Sunday 29 January 2023

In the Wake of the SFO's 2

I've just noticed that Frances Crook had something to say about things in the FT the other day:-

Probation failures have deep roots and horrific consequences

Minimal reorganisation could revive the public service and reduce such tragedies as Zara Aleena’s murder

The murder of Zara Aleena by a man just released from prison was a tragedy waiting to happen. Assessed by the probation service as not posing a high risk to the public, he killed her just days later in a gut-wrenchingly awful case raised by Keir Starmer during the last prime minister’s questions. This was the first time the dire state of the service has been brought up at PMQs for several years. It is about time. 

How did a public service dedicated to public safety get into such a state? As recently as 2013, the inspectorate assessed the service across England and Wales as delivering good or excellent provision. What happened to destroy this was three years with Chris Grayling in charge. During his time as Lord Chancellor and secretary of state for justice he was a man in a hurry. Grayling closed prisons and reduced prison officers but without reducing the population of prisoners, leaving more of them crammed into fewer spaces without adequate staffing. 

This set challenges for probation officers working in prisons and tasked with supporting the reintegration of former prisoners into the community. Some of these individuals have previously committed very serious and violent offences and could be a danger — especially after experiencing years of filthy, violent, drug-ridden prisons. 

For a hundred years, probation has benefited from local connections, autonomy and professionalism. Having someone to look after you, somewhere to live and something to do all day provides the best chance of leading a crime-free life and being able to contribute to the local community. In 2014, at a stroke, all this was destroyed by the government’s short-sighted desire to find something — anything — to privatise. 

Because the court functions could not be given to a private company that might be managing the very sentence it had recommended to the judge, this element of probation had to remain a state function. The rest was divided up and given to various private contractors with disastrous, and predictable, consequences. 

Overall, some 200,000 men and women are supervised by probation at any one time. The majority of those overseen by the service have been sentenced to a community penalty. 

This unpaid work — a success story when linked to local neighbourhood needs — has now became symbolic of the wider failures. Private companies sent men to sit in car parks all day to fulfil their hours. The profit motive took possession of a process once firmly linked to the decisions of the courts; staff struggled to find purpose with what they were supervising. In 2018 and 2019, the then chief inspector of probation, Glenys Stacey, published a series of excoriating reports. 

Eventually, even ministers had to recognise that the service was failing and it was brought back under state control in 2020. Unfortunately, instead of reinstating local links, the functions were squeezed into the civil service. The independence and ability to speak out about local issues has gone. On-the-ground contacts with voluntary organisations and essential services such as housing have gone. The very things that are proven to prevent reoffending are gone. 

We now have a service that the current chief inspector describes as “shockingly bad” in many places. Heavy workloads, high vacancy rates, newly recruited, young and inexperienced staff who lack managers to guide their complex work: all these factors lead to mistakes. Ultimately they endanger the public. This deterioration only makes more pointless deaths like Aleena’s more likely. 

Ministers repeat the familiar mantra that new staff are being recruited, but they are coming in to a service where colleagues have lost faith and direction. It doesn’t have to be like this. Minimal reorganisation could revive a service essential for public safety. We should reinstate the links to local government so that housing, health, police and voluntary organisations can play a part. Yes, strategic direction and inspection must be central but local management is the best chance for reviving the probation service. 

I have one final suggestion. We need an expert body similar to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) to provide evidence-based guidance on what works and to make sure that future ministers cannot announce new punishments or big changes for their own self-aggrandisement. 

There will always be mistakes and there may still be tragedies — human beings can be unpredictable. Sometimes professionals fail and people who are already damaged and violent may go on to do something awful. But we can limit the chances, help offenders to change and save on the costs of reoffending. 

There is a body of research that shows how to help people who have committed crimes to atone for what they have done and turn their lives around. Let’s use it.

Frances Crook
The writer is former chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform

The first of a number of published comments makes an extremely valid observation and points us in the direction of something I was unaware of from 1999 :-

"I seem to recall that the architect of the privatisation of probation services was the former Labour Home Secretary Jack Straw who back in 1999 was busy centralising the local probation services into a national organisation (NOMS) converting local probation officers into civil servants. It was reported back on 13 September 1999, in the Independent* that Straw was planning to privatise the service, though it was the Conservatives would later implement this Labour plan." *see article:

Straw plans to privatise probation

JACK STRAW, the Home Secretary, is drawing up plans to privatise the Probation Service if standards of supervising offenders are not improved, insiders have warned.

Senior Probation Service staff believe that the "very existence" of the service is threatened, with Mr Straw ready to contract out its work to private security companies such as Group 4, and to professionals such as psychologists, teachers and healthcare workers.

The alarm was sounded by probation chiefs in Avon, after "grave" warnings from Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Probation that the service there was badly underperforming.

In a letter to staff, the Avon probation chiefs said: "We should be in no doubt that time is running out for the service nationally and if we fail to deliver the Government's agenda then it is clear that the Home Secretary will find alternative means of addressing his crime reduction policy."

The letter, signed by Roger Poynton, the acting Chief Probation Officer, Jean Findlay, the chairwoman of the Avon Probation Committee, and her two vice-chairman, states that Mr Straw may turn to private contractors rather than the modest changes to the service previously discussed. It states: "We ... would predict that his legislation will be of far greater significance, not tinkering with amalgamations, 100 per cent funding and civil servant CPOs [Chief Probation Officers], but more radically creating alternative means of supervising offenders in the community."

The Probation Service is working with the Home Office to become a nationally run service, funded entirely from central government, with chief officers employed as civil servants. But the Avon letter said: "The Home Secretary is already on record regarding his view that a range of alternative professionals (psychologists, teachers, health-care workers) should be involved with offenders and the prospect of contracting-out major sectors of work under the Government's Best Value initiative is a very real possibility."

The warning follows a visit to Avon by inspectors who "castigated" the service for its "appalling record on service delivery". The probation chiefs admitted that "vast sectors of our work are significantly below standard and to an extent that threatens our very existence".

Last night the Home Office said "nothing is ruled in or out" regarding the options for modernising the service.

Harry Fletcher, a spokesman for the National Association of Probation Officers, said the service was an easy target for politicians wanting to be seen to be hard on crime. He described the leaked letter as "an extraordinary attack on the integrity of staff".

--oo00oo--

Clearly the Independent still has probation in its sights. This from today:-

Probation crisis: one person killed every three days by offenders under supervision

More than 600 reviews in six years for alleged murders by known criminals

A person is killed every three days on average by an offender on probation in England and Wales, The Independent can reveal, as the crisis in public protection deepens. The litany of errors leading up to the murder of Zara Aleena by serial offender Jordan McSweeney has shone a spotlight on dangerous gaps in the monitoring of people leaving prison.

McSweeney had been released just nine days before brutally attacking and killing the aspiring lawyer as she walked home in east London, and a review by the probation watchdog warned that the horrific case was “symptomatic of much broader issues”.

Figures published by HM Inspectorate of Probation show that 622 reviews were triggered over alleged murders by reoffenders over the six years to 2020. Some culprits were ultimately acquitted, or convicted of lesser crimes such as manslaughter, while the Ministry of Justice recorded 415 cases of people being found guilty of a “serious further offence of murder” between 2014-15 and 2019-20.

More recent figures have not yet been published, but will include the murder of Aleena and the 2021 Killamarsh killings, which saw violent offender Damien Bendall murder three children and his pregnant partner.

Justin Russell, the chief inspector of probation, told a press conference last week: “It’s a core function of the probation service to protect the public from these risks, and they’re not getting it right at the moment.” He warned that until standards improve, it is “impossible to say that the public is being properly protected”, adding: “It could happen again.” Mr Russell said heavy workloads and high vacancy rates are making it impossible to properly monitor released prisoners, with the unit overseeing Aleena’s killer having had less than two-thirds of the required staff last year.

Many probation workers blame the chaos in staff recruitment and retention on underinvestment by the government, following the botched part-privatisation of the probation service in 2014 and the decision to renationalise it five years later. Ian Lawrence, general secretary of the Napo probation union, said staff “welcomed the return of probation back to state control but didn’t see the investment” needed.

He told The Independent that although work to recruit more staff is under way, many are “packing it in” within just weeks of arrival because of high workloads and the harrowing demands of the job. “The system needs sharpening. To say we’re giving staff training is all well and good, but [not] if they’ve got 75 cases on their books and they barely have time to go to the toilet,” Mr Lawrence added. 

“The government has failed to invest properly in the systems we need to ensure that mistakes like [that which led to Aleena’s murder] don’t happen again ... our members are working hard to protect the public.” He called for improvements in the way prisons provide information to probation workers on people coming up for release, and for police to act faster to arrest people who have broken licence conditions so they can be sent back to jail.

Napo had requested a meeting with justice secretary Dominic Raab, who is currently embroiled in allegations of bullying civil servants, but the task was passed to a junior minister. Mr Lawrence will put his demands to the prisons and probation minister, Damian Hinds, at a meeting on Monday. “The government needs to repair this service to the level it was at before it was part-privatised,” he said. “I’m not saying mistakes didn’t happen, but nothing like the scale of what’s been seen since.”

The Ministry of Justice said it had recruited 2,500 trainee probation officers over the past two years and would bring in another 500 by the end of March. A spokesperson added: “Serious further offences are incredibly rare, and the justice secretary has set out plans to overhaul the parole process and ensure prisoners who still pose a risk are kept behind bars. “We are investing £155m more into probation to deliver more robust supervision, reduce caseloads, and recruit thousands more staff to keep the public safe.”

17 comments:

  1. Justin Russell, the chief inspector of probation, is not helping at all. He, and his inspectorate, decimates probation and helps throw individual probation officers under the bus with his conclusions and press releases without identifying the real problems that sit with the chief officers of probation and the government mismanagement of probation over the past 10 years.

    I’m sick of Mr Russell and his HMIP Probation turning a blind eye to the issues of pay, the constant aggressive restructuring of probation by successive governments and incompetent justice ministers, the “One HMPPS” and prison service takeover of probation led by prison governor Amy Rees, while he builds himself as an advocate or probation practice for which he published academic research.

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    1. Justin Russell is not responsible for the issues you mention in terms of pay or structure.

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    2. Justin Russell represents HMIP, so yes it is. Issues including poor pay, excessive workloads, government and HMPPS meddling in probation, the inaction of chief probation officers are all why the probation service is in its current sorry state. Every SFO every inadequate PDU is so directly because of this. Let’s stop telling half truths to please government masters.

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    3. The clue is in the title- Inspectorate.

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  2. “The Ministry of Justice said it had recruited 2,500 trainee probation officers over the past two years and would bring in another 500 by the end of March.”

    But how many will qualify as Probation Officers, and how many for £30k a year on qualification will put up with or be able to handle unmanageable workloads, excessive and unhealthy working hours, threat of SFO fallout and working for a mismanaged and publicly-shamed Probation Service?

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  3. Raab + SFOs + Tory tax cheats: "You're gonna need a bigger prison"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/28/mega-prisons-plan-threatens-idyllic-essex-villages/

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  4. Two quotes from that latest Indie article that I think are grotesque & contribute to the widespread lack of understanding about probation:

    * Ian Lawrence, general secretary of the Napo probation union, said staff “welcomed the return of probation back to state control

    No-one wanted "state control". Staff wanted an independent public service. I thought he was the GS of a trade union, not on the HMPPS payroll. No wonder Lawro & HMPPS are so tight if he's so happy to promote their agenda.


    * Damian Hinds, at a meeting on Monday. “The government needs to repair this service to the level it was at before it was part-privatised,” he said. “I’m not saying mistakes didn’t happen, but nothing like the scale of what’s been seen since.”

    The mistakes that did happen were entirely & unequivocally mistakes of the government's own making, ably assisted by those they threw cash at. The mistakes "since" are the inevitable collateral damage. Its like saying the missile strike on the school might have been a mistake, but the lack of education since is all down to the teaching staff.

    Fucking lying cheating thieving muppets, the whole bally lot.

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    1. To that you can add the manipulation and government brown-nosing by HMIP which is far from independent.

      “Justin Russell, the chief inspector of probation, told a press conference last week: “It’s a core function of the probation service to protect the public from these risks, and they’re not getting it right at the moment.””

      No Justin, WE, did not get it wrong. When you say “the probation service” this means the probation officers who then get punished and thrown to the wolves.

      The GOVERNMENT got it wrong.

      The GOVERNMENT decimated, privatised and negatively restructured the probation service.

      The GOVERNMENT refused to pay probation officers proper wages for over 10 years and then gave a measly 3% pay rise.

      The GOVERNMENT is allowing HMPPS to further erode what’s left of probation into a subservient branch of Amy Rees’ prison service.

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  5. It looks very likely that there will also be an opportunity for recent retiree's, leavers and any brave current employees to contribute towards a radio programme in order to correct misconceptions and get out into the public domain what's really going on in the probation service. Confidentiality assured. Contact details on profile page.

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    1. Let’s hope they explain how Probation Chief Officers, Probation unions, the Probation Inspectorate, HMPPS, Amy Rees, Sonia Flynn, Jim Barton & Co are all part of the problem and have been since TR. It’s not just Chris Grayling anymore, it’s all that have had a hand in supporting and pushing through negative reforms. The probation officers are then punished and blamed for the failings that are beyond their control and expected to muddle through on low wages while the probation senior managers and senior HMPPS officials sit far from the frontline on nice salaries and award themselves MBE’s.

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  6. A number of concerns about justin's little homoly:

    "Justin Russell, the chief inspector of probation, told a press conference last week: “It’s a core function of the probation service to protect the public from these risks, and they’re not getting it right at the moment.” He warned that until standards improve, it is “impossible to say that the public is being properly protected”, adding: “It could happen again.” "

    1. It’s a core function of the probation service to protect the public from these risks - err, no. Its a core function of the probation service to work with convicted perpetrators, to help them address/change their behaviours such, where possible, they do not reoffend. Protecting the public is a by-product of that process... something that politicians, notably Straw & Boateng, have misrepresented for decades.

    2. they’re not getting it right at the moment - because the organisation has been decimated by political/ideological vandalism which was embraced by senior management & the inspectorate, and never fully pushed back at until Dame Glenys had one foot out of the door.

    3. until standards improve, it is “impossible to say that the public is being properly protected” - those thoughts are more appropriately directed at the UK's police forces, many of which seem to employ a fair few perpetrators of serious crime.

    4. “It could happen again.” A fabulous piece of prediction of hindsight aka stating the bleedin' obvious or "now that stable door has been kicked off, many more horses will escape".

    The "It" already happens every week:

    "Figures published by HM Inspectorate of Probation show that 622 reviews were triggered over alleged murders by reoffenders over the six years to 2020."

    The ONS report that to year end Sept 2022 there were 1,135,802 violent crimes & 663 homicides. In the year ending September 2022, sexual offences recorded by the police were at the highest level recorded within a 12-month period (199,021 offences).

    WHEN will we get an inspector of probation who is prepared to speak truth to power rather than protect their salary/pension/inevitable listing for honours.

    Anyone old enough to remember CPO Colin Edwards in Notts? Spoke his mind, wouldn't play ball with career politicians - the only Chief Probation Officer never to receive an honour when he left office. He was (if I remember rightly) helped out the door & replaced by a civil service suit who, interestingly, became less of a suit & stepped up to the plate when required (in a similarly distressing further offence matter):

    "David Hancock, Nottinghamshire's chief probation officer, said that he took full responsibility for the failures of his staff. and that he had apologised to Mrs Walker. But no disciplinary action has been taken against staff.

    Mr Hancock said the probation officer was very experienced but that she had failed to absorb the "finer details" of the guidelines on the drug-testing programme."

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/mar/26/ukcrime.prisonsandprobation1

    The inspector was without fear or favour in his report:

    "The report published yesterday by the chief inspector of probation, Rod Morgan, on the death of PC Gerald Walker in Nottingham in January last year includes scathing criticism of probation officers, Home Office ministers, and the management of the Nottinghamshire and national probation services."

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    1. I remember Colin very well. He fell asleep during my interview…must have worked in my favour as I was offered a post. By far the best Probation Service I have ever worked for, and one that wasn’t afraid to push back. We ran community action groups, anti poll tax campaigns and never proposed custody in court reports. We refused to deal with the police and in over 5 years I never breached or recalled an offender. It was only when I joined West Yorkshire that I realised Notts was the exception. Statistically we had very few reoffend which begs a question…

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  7. Probation service failures led to PC's death

    Leniency with early-release convict left him free to kill

    Serious failures by the probation service lay behind the killing of a police dog-handler by a convicted robber who was on an early release scheme, an inquiry has found.

    The report published yesterday by the chief inspector of probation, Rod Morgan, on the death of PC Gerald Walker in Nottingham in January last year includes scathing criticism of probation officers, Home Office ministers, and the management of the Nottinghamshire and national probation services.

    David Parfitt, 26, had been released early from Ranby prison under licence in a pilot scheme. The condition was that he should pass two drug tests each week.

    Professor Morgan found that Parfitt regularly breached his licence conditions. He missed seven appointments - on one occasion saying he "was feeling unwell as he had been smoking heroin heavily", and failed 10 out of 19 drug tests.

    The probation officer should have instigated the revocation of his licence, his arrest, and his recall to prison in September 2002, but he continued to show "inappropriate leniency" for a further three months.

    Parfitt was being tracked by police officers after his licence was officially revoked in Dec-ember 2002. He was on the run when Walker tried to stop him in a stolen taxi.

    Parfitt sped off and the dog handler was dragged by the speeding car. Walker died two days later from head injuries. Parfitt was captured the next day. He was jailed for 13 years in December 2003 for manslaughter.

    The police officer's widow, Tracy Walker, said the report had confirmed all that she had feared.

    "If the probation service had not failed in their duty my husband would still be alive today. If the drug testing scheme had been properly enforced he would never have been out on the streets."

    It was Mrs Walker's campaign to learn the full background to her husband's death that led to today's report.

    Prof Morgan highlights the failings in Nottinghamshire probation service, which should have had Parfitt returned to prison shortly after he was released. The 92-page report portrays a chaotic situation in the Derby Road probation office in Nottingham, where there were only eight staff to deal with 1,200 cases. The management should take the blame, since they were labouring under such an enormous workload, the report says.

    The problems were compounded by the probation staff being confused by differing rules of three government pilot schemes on drugs running at the time in Nottingham.

    The report vindicates the original decision by the prison service to release Parfitt early but says the probation officer used her own judgment to assess his progress instead of following guidelines, and failed to take enforcement action when he missed drugs test.

    The national probation service is blamed for failing to act on the policy issues arising in the case. Home Office ministers are also censured for their "inept" arrangements for expressing official condolences to Mrs Walker and their two children: a card with the funeral flowers called him George instead of Gerald.

    David Hancock, Nottinghamshire's chief probation officer, said that he took full responsibility for the failures of his staff. and that he had apologised to Mrs Walker. But no disciplinary action has been taken against staff.

    Mr Hancock said the probation officer was very experienced but that she had failed to absorb the "finer details" of the guidelines on the drug-testing programme.

    The correctional services minister, Paul Goggins, said the government was determined to address the failings identified by the report. "We also accept there are serious flaws in the way both the probation service and the Home Office dealt with Mrs Walker, and will take steps to ensure that bereaved families are treated differently in future."

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    1. In the past chief probation officers and senior managers would speak out publicly to defend probation or they’d resign.

      Now they throw the probation officers under the bus, send the rest on training as a punishment and then award themselves MBE’s.

      http://probationmatters.blogspot.com/2014/07/a-lesson-from-history.html?m=1

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    2. A trip down memory lane indeed. From the News Shopper:-

      Mike Guilfoyle from probation union NAPO said: "As a result of this change will Londoners feel safer or not? The weight of evidence from those who do the job is no. We believe the safety of the public will be compromised. "The potential for another Sonnex, we believe, is likely to increase."

      He pointed out that the change could lead to a lack of transparency, with information about performance difficult to obtain. Mr Guilfoyle said: "A whole raft of people who probation had a public accountability for now will be farmed out to any number of organisations."

      Probation officer Peter Halsall from Lewisham, also a NAPO member, said: "There's been a huge improvement since Sonnex. Why are you then taking it apart? "Do you want to entrust the safety of the population to a company like G4S which can't actually organise security for the Olympics?"

      He warned that dealing with offenders meant monitoring their risk, and that would be harder with different categories of risk allocated to different providers. He said: "The more organisations there are, the easier it becomes for somebody to get missed. "The transfer process is just going to lead to a huge raft of bureaucracy. When you get that then you're putting people at risk."

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  8. They can recruit as many staff as they like, but to my mind that will resolve little, it just means more people to do the same old shite.
    There's too much experience gone out the door, and too much inexperience gone up the greasy pole.
    Who will mentor and train this influx of new recruits? Last years or the year before intake?
    It's a constant complaint that staff struggle because of high caseloads. It's a legitimate complaint, but are caseloads so high just because of staff shortages? Or as I would argue, there's just too many people being subjected to probation?
    Before TR, the 12mth and under cohort were considered to resource expensive to be subjected to probation. Grayling brought them into the fold solely as a means to stock the shelves of probation, so private companies could look forward to more cases to manage and get paid for.
    Their incorporation was part of TR, so reverse it! That would be 50 to 60,000 less caseloads to manage, and being brutally honest, this caseload can look forward to nothing more from probation then being signposted to somewhere else or recall to custody.
    If probation services were more localised, then that may be different, but under a national management structure, this group just become resource exhausting with no benefit to them or society as a whole.
    There are just too many people (best part of a quarter of a million) being funneled through probation.

    https://www-dailyecho-co-uk.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/23280420.amp/?amp_gsa=1&amp_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQKKAFQArABIIACAw%3D%3D#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16749982816522&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailyecho.co.uk%2Fnews%2F23280420.southampton-recruitment-drive-underway-probation-jobs%2F

    'Getafix

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    1. Once again 'Getafix nails it!

      A RECRUITMENT drive is underway in Southampton for roles in the prison and probation service.

      City residents are being urged to consider new jobs in the HM Prison and Probation Service.

      Open to a "wide range of applicants", the drive has already seen people move from the retail and hospitality sectors.

      The service is looking to fill a number of roles including probation service officers, case administrators and trainee probation officers.

      Brittany Moore, aged 24, from Southampton, joined after studying an English degree at university.

      She said: "The highlight of the job for me is working with people on probation and watching them progress.

      "I have seen people at the lowest time in their life, but following the support of the Probation Service, are now striving and back on their feet."

      Currently, there are 958 working in the service and from October 2021 to September 2022 the region saw 196 new workers join up.

      Applications to become a case administrator or probation services officer are open now: www.jobs.justice.gov.uk/agency/probation-service/

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