Taking Stock

I've been trying to get my head around exactly what's been going on over the last few weeks and to be honest my head has been spinning. Looking back, it began to feel like we were on a roll heading towards the end of November with a series of themes around morality, encouraged by the on-going BBC Radio 4 Reith Lectures. I guess it was the dreadful news of a further attack on a PO in Oxfordshire, following on from the summer Preston stabbing. 

For me it crystalised my generally perceived way in which probation must be being viewed by the clientele - we're the enemy, in no way being part of any solution, just an uncaring route to recall, and that must surely put everyone working in this field in danger. Knife arches, body cameras, security guards are clearly not any kind of answer if we're seen as the problem. Why on earth can't intelligent, sensible people in authority see that abandoning our core aim of assisting rehabilitation by endlessly focussing on 'risk' puts us all in danger and does nothing to reduce the prison population?

I think it was the blog post 'What Probation Has Become' at the end of November that cemented the upward trajectory both in site visits and contributions, rising to 1,500 and things have been steadily climbing ever since, despite festive activity providing distractions. Recent contributions have been stunning and I sense returning to some of the heady days of the TR fight when I know the MoJ got quite worried about the traction the blog was getting. But that's the problem now, it doesn't get the same traction for a whole host of reasons. It's quite clear that this site goes completely unnoticed by newer colleagues and especially PQiP students. This is not a particularly hopeful message on the private Facebook PQiP Training page boasting 2,800 members:-

"This group is to support PQUIP’s as such we need to ensure the group remains positive, supportive and helpful at all times. In order to do so posts may not be allowed if they are aimed at organisation change or policy, specific workload issues, specific colleague or caseload issues."

Academics at the three training Universities take no interest in it, but then we know all are contractually bound by the MoJ/HMPPS to say nothing publicly that might question probation policy or practice! It still surprises me though at the lack of 'professional curiosity' because any google search of 'probation' brings up this blog almost as quickly as HMPPS itself and there's some very good stuff on here.

Of course we've sadly lost key supporters, particularly in Parliament and both the PI and Napo voices are simply not strong enough. Although it's pretty clear to many of us what any sustainable solution might be, despite the appalling performance of the top HMPPS/MoJ team at last week's PAC hearing, appart from a couple of notable exceptions, committee members seem pretty clueless to me. I loved the input from one particularly useless member who 'had done some research at the weekend' and was effectively slapped down by the Chair. Like most people, parliamentarians including my MP haven't a clue or interest in probation and we still lack any kind of authoritative voice. But I don't want to sound down-hearted because I still  believe it could all come right - remember the immortal words of Harold Macmillan "events dear boy, events".  

Seeing as we know how keen Lord Timpson is on AI being able to sort much of probation's staffing problems by freeing up a day a week for more cases, I've finally understood why the blog viewing figures rocketed by several millions last year. It seems 'bots' based in Vietnam were trawling all over it, operated by poorly-paid humans, scooping up all the fine words in order to inform 'Large Language Models' that all AI platforms require. So, it seems we've all unwittingly helped enormously with the AI revolution.

I'll end this bit of reflecting with a word of extremely grateful thanks to all the many faithful readers, supportes and contributors who on a daily basis help keep my faith in probation returning to being a noble and worthwhile endeavour and prevent me from feeling it's time to pack it all in. If you are up for the ride, then so am I. So, on that note and back to the fray, this from overnight:-

We’re Normalising Failure

Let’s stop pretending. Those of us inside probation can see what’s happening every day. The reality is we’re normalising a level of failure that would once have triggered emergency action.

Most cases are now managed at the bare minimum. Real rehabilitative work is rationed. Risk management has become thinner, more administrative, and more about covering organisational exposure than actually keeping people safe. And this didn’t start with Covid.

TR didn’t just reorganise probation – it broke its professional spine. It stripped out experience, fragmented delivery, replaced values with contracts, and taught a generation of staff that survival mattered more than craft. Covid just accelerated the damage.

Yes, the pandemic disrupted face-to-face work. But what we’re dealing with now isn’t a temporary hangover. It’s structural: unsafe workloads, chronic vacancies, constant churn of inexperienced staff, and a system that quietly depends on goodwill and moral injury to keep functioning.

Unification was meant to be the reset. It wasn’t. We didn’t get a stable, well-resourced public service. We got a bigger version of the same fragility – with better branding. You can see it in the gaps: 

– Programmes that exist in theory but not in practice
– RARs that quietly translate into “telephone check-ins”
– Commissioned services that are commissioned but not really available
– Risk management done fast, not well
– Public protection framed as compliance, not craft

We’ve shifted from professional judgement to defensive practice. From “What does this person need to change?” to “What do I need to record so I don’t get blamed?” That’s not what any of this was meant to be. Staff aren’t the problem. They’re holding up a broken system with skill and integrity that goes largely unrecognised. The danger is that we start to accept this as normal. Because once failure becomes normal, recovery stops being possible.

Probation needs honesty, investment, and the return of trust in professional practice. And those of us inside the system know exactly how far away that is.

--oo00oo--

"Sometimes people ask me what's it like being a probation officer. I say : part social worker, part security guard, part clairvoyant — basically the Avengers, but with worse pay. Still you'd be amazed at what you can achieve when you replace experience with optimism and a mandatory e-learning module."

******
"I tell them it's basically a factory job with a human conveyor belt, transporting people from prison, to court, to the community then back to prison. We wrap them up nicely and label them High, Med, Low to ensure correct delivery and obviously we have to hit daily targets and also check for any damaged goods. So basically the criminal justice version of Amazon as we always accept returns and constantly introduce new ways to trap people into thinking we're offering a decent service."