Free Thinking : Crime and punishment medieval to modern
Crime and punishment medieval to modern
How have attitudes to punishment changed over time, and what ideas about the rationale for punishment are circulating today?
In Radio 4's roundtable discussion programme, Matthew Sweet and guests explore the criminal justice system through history. With:
Stephanie Brown, Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Hull and BBC / AHRC New Generation Thinker on the scheme which puts research on radio
Scout Tzofiya Bolton, poet and broadcaster who presents on National Prison Radio, and for Radio 4 the Illuminated episode called The Ballad of Scout and the Alcohol Tag. Her poetry collection is called The Mad Art of Doing Time
Joanna Hardy-Susskind, criminal barrister and presenter for Radio 4 of a series called You Do Not Have To Say Anything
Stephen Shapiro, Professor of American Literature at the University of Warwick
Jonathan Sumption, former Supreme Court judge and now Moral Maze panellist for BBC Radio 4 and author of a five-volume account of The Hundred Years War
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As an aside, this got a mention (AI generated):-
Here are the key details regarding her remarks:
The Vision: In an interview with Tony Blair, Mahmood stated her "ultimate vision" was to achieve, "by means of AI and technology, what Jeremy Bentham tried to do with his Panopticon".
"Eyes of the State": She explicitly stated that her goal is for "the eyes of the state can be on you at all times," aiming to use AI to get ahead of criminals.
AI-Powered Policing: The proposal is part of a broader, £140 million plan to overhaul policing, which includes a massive expansion of live facial recognition (LFR) technology, increasing surveillance vans from 10 to 50.
Criticism: The comments have been heavily criticized by opposition politicians and civil liberties groups, with some describing it as an "authoritarian" or "dystopian" move towards a "Big Brother" state.
Context: While the original Bentham Panopticon was a design for a prison where inmates could be observed without knowing they were being watched, Mahmood’s vision extends this concept to the use of data, AI, and facial recognition in public life.
"The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons." Dostoevsky
ReplyDelete“A society is measured by the treatment of its prisoners”. Churchill
"No one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens but its lowest ones." Mandela
Probation’s absence from these conversations is revealing rather than accidental.
ReplyDeletePrisons are where punishment happens. Probation is where the long tail of responsibility lives. It is less visible, less dramatic and politically less rewarding to discuss.
Most people who go to prison come back out. At that point, the system’s success or failure depends heavily on what happens in the community. Yet community supervision rarely features in public debate unless something catastrophic occurs.
Perhaps the parallel universe is not probation. It is the idea that incarceration alone resolves crime.
And probation doesn't speak up.
DeleteMaybe probation (in England and Wales) does not speak up because it does not have a recognisable spokesperson like David Mathieson or Harry Fletcher (both initially via Napo) or later Paul Senior (also once of Napo) or the latest I can name is Susan Hall - (I think her name was of the Probation Chief's Association) - can you suggest another, please dear reader?
DeleteMy pathetic efforts to speak for probation workers at the frontline were pathetic - I gave up Party politics over it in the late 1980s and even today did not take part in the Crispin Flintoff show because of it https://thecrispinflintoffshow.co.uk/
You have to have prison or what else. Probation has no proper identity anymore. It neither produces psr sentence diversion . No sir either in that it makes the circumstances of the individual known to the court in a dispassionate way to open a community based sentence. No real plan to a sentence that probation will makes the offender change. So prison seems to be the right choice the only choice and in some cases prison both penalises causes pain remorse and change . Therefore in many and some cases prison works. With that in mind sentences take a punt with people's lives . Probation has no role in that nowadays sadly.
Delete13:17 Probation speaks up but because we are not united our voice is reduced to a tiny itchy scratchy thing in the back of the room. Our reps are under supported and resourced and our strategy is to abandon the only organisations that have access to decision makers. Ask yourselves who is it the powers that be are going to listen to? Strong unions with the majority of the workers as members and outspoken leaders experienced in the realities of the job and Probation practice or diminishing unions that have a small percentage of the workforce as members. Leaders who if they were once practitioners lost touch years ago. The other thing is that the majority of probation officers are now young inexperienced and female and the majority of decision makers are older males who sustain weakness. They will not consider their views if listened to at all as particularly persuasive or powerful.
DeleteProbation exists in the public imagination only twice:
ReplyDeleteBefore sentencing, when it produces a report.
After a tragedy, when it becomes a headline.
Everything in between might as well be invisible.
The public has been fed a rich diet of misinformation about Probation over decades. There are many reasons for the state of things now. Personally I think that the real Probation service ceased to exist ten years ago after terminal decline and it is all a sham. Let’s just accept it has gone forever and what remains is a dim echo a facsimile of a once respected service. It should be renamed the community punishment service and be done with it as the rehabilitation ethos isn’t there anymore.
DeleteThe Panopticon idea assumes that being watched changes behaviour.
ReplyDeleteWe all know that in practice, compliance driven by surveillance is fragile. It can suppress visible misconduct without addressing the conditions that produce it. When monitoring stops, the underlying issues remain.
The danger is mistaking observation for rehabilitation.
Bentham’s Panopticon never worked in practice, the control over education, rehabilitation, and freedom was always a fantasy. Yet 2026 is starting to look like 1984, as his vision has come alive in terrifying digital form. Today, probation straps the masses to electronic monitors under the guise of public protection and rehabilitation, while AI-backed tools churn out risk scores that decide freedom, replacing practitioner judgment and presence, turning lives into constant case studies in obedience. On the streets, Mahmood’s expansion of facial recognition lets police watch everyone, everywhere, erasing privacy and amplifying bias, mistakes, and state control. The psychological toll is brutal: fear, anxiety, self-policing, the creeping sense that every move is tracked, judged, and punishable. What was once a prison fantasy has metastasized into a society-wide Panopticon, where humans are data points, authority is absolute, and liberty is an illusion, the blueprint of modern surveillance horror. If probation had a voice, it wouldn’t be buying into this, but what can we expect when those in charge are desperate to please those above, whether they have a clue or not.
DeleteWord of the Day: Wankpuffin
ReplyDeleteA senior figure, typically in possession of a title, a strategy document, and an unshakeable belief that speaking at length is the same as listening.
Characterised by confident delivery, selective hearing, and a touching faith that repeating a point more slowly makes it more persuasive.
Often emerges from lengthy meetings to declare them “very constructive,” particularly when no dissenting views were permitted to survive the agenda.
Noted habitat includes briefing notes, all-staff emails, and podiums positioned safely out of conversational range.
Distinguishing features include:
• An ability to interpret silence as agreement
• A fondness for phrases such as “moving forward,” “in this space,” and “valuable feedback”
• A tendency to regard questions as minor technical obstacles rather than attempts to obtain answers
Commonly observed wherever communication flows efficiently downward but struggles heroically to travel in the opposite direction.
Known to depart interactions satisfied that reassurance has been delivered, leaving behind a faint smell of corporate optimism and a roomful of people quietly updating their CVs.
Earlier today I had a reminder of Lord Hunt as chairman of The Parole Board and at about the same time as President of Napo.
DeleteThat is John Hunt the man who led the first definitely successful ascent of Mount Everest which almost miraculously was reported back to Britain and the world on the day of Queen Elizabeth II's Coronation in 1953 by James later Jan Morris then the Times correspondent and sole journalist who went with the Everest Expedition
He was very pro probation and in the 1970s habitually gave a witty summing up and uplifting speech in the last session of the AGM on the Sunday morning. A bit of a hero to me in TVs Black & White one or two channel days - I still have my Mum's book club book of his Ascent of Everest book - which I have yet to fully read.
Anyway - as Chair of the Parole Board he made a trip to Liverpool Probation - which included a stop at the Old Swan Office where I worked.
We had teapot management the SPO made sure all the team in the office met for a 15 minute tea break twice a day and most of us took our lunch there most days. My hero joined us for afternoon tea - I only remember his quiet listening presence and I felt we were heard and sympathized with in the terms of whatever nationally we were being expected to do back then. That visit was probably what led me to later - like other POs on two occasions seek to attend a hearing of The central Parole Board - which I did and being sent a massive bundle of 25 or so dossiers to read in advance and then getting real hospitality at those boards (Hunt was no longer chair) and being invited to comment - thereafter I encouraged many colleagues to do likewise but only recall hearing of one or two actually doing it.
Probation was very different before KPI's and "stakeholders" (I can't remember what either actually really meant) I do not think I ever got over when the Local Review Committees of the Parole Board were abolished - in the 1980s I think.
Reading this post, I was reminded of the following from a previous read, more relevant now than ever:
ReplyDelete“Similarly, if probation is unable to develop a clear and credible identity, distinct from narratives around punishment, public safety, use of technology, cost-effectiveness, or custody alternatives, and to resist the urge to overpromise on risk management, public protection, and crime control, then it may continue to face the challenge of misrepresentation.”
Probation 2026 isn’t really a “parallel universe” anymore. It is reduced, forgotten, and often airbrushed out of existence in policy and public imagination.
This is made more urgent by the Sentencing Act, and expanded technological monitoring. Technology and AI are presented as solutions to efficiency pressures, managing caseloads, reducing admin, analysing data, increasing remote supervision. Used properly, these tools can support professional judgement and reduce bureaucracy.
But if probation is to be a sentence and agency in its own right, not just a cheaper alternative to custody or an extension of surveillance, then how can it rehabilitate people and improve practice when the focus shifts to security, tagging, remote monitoring, and efficiency metrics?
AI can process information and flag patterns, but cannot build trust, hold difficult conversations, exercise moral judgement, or navigate human realities that underpin change. If efficiency and security dominate, and probation does not define what must remain human and relational, technology then replaces relationships with surveillance tool.
The question is not whether technology has a role, whether it serves probation’s rehabilitative mission, or quietly reshapes it into something else. At that point, it is no longer simply misrepresentation; it is existential if being used to serve probation’s purpose by redefining it beyond recognition.
Yes indeed - Shaping Probation’s Identity https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ec3ce97a1716758c54691b7/t/6849d80853c6e200f3f79e69/1749669898562/Shaping+Probation%E2%80%99s+Identity.pdf
Deletewhat can we expect when those in charge are desperate to please those above, whether they have a clue or not.
DeleteAnyone who was in Probation during the last Labour government isn't, or shouldn't, be surprised they have little regard for Probation, I would suggest they have done more damage to Probation during there time than the Conservatives, despite TR, and continue in the same vein.
ReplyDeleteSo true very well known historically we had done better under the Tories. It was labour that opened the privatisation framework don't forget . I once had a decent audience with Michael Howard before TR he was home sec then and what he was saying with his legal background was more than assuring probation was part of the desired machinery. Along comes Cameron and the dopey liberals and we all got terminated one way or the other.
DeleteLabour sell everyone out eventually all they want is to be loved .
DeleteVery true. Most of the nostalgia on this blog harks back to a golden age when the Tories were in charge followed by Blair’ managerialism. The fact is Probation moved centre stage, achieved devolved status, and has been in decline ever since due to increased demands and political interference.
DeleteWhilst wishing all those who see this wishing you all a kind/happy Sunday. Thinking of all those working across Community Payback today difference making across their communities. Just an update really. I’ve now tried to connect with 61 MP’s All Labour and of those 12 have responded and I await 3 replies to emails I was invited to write. I do share updates/Information with those MP’s and indeed some of the analysis shared in this blog. Im also starting to think about my response to James Timpsons letter to my MP which actually says very little and clearly doesn't connect with what is being said and shared over the past 6 months in this blog. Now Ive established some momentum I would again encourage you to write to your MP if nothing more to put Probation on their radar. I do so hope/pray there is the outcome you would all want/hope for when the ballot closes next Friday. IanGould5
ReplyDelete“Making a difference,” “extraordinary work,” “hidden heroes” … it’s rhetoric, Ian. We’re not being heroic; we’re doing our jobs, often in poor conditions for low pay - the lowest in the criminal justice system. If we’re so heroic and extraordinary, then they’d pay and resource us to suit. That language just dresses it up and keeps us compliant. We need to stop buying into it.
Deletehttps://napomagazine.org.uk/the-pay-offer-is-it-harmful-to-your-health-as-well-as-your-future-income/
Ian - I've found its pointless trying to lobby MPs unless you've a bag of silver pieces (shekels are popular at the moment) you can wave at them. The current govt is, put simply, every govt we've had since 1979, it merely changes its coat to suit the season - weasels are as weasels do.
DeleteWhen a population of deer grows beyond what is deemed sustainable, we happily cull them. Its time for a weasel cull, to put an end to the exponential growth of the population of freeloaders, corrupt liars & warmongers, the self-defined 'elite' who fleece the public purse whilst preaching austerity for all.
Probation has been a popular punchbag for decades; many posters on this blog (including Andrew & getafix) have oft identified the historical issues, the long-running saga of the political battle for control of probation services, the ridiculousness of subsuming the probation role within the remit of the prisons estate.
Yet not even the noble Lord Ramsbotham & his fine oratory could effect any shift in the stance of the lock-em-up shitweasels.
Having said that, all efforts must be focused on at least raising the issues, challenging the lies & the reframing & the bullying, showing moj/hmpps that there IS a dissenting voice, a voice which speaks good sense in the face of their grotesque diatribes & revisionist bullshit.
“When he was told to get out he was so arrogant and deluded he repeatedly shouted, ‘But I’m the Queen’s second son, you can’t do this to me’."
DeleteEvening Standard, Megan Howe, Sun, 22 Feb 2026
QED
We need to reframe the rhetoric, translate it into plain English.
Delete“Making a difference” = working for peanuts.
“Extraordinary work” = chronically underpaid work.
“Hidden heroes” = bullied public sector workers propping up a failing system.
It’s all just a gloss on exploitation. And yes governments, of whatever stripe, have never truly been interested. Weak leaders rarely speak up, and that silence has consequences.
Call it what it is.
And let’s retire another tired line:
Delete“We don’t do this job for the money.”
Translation: we work to get paid. We don’t do it for free.
Commitment to public service isn’t a vow of poverty. Caring about the work doesn’t cancel the right to good pay. You can value the mission and still insist on being valued in return.
And it’s worth noting: the senior managers, senior civil servants and ministers who like to repeat this line do, in fact, work for the money, and they earn significantly more than the people they’re saying it to.
Thanks to Ian for his efforts - I will not be writing to my MP - Priti Patel and I shall not detail the brush offs she gave me before and particularly when I lobbied her at The Palace of Westminster without alerting her first, as I have done with several other MPs and she shooed me away assuring me TR was going to be safely introduced in Essex because the chiefs of all the relevant services - County Council, Police and Probation had said it would be - that was on the day the 2014 legislation was approved in the House of Commons years before she was sacked as a Minister for abusing her position which was even earlier that she messed up the Home Office as Boris Johnson's Home Secretary - it is pointless contacting some Politicians unless you can go with a substantial delegation and get media coverage - like we did in about 1979 with the pay claim when the Conservatives first got back in office,
DeleteIt used to be called community service. A productive and positive term even though it was a court ordered sanction.
ReplyDeleteThen it became unpaid work and community payback. A negative and punitive terminology.
Isn't the real question that probation needs to address is if its focus is really on "makaking a difference ", is that difference being made by how it engages and supports those who may reoffend and harm the public. Or by policing those on probation until the end of their court order or licence period?
Is it building from the bottom up, or pushing from the top down?
People need a stake in the society they live in if they are to progress. Constant alienation and being an "outsider" makes a difference, but it ain't a positive one.
'Getafix
Breach and recall em
ReplyDeleteparallel universe? you betcha... FOI request by TheCanary has revealed that water companies in the UK have been handed £22+million from the universal credit pot, allegedly for "bad debt". Sounds like a scam - a bit like the crc's pocketing government money which wasn't theirs to keep, but the govt said they were monitoring it; remember the words of selous:
ReplyDelete"Contract Management Teams are embedded in each CRC, closely monitoring how all monies are used and robust processes are in place to ensure all expenditure is correctly spent."
Who has ever seen any evidence whatsoever of the "robust processes" or of any audit trail maintained by those Contract Managers? Exactly. I wonder if any of those 'managers' were rewarded for their lack of diligence via elevation into the hmpps management structure?
https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2026/02/11/dwp-hapless/
"The Canary has revealed how during a 12-month period, water companies leached £22.4m from customers’ Universal Credit via the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
However, in obtaining the figure, we also discovered that the DWP has no record of what each company has been seizing from welfare claimants.
The Universal Credit deductions data does not state the name of a water company owed money, or reason for the debt, and as the water arrears data is not broken down, we cannot determine whether any deduction is for water supply or sewerage."
Any other business with such lacklustre care for £tens-of-millions wouldn't last 5 minutes. But hey, its the civil service, it aint their money, so they don't give a fuck - do you, romeo et al???
Can any experts on here write some psr assesment on Andrew . Given a job he couldn't be qualified to deliver. He is alleged to have failed his duties in a public office. Sold or gave confidential material. Will have lost UK billions not made us a cent. This conduct will have a loss value while us poor workers will fund his lifestyle and fund his stupidity that his degree gave him a licence to be an idiot beyond. Anyone shed a paragraph. His sexual issues are not on the script as yet. So how do we offer a recommendation on a man who had status title entitlement.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who believes themselves to be an expert cannot be. Expertise in social work acknowledges there are not certaintes to be sure and "expert" about.
ReplyDeleteThis opinion is flawed because it wrongly equates expertise with absolute certainty. In social work, as in other complex professions regulated by bodies like Social Work England, expertise does not mean claiming infallibility; it means having advanced knowledge, experience, and judgment while recognising uncertainty and complexity. In fact, acknowledging limits and practising reflective thinking is itself a marker of professional expertise. Saying that anyone who believes they are an expert cannot be one confuses humility with a lack of competence and overlooks how expertise actually functions in practice. Examples of social work experts include practitioners, academics, and thought leaders who have developed recognised authority through research, practice, and influence.
DeleteI agree with Anon at 08.31 - I was really speaking with the more general understanding of the term expert rather than a social work understanding and should have expressed myself fore precisely. For comparison I have in mind claims to "common sense".
DeleteInadequate management oversight!
ReplyDelete