We're just a dumping ground for the prison service. The beleaguered cap doffers. The national guidelines only favour the prison especially for releases. No push back allowed from community probation. How dare we have concerns from the houses of staff shaggers of offenders (weekly convictions), spice deliveries and the illicit EE shops of illegal mobile phones. So much so that we were not rated by the MOJ, despite the gaslighting, £50 vouchers (rarely) and placating about how valued we are. We literally have to beg for a pay rise, but the prisons don't. That kind of tells you where the political agenda is. Oh, but community probation, you get on with reducing the prison population with zero investment, such as proper ETE intervention.
We're just the poor stepchild of the MOJ. "An extraordinary job done by someone like you" but paid lip service to our supposed relevance. We're all now registered POs, but have less and less autonomy and respect and you wonder why people are disgruntled? Value comes from your own zeal and motivation but it also comes from being paid properly in a dignified manner that doesn't look protracted and undignified. They really don't care about us, other than to dump their warehoused offenders for the real work to commence. But we barely have any investment in the community to be effective. This is all by design. Circus, monkeys, fatigue.
Stop making criminal justice policy by placating people who are too dim to know what a minimum tariff is. Social media is awash with stupid people, jerking knees and foaming at the mouth with a distastefully informed racism and xenophobia wherever they see someone convicted of a crime. It's why prisons have primacy.
Anon
This nails something many of us feel but rarely see stated so plainly: probation has become the system’s shock absorber. When prisons are full, we absorb the pressure. When policy backfires, we absorb the risk. When ministers need a headline, we absorb the consequences. And we’re expected to do it quietly, cheaply, and gratefully.
ReplyDeleteThe imbalance is structural. National guidance, release decisions, recall thresholds, they overwhelmingly privilege prison priorities, while community concerns are framed as obstruction or risk aversion. Push back is tolerated only when it aligns with reducing the prison population, never when it involves protecting staff or making work viable. That tells you everything about where power sits.
And yes, the pay saga exposes it brutally. We don’t negotiate, we plead. We wait. We’re managed through delay, praise, vouchers, and rhetoric about “extraordinary work”, while prisons are treated as politically essential infrastructure. That isn’t an accident. It reflects a political culture that understands custody, optics and punishment but not rehabilitation, prevention or community safety.
What makes this corrosive is that probation is still expected to deliver the hardest work: managing risk in the community, stabilising chaos, holding people who are unwanted everywhere else without the investment, authority or autonomy to do it properly. Then we’re blamed when outcomes aren’t perfect.
You’re right: this isn’t drift. It’s design. Exhaustion substitutes for investment. Moral pressure replaces pay. Fatigue becomes a management tool. And the public discourse, driven by punitive noise rather than understanding, gives ministers cover to keep prisons centre stage while probation does the invisible labour.
People aren’t disgruntled because they don’t care. They’re disgruntled because they care in a system that no longer values that care. And no amount of “extraordinary job” messaging can paper over that reality.
“We don’t do it for the money. We’re doing an extraordinary job.”
ReplyDeleteThat line is what probation leaders and justice ministers use when they want people to shut up and carry on. It’s not inspiring. It’s a way of excusing bad pay and dressing it up as values. It turns being underpaid into something staff are supposed to feel grateful for.
Nobody at the top lives by this rule. Ministers don’t work for vocation. Senior leaders don’t accept purpose instead of salary. Consultants don’t invoice in goodwill. Only probation staff are told that caring about the job should make low pay acceptable. It’s manipulation and exploitation.
Probation is called complex, risky and vital right up until pay is mentioned. Then suddenly there’s “no money” and “hard choices.” That claim falls apart instantly when you look at the numbers. The service has managed a £100 million underspend, while the wider system has found £700 million for electronic tagging. So stop pretending this is about affordability as the money exists. Their choice is not to spend it on staff.
And then there’s the £20 “reward and recognition” vouchers. Giving trained professionals £20 and calling it appreciation is an embarrassment. It’s scraps which says: we know you’re overloaded, stressed, and carrying risk, but this is all we’re willing to offer. No serious organisation treats skilled staff this way and still expects respect.
This will continue because no one really stops it. Probation’s unions and professional bodies talk about values, but when it comes to pay and status, they achieve very little. If you cannot force better pay than 4% on already low salaries, challenge ministers, or hold leaders to account, then they’re not representing workers, but we know this already.
So the cycle goes on. Ministers dodge responsibility. Leaders hide behind slogans. Unions soften the anger. Staff are told to remember why they joined. People burn out, leave, or switch off.
If this really is an extraordinary job, then Pay people properly.