplyDeleteI also noticed the arrival of the Guerilla Policy blog...so points well made... have you had a chance to browse the HLPR report..'Deaths on Probation ' report published earlier this week...
http://www.howardleague.org/number-dying-on-probation/...
Regards
Mike aka 'Old Codger'
Yes, I thought your smoke and mirrors blog was really intersting, and was expecting a few insightful comments, but the only comments were to discredit the blatantly obvious - that Payment by Results pilots are just smokescreens. Probation Services (now Trusts) have been proving themselves extremely effective in reducing recidivism, but this isn't palatable to privatisation minded politicians. Asking service users/ offenders what they think about the design of services is a very useful process but not one that should dominate the design of services. What we and offenders know is (as proved by Shad Maruna et al)that it is the non-judgemental relationship between Probationer and worker that, for most people, gives space for people to change. For some, they need to be out of the CJS before they can take responsibility for change. Government initiatives such as PbR are always a smokescreen for trying to manage intuitive practive that (in my opinion) is best when it is allowed to flourish without much managerial oversight. Let the professionals on the ground do their job with their probationers and we will get results without the beauracratic monstrosities that central government wish to concoct.
ReplyDeleteI have been re-reading Maruna's 'Making Good' recently. I think that he would take issue with your citing him to as 'proof' that it all comes down to non judgmental attitudes on the part of probation officers. His thesis is a lot more subtle than that - and the central point is about the importance of 'narrative'.
DeleteOn a slightly different tack Maruna has an interesting take on young male offenders.
Maruna: "Who commits the most crime? Young men between 16 and 25. What do young men of that age think about 95 percent of the time? Having sex. Yet, when is the last time sexual desire was mentioned in Journal of Quantitative Criminology?
Maybe sexuality has nothing to do with crime and violence, although I doubt that (and you’d think we would want some good evidence to prove this null hypothesis before dismissing such a substantial part of our subjects’ lives). More likely, it is because we aren’t looking with our eyes wide open, we aren’t listening; we are not getting to know and trying to get inside the skin of our research “subjects” like we should be, but rather corralling them into narrow boxes of our own choosing”.
I was wondering Jim if you had any thoughts on the way that the profile of people working in probation had shifted from older males to younger females had impacted on practice?
Don
Here is the reference if you want to put the above quote in context
Deletehttp://www.jtpcrim.org/July_2010/In-search-of-the-human-in-the-shadows-of-correctional-practice.pdf
Don
Well 'corralling them into narrow boxes of our own choosing' is precisely what many of us are fighting to avoid on a pretty regular basis in the modern probation service as well!
DeleteIn relation to the age and gender profile having shifted so much towards young females, I think it is widely accepted within the profession that it is a significant problem and especially in that most of our clients are young and male.
In terms of practice, it's hard to isolate this change from all the others such as the move from social work, less discretion, rise of the PSO and of course not forgetting the bloody computer and OASys. For all sorts of reasons the Service really should be presenting a broader age and gender spread, but the issue sort of got lost along the way.
Thanks for your insightful comments,
Jim
No, I wasn't suggesting that Maruna was saying that relationships with Probation workers was the key or even a major part of his thrust, and I agree that he centres on the importance of 'narrative'. I don't remebr how he terms it but he says though that it is importantt that there is someone with whom the client can test out new narratives, who will not judge by them, and who will give encouragement and small moral rewards for progress. It seem to me that in many clients' lives it is the Probation worker who well placed to undertake such a role, in addition to others who might be recruited....housing support workers, addiction therapists, groups.
DeleteI think your link to sex being so prominant is part of the answer, but for me the reason that 18-25 is the high crime ages is simply because of the complex transition from child dependency to full adult responsibility being such a risky time, and for too many they never quite make that journey in full.
It is generally ackhnowledged that the feminsation of an industry is a manifestation of the worsening of the relative terms and conditions in that industry. If the pay reduces, the men traditionally employed in that industry disappear and more and more women take up the vacant roles. Not sure of the extent to which this applies to Probation but there are undoubtedly a disproportionate number of female officer (i.e. higher that the local demographics would predict). It can be a problem but probably not the biggest one (that would be not enough homo sapiens, irrespective of gender)
ReplyDelete