"Prison recall rates in England and Wales have reached record highs, with over 51,400 people recalled to custody in the 12 months leading to March 2026.
Key Statistics
Record Highs: Annual recalls reached 51,419, surpassing new court sentencing admissions (around 47,000) for the first time.
The Recall Rate: In early 2026, the quarterly recall rate exceeded 100%—meaning more people were pulled back into prison than were released during that window.
Reasons for Recall: Only about 21% to 22% of recalls involve a charge for further criminal offending. The vast majority are driven by technical licence breaches, such as non-compliance (9,683 in Q1 2026) or failing to keep in touch with probation (5,025 in Q1 2026)."
[Sources were variously quoted as The Times; PrisonAdvice & Care Trust; BBC; Russell Webster]
In the Red Corner: "Only about 21% to 22% of recalls involve a charge for further criminal offending... The vast majority are driven by technical licence breaches"
In the Blue Corner: " What I object to is the lazy leap from that figure to 'probation is recalling too many people'. "
And I have an answer to the question posed: "what is it within the system that has led to a much much higher use of recall as a risk management tool?" A simple four-letter word. Fear.
- Fear generated by the system to ensure the system remains intact.
- Fear perpetuated by the layers of authority who need y'all to do as you're told.
- Fear of getting it wrong (but that can also be a healthy & valuable tool in the box)
- Fear of losing your job.
- Fear of being crucified by the obedient box-tickers who can't see past their own fears.
- Fear of recognising that your expertise, your knowledge of the job, your professional judgement is worthless in the eyes of the organisation.
- Fear generated in the media
- Fear magnified by worthy groups & representative organisations
Anon
--oo00oo--
Yes, we’ve heard it all time and time again: “Probation recalls caused prison overcrowding.” It’s simply not that straightforward and the figures need to be scrutinised. Overcrowding is also about crumbling prisons, the number of people held on remand, and early-release schemes that can result in people being released at very short notice without the support they need. Those schemes can then increase the likelihood of recalls. How many women, children and foreign nationals are in prison unnecessarily?
Nobody is denying that probation can sometimes be trigger-happy when it comes to recalls. But perhaps we should ask why.. Before we even get into that, if we really don’t want recalls, there are some fairly obvious options: make people serve their full sentence, abolish post-release licences, or make probation supervision voluntary. It really is that simple.
Here’s a hypothetical example or maybe it’s real!! Three men walk into a bar one evening. A serious incident takes place and all three are arrested on suspicion.
The first is on probation after being released from prison. He has missed his last two probation appointments. He had earlier explained to his probation officer on the phone that he didn’t have the money to get to the office, and the bus tickets he had been given weren’t accepted on the bus.
The second is living in a probation hostel after being released from prison. He has missed his sign-ins since that morning. He had earlier phoned a hostel worker who emailed his probation officer to explain that he was in hospital with a minor injury.
The third was also recently released from prison. He had been arrested twice in the previous week but released without charge. He had told his probation officer that he had been wrongfully arrested.
The probation officer recalls all three men for breach of licence after they are charged with the serious incident. An SFO investigation follows.The conclusion? All three men should have been recalled before they ever stepped into the bar. The probation officer is blamed.
The investigation also finds that the probation officer should have carried out immediate home visits in all three cases and more thoroughly scrutinised the explanations by contacting the bus company, hospital and police. The probation officer explains that they are carrying a double workload. It makes no difference. They are punished.
They are given actions requiring home visits to be completed on cases, their enforcement decisions are audited for the next 12 months by an SPO who has only just completed their NQO period, they are required to meet with a QDO who has also just completed their NQO period, and following a disciplinary meeting with a PDU Head who has never actually been a probation officer, a warning is placed on their file. They challenge the warning themselves because their union representative is too busy to provide sufficient support.
Meanwhile, two of three men have the charges against them dropped. They remain in custody because they are still subject to recall. The third, the man that was staying at the probation hostel (and was in hospital), is found guilty and sentenced to time served.
People wonder why probation becomes increasingly risk-averse when it comes to recalls. When every decision is judged with hindsight, when the expectation becomes “you should have known”, and when the consequences of not recalling someone are potentially career-ending, is it really surprising that probation officers start recalling people who might otherwise have been managed safely in the community?
The problem isn’t simply that probation recalls too many people. The problem is the system that expects probation officers to do.
Yes, we’ve heard it all time and time again: “Probation recalls caused prison overcrowding.” It’s simply not that straightforward and the figures need to be scrutinised. Overcrowding is also about crumbling prisons, the number of people held on remand, and early-release schemes that can result in people being released at very short notice without the support they need. Those schemes can then increase the likelihood of recalls. How many women, children and foreign nationals are in prison unnecessarily?
Nobody is denying that probation can sometimes be trigger-happy when it comes to recalls. But perhaps we should ask why.. Before we even get into that, if we really don’t want recalls, there are some fairly obvious options: make people serve their full sentence, abolish post-release licences, or make probation supervision voluntary. It really is that simple.
Here’s a hypothetical example or maybe it’s real!! Three men walk into a bar one evening. A serious incident takes place and all three are arrested on suspicion.
The first is on probation after being released from prison. He has missed his last two probation appointments. He had earlier explained to his probation officer on the phone that he didn’t have the money to get to the office, and the bus tickets he had been given weren’t accepted on the bus.
The second is living in a probation hostel after being released from prison. He has missed his sign-ins since that morning. He had earlier phoned a hostel worker who emailed his probation officer to explain that he was in hospital with a minor injury.
The third was also recently released from prison. He had been arrested twice in the previous week but released without charge. He had told his probation officer that he had been wrongfully arrested.
The probation officer recalls all three men for breach of licence after they are charged with the serious incident. An SFO investigation follows.The conclusion? All three men should have been recalled before they ever stepped into the bar. The probation officer is blamed.
The investigation also finds that the probation officer should have carried out immediate home visits in all three cases and more thoroughly scrutinised the explanations by contacting the bus company, hospital and police. The probation officer explains that they are carrying a double workload. It makes no difference. They are punished.
They are given actions requiring home visits to be completed on cases, their enforcement decisions are audited for the next 12 months by an SPO who has only just completed their NQO period, they are required to meet with a QDO who has also just completed their NQO period, and following a disciplinary meeting with a PDU Head who has never actually been a probation officer, a warning is placed on their file. They challenge the warning themselves because their union representative is too busy to provide sufficient support.
Meanwhile, two of three men have the charges against them dropped. They remain in custody because they are still subject to recall. The third, the man that was staying at the probation hostel (and was in hospital), is found guilty and sentenced to time served.
People wonder why probation becomes increasingly risk-averse when it comes to recalls. When every decision is judged with hindsight, when the expectation becomes “you should have known”, and when the consequences of not recalling someone are potentially career-ending, is it really surprising that probation officers start recalling people who might otherwise have been managed safely in the community?
The problem isn’t simply that probation recalls too many people. The problem is the system that expects probation officers to do.
Anon
The media, high profile victims & elements of public opinion seem to be driving govt policy:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y4z0perlno
"One million sign petition to keep PC Harper's killers in jail"
https://www.wymondhamandattleboroughmercury.co.uk/news/national/26506148.victims-families-call-manslaughter-excluded-early-release/
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/uk/victims-families-call-for-all-manslaughter-to-be-excluded-from-early-release/a/160679831.html
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/08/28/exempt-killers-early-release-bereaved-families-tell-burnham/
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/families-andy-burnham-government-b3041328.html
everything seems to be behind paywalls... managed to scrape this together:
Delete"Bereaved families, including relatives of PC Andrew Harper and John Hunt, recently signed an open letter asking the government to block the early release of killers convicted of manslaughter" (28 aug 2026)
Fear within all agencies seems to be a significant driver of policy
ReplyDeleteFear is the key
Delete"fear dictates human behavior, control, and societal awareness"
"In broader psychological contexts, the phrase suggests that fear—whether of failure, death, or the unknown—acts as the primary motivator or driving mechanism behind human actions, caution, and aggressive cycles"
"So what should you do when faced with fear? You can learn to see it as a blessing in disguise—a chance to step into your greatness."
"Using fear as a means of control is a manipulative tactic that hijacks human survival instincts to force compliance, erode personal autonomy, and create emotional dependence"
"Repetition is also a well-known and prevalent propaganda technique used to solidify falsehoods and perpetuate fear in the public consciousness."
erm, £700million, 1,300 recruita, protect the public, etc etc
The 51,419 recalls figure certainly sounds shocking, but we need to be careful what it actually tells us.
ReplyDeleteIt is the number of recall events over 12 months, not 51,419 people sitting in prison at the same time. At the end of June 2026, the actual recall population in custody was around 12,145 — about 14% of the total prison population. A large proportion of recalls are fixed-term, and the system has changed considerably. Previously there were 14- and 28-day fixed-term recalls; from March 2026 the relevant fixed-term recall became generally 56 days. Standard recalls are different again, while PSS had its own breach arrangements and has been removed.
Look at the prison population more broadly. On 30 June 2026 there were 85,858 people in prison, including 15,386 on remand, 3,350 women and 220 aged 15–17. There were 10,134 foreign nationals in custody on 30 June 2026 There were also 2,152 people detained under immigration powers, although the vast majority were in the immigration detention estate; 190 were actually being held in prisons under immigration powers.
Recalls are therefore an important part of the prison-capacity picture, but they are certainly not the whole picture or the cause of the prison capacity crisis.
That doesn’t mean the increase in recalls should be ignored. It deserves scrutiny. But we shouldn’t jump from the headline “51,000 recalls” to “probation caused prison overcrowding”. We need to distinguish between recall events, the number actually in custody at any one time, how long they remain there, and fixed-term versus standard recalls. We also need to recognise the major changes in release and recall policy that have influenced the numbers.
There are reasonable ways to reduce unnecessary recalls: proportionate licence conditions, better support on release, properly resourced probation, better access to community services, sensible enforcement and reducing unnecessary churn through short custodial recalls.
And we shouldn’t ignore the fear factor for probation officers either. It is real. The SFO process can create a culture where senior managers are protected while frontline probation officers and SPOs can end up carrying the blame for decisions made within a much wider system. When the consequences of getting a risk decision wrong can be career-threatening, it is hardly surprising if practitioners become increasingly risk-averse and will recall for a missed appointment.
So yes, scrutinise recalls. But scrutinise the whole system, rather than allowing one headline figure to become the explanation for a much bigger prison-capacity problem.
Exactly. Recall decisions do not happen in a vacuum.
DeleteHMIP has repeatedly identified the same underlying problems: homelessness, substance misuse, poor resettlement, weak continuity between prison and probation, and overstretched staff. People are often recalled because the support around them has already failed.
Its IPP recall work found that most recall decisions examined were appropriate and proportionate. But it also found that better preparation for release, stable accommodation, continuity of supervision and access to mental health and substance misuse services could have prevented some recalls in the first place.
The Chief Inspector has also questioned what the sheer scale of recall is actually achieving, particularly when many recalls involve non-compliance, loss of contact, accommodation problems or drugs and alcohol, while serious further offending has remained broadly stable.
So yes, scrutinise recalls. But scrutinise them properly.
Don't confuse 51,000 recall events with 51,000 people occupying prison cells. Don't ignore the difference between fixed-term and standard recalls. And don't pretend that probation officers are making these decisions independently of the policy, resources and organisational culture surrounding them.
If we want fewer unnecessary recalls, the answer is not simply to tell probation officers to "recall less". It is to create a system that makes recall less necessary: proportionate licence conditions, decent housing, proper resettlement, continuity of supervision, manageable workloads and access to treatment and support.
Until then, blaming probation for the prison-capacity crisis is a convenient headline rather than serious analysis.
Nobody is saying that 51,000 recall events equates to 51,000 individuals being recalled...however if you compare the pre-march 2026 recall rate with any year prior to that the number has drastically increased year on year. The only thing that changed after March was the length of time spent on recall...increasing the length of a fixed term recall and decreasing the length of a standard recall. What remains to be seen is whether that number increases further in terms of people being repeatedly recalled on the same license. Or whether the inability to take any other action at all further leads to increased recall once supervision packages kicks in and people have less tools in the box to do anything else, or due to breaches in the final third being dealt with as supervision is essentially cancelled during that period.
DeleteTotally agree all this is systemically created...probation policy is following a policy of active disengagement...completely absolving ourself of responsibility or oversight which in my view over time will further exacerbate the culture and role of probation officer to one of a recall decision maker.
Any surprise that probation officers are more likely to recall people than not?
ReplyDeleteAnd if approximately 10,000 people are currently in prison following recall, perhaps that tells us something about where the real problem lies.
The lesson seems pretty clear: when things go wrong, probation is criticised for not recalling.
Perhaps justice ministers, HMPPS and the public need to be honest that we have this many recalls because they created a system that expects it.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-51753212
'Repeated failures' to recall serial rapist
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-58097955
A Probation Service worker has denied there was a "missed opportunity" to recall a convicted terrorist before he went on a stabbing spree.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3gg4rw2q1yo
Paperwork to recall murderer delayed - inquest
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-49768998
Probation failures 'contributed to death'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-49380892
Probation failings 'probably contributed' to stab murder
IPP sentences were abolished in 2012.
ReplyDeleteYet, as at 31 March 2026, there were 1,433 IPP prisoners recalled to custody in England and Wales. There were also 896 IPP prisoners who had never been released.
Think about that for a minute while we talk about a prison overcrowding crisis.
Out of those IPPs who have never been released how many have abided by the rules, completed their treatment plans and have recommendations for release? Let’s not paint a picture that they are sitting there having done everything and no longer a risk in custody let alone the community. Take the rose tinted glasses off.
DeleteMaybe take off your goggles so you can understand what you’ve read. The comment says IPP sentences were abolished in 2012. That’s over 2000 prison spaces right there that could be freed up.
DeleteThe blame game permeates probation like a stick of Blackpool rock and is ignored by all levels above that of a band 4……so until this goes through a cultural change nothing fundamentally will change
ReplyDeleteI agree.
DeleteI think we have reached a position that has gone far past the blame game. Who's fault is it all is just about irrelevant. We are at a point where all the focus needs to be on resolving the significant problems that are being faced by all agencies within the CJS. Blame and responsibility can be revisited.
A thiusand recalls every week is not sustainable.
Releasing prisoners early to spend more time on licence will only serve to increase the recall rate.
The whole CJS is in a persistant state of churn, and in its current format it benefit absolutely no-one.
A big cultural change is needed, and at its core should be 'How do we get people to exit the CJS, rather then finding more ways to keep them locked into it?'
There's a capacity crisis across the CJS, why always focus on how to accommodate that capacity and think about how that capacity can be reduced?
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/aug/29/cells-for-arrested-offenders-may-run-out-without-early-prison-release-says-labour
'Getafix
Actually responsibility is very relevant. I don’t think argument’s to abolish licences or end probation supervision are credible alternatives either.
DeleteLet’s seperate probation officers from the probation policy makers, they’re not part of making or deciding the “changes”. Most probation officers do not think about “finding more ways to keep them locked up”.
On the contrary, I read many suggestions in comments above. If only “they” listened.
Tuesday 1st September 2026 will we finally find out what the future looks like for probation? After all we were told that by September we would know what was going on, what the community and custody operational management system would look like. Does that mean that the senior management are working over the weekend to keep their promise of a full update or is it going to be another ‘negotiations are ongoing with the unions’ or will it just be another wall of silence illustrated with smoke and mirrors? Confidence is at rock bottom, absenteeism impacting on teams where the resilient just keep going, but that is not going to last forever. Conversations in my team are now about vacancies elsewhere and not linked to the probation poison chalice. I think we can agree that probation is in its death throes and those further up the ladder have no spine to fight back and both they and the unions have sold POs out. The exit clock is ticking and come Tuesday it may well be time done.Last one out switch the lights off.
ReplyDeleteWhat is recall for?
ReplyDelete* failing to follow a probation practitioner's instructions?
* failing to comply with one of numerous licence conditions?
* committing an offence?
what is recall supposed to achieve?
* turning someone into a compliant human being?
* inspiring law-abiding behaviour?
* satisfying the ego of the supervising practitioner?
Recall has become a badge of honour for some in our communities.
Prison, however grim & inhuman it can be, is a place of comfort for many inside; a familiar environment providing clear boundaries, shared with like-minded others who follow the same 'rules'. It beats the hell out of a daily grind on the streets, stealing to fund sofa surfing (yes, its become an economy all of its own), avoiding those who sneer & look down on you, tolerating uppity others who feel they are superior when you attend an appointment in an office which is warm, smells of coffee, has fancy cars in the car park, staffed by people who obviously are doing ok... and then they threaten you with recall if you question or argue or display any sign of defiance or spirit.
The trappings of an employed & properly remunerated person are not the issue per se, but they light up like beacons when it is perceived that the imbalance of power is exploited; at that point they become symbols of unfairness, of inequality. It feels like they are rubbing your nose in it, laughing at you.
Recall has escalated out of all proportion because the prevailing societal norms in 21st century uk have been carefully honed to put monetary success at the heart of everything and fear of XYZ in the heart of our communities. Statistics & data & fake news have been utilised to scare the crap out of everyone, to normalise the incarceration of anyone who is perceived as a social deviant.
"This world… belongs to the strong, my friend! The ritual of our existence is based on the strong getting stronger by devouring the weak." (ken kesey)
"Medication time, medication time,"
It’ll remain so unless we has somebody in charge that remembers what our role in the justice system should be …
Delete“Rehabilitation, rehabilitation, rehabilitation"
I completely agree with both this comment and the one preceding it. If our primary purpose is ambitiously set at the very high bar of "protecting the public" the only guaranteed way of knowing this will always happen is ensuring the person is locked up on recall. If the ambition was "rehabilitation as a means to better protect the public" without a guarantee of safety, the aim is more purposefully achieved and within reach.
DeleteCountless studies such as the work of trotter, the STICS and Jersey studies showed that where probation officers are properly trained in various skills those officer's supervisees reoffend much less compared to officers not trained in the those skills. Sadly, the probation service's mission is to protect the public, with rehabilitation seemingly a secondary bi-product which is supposed to just "happen" when "managing risk"
Absolutely, a probation centred on punishment and public safety will falter, whereas probation focused on rehabilitation and reintegration will thrive.
DeleteFor rehabilitation to be truly effective, probation must be equipped to provide immediate and priority access to essential resources, including accommodation, education, training, employment, healthcare, and addiction support; critical lifelines for individuals released from prison or serving community sentences
Totally agree...however probation "outsources" services such as education, training, drug addiction and mental health, assuming the best use of officer's time is to "refer out" while simultaneously criticising them for failing in their duty to be professionally curious about the very factors it has absolved itself from all responsibility, while fragmenting service provision making the delivery of anything meaningful even more difficult
Delete“professionally curious” .. let’s stop with these silly terms.
DeleteAnon 12:11 What's 'silly' about it?
DeleteA service focussing on punishment is what the government desperately wants but can’t say so, therefore it denigrates the rehabilitative ethic it abandoned years ago in the hope of incrementally weakening and overwhelming the service until it gets to a point when it publicly abandons the probation aspect and becomes UK detention and Correctional service 2030…..
ReplyDeletewho needs probation when victims, the media & a compliant pm can do the job for you?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crr4wd81pdpo
"Prime Minister Andy Burnham has told the BBC that PC Andrew Harper's killers will remain behind bars as he announced changes to the early release scheme aimed at easing prison overcrowding.
In an exclusive interview with BBC Breakfast, Burnham said anyone convicted of unlawful killing, including all forms of manslaughter, will be excluded from the scheme, which would have made two of the officer's killers eligible for early release.
Burnham said extra prison space would be created by deporting foreign prisoners and releasing some inmates serving indefinite sentences.
Burnham said he had applied "common sense" on the treatment of IPPs, which he had "long-standing concerns" about.
"I was faced with a situation where people on those sentences who have more than served their time, not being released when others who've committed very serious crimes being released early," he told the BBC.
"The judgement I've made is the public, in my view, would prefer a situation where people who have served their time to be considered for release before those who haven't."
According to Ministry of Justice data, 2,271 people are serving IPP sentences as of June. Of those, 856 have never been released because the Parole Board thought it was not safe to do so.
Burnham conceded that of those offenders, there will be "individuals who will pose a risk to communities", and said a cross-party oversight group would be established.
The government will table legislation to terminate the sentences by the "end of this Parliament", he added."
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prime-minister-blocks-hundreds-more-criminals-from-sentencing-changes
DeleteIt's probably appropriate to remind ourselves of this blog post:-
ReplyDeleteSunday, 28 August 2022
It Makes Sense
"The history of probation has... been characterised as a journey from 'advise, assist and befriend' to 'enforcement, rehabilitation and public protection'. But there is now a weight of evidence and argument to show that the way to get the best from people is to treat them well - with fairness, respect, encouragement and personal interest. This is not only ethically valuable, but also conduces to probation's objectives. In each of its phases, probation has sooner or later made this discovery. Perhaps the best way to enforce, rehabilitate and protect the public is by advising, assisting and befriending."
The above quote was offered by Prof Rob Canton, somewhat embarrassingly as author, during some Twitter exchanges yesterday. He went on to say he wrote the words in 2007 in the Introduction to the Dictionary of Probation and Offender Management, edited by R. Canton and D. Hancock (Willan Publications) and wondered 'if they made sense to probation folk?'
Of course they do indeed make sense, especially to regular readers and contributors to this blog because 'advise, assist and befriend' goes to the very core of the probation ethos and why many of us have stuck with it and refused to be party to its abandonment over the years.
The sadness is that this core belief has had to be practised 'under the radar' and in a clandestine manner with many of its adherents of experience and service actively encouraged to believe it was they that were misguided, old-fashioned and out of step with contemporary theory and practice. Before it is too late, could this be the moment to correct this disgraceful and disrespectful treatment of both long-serving staff and deserving clientele? (Many of us refuse to use PoPs).
It feels enormously refreshing and encouraging to have one's beliefs validated and these words from 2007 need to be repeated and reinforced in 2022 because probation now faces the existential threat of disappearing as a distinct service, professional identity and autonomy. The Probation Institute appears about to mount a campaign, the Napo AGM is not far off and I would suggest that now is the time for all those that care come to the aid of our profession and core belief, in which case there could surely be no better rallying cry than
'Advise, Assist and Befriend'.
Prof Canton also said Probation as social work.
Deletehttps://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02645505241241588
I think the discussion about recall is gradually exposing something much bigger than recall.
ReplyDeleteWhat exactly do we now believe probation is for?
If its primary purpose is framed simply as “protecting the public”, then the safest and most defensible response to uncertainty will inevitably drift towards restriction, surveillance, escalation and ultimately recall.
Because the only way to guarantee that somebody cannot harm the public while on licence is to put them back behind a locked door.
Rehabilitation is fundamentally different. Rehabilitation involves uncertainty. It involves relationship, professional judgement, tolerating some managed risk, understanding why somebody is behaving as they are and trying to change the circumstances that make further offending more likely.
And that takes time.
It also requires practitioners to have something more useful available than a referral form.
Accommodation. Treatment. Mental-health support. Employment. Drug and alcohol services. Relationships with community organisations. Actual interventions that can change somebody’s trajectory.
Instead we seem increasingly to have created a model in which probation outsources rehabilitation but retains responsibility for the risk when rehabilitation fails.
Refer to housing.
Refer to treatment.
Refer to mental health.
Refer to employment support.
Monitor compliance.
Record.
Assess.
Enforce.
Recall.
And then ask why recalls are increasing.
Perhaps that is the real contradiction.
We have progressively removed many of the practical things probation could once use to help somebody change, while greatly expanding the machinery available to monitor whether they are complying.
Then we wonder why the role starts to look less like probation and more like community corrections.
Jim’s reminder of “advise, assist and befriend” is therefore timely. Nobody is suggesting returning to some cosy world in which risk and enforcement didn’t matter. They did.
But perhaps the genius of traditional probation was that public protection was understood partly as the consequence of successful rehabilitation, rather than something achieved simply by monitoring people more intensively.
That distinction matters enormously now.
Because OFPS appears to be reducing relational contact at exactly the same time Government policy is increasing surveillance, licence restrictions and electronic monitoring.
Less relationship.
More monitoring.
Less direct intervention.
More data.
Less professional discretion.
More enforcement.
If that is genuinely the intended direction of travel, perhaps somebody should at least have the honesty to say so.
Because eventually we need to decide whether we still have a Probation Service, or whether we are quietly constructing a community arm of HMPPS whose principal function is to monitor compliance and return people to custody when it fails.
And if rehabilitation becomes merely something we “refer out”, I’m not sure we should be surprised when recall increasingly becomes the thing left for probation itself to do.
The whole foundation of probation was based on TAKING risks. Whether that be diverting someone from custody via the courts or releasing someone early on parole.
DeleteProtecting the public is best achieved through rehabilitation.
'Getafix
Exactly.
DeleteSomewhere along the line we seem to have confused managing risk with avoiding risk.
But probation cannot function on the basis that no adverse outcome must ever occur. If that becomes the organisational expectation, then the only truly “safe” decision is custody.
The whole point of probation was that people could be supported, supervised and tested in the community because rehabilitation itself was part of public protection.
That inevitably involved professional judgement and a degree of managed uncertainty.
What worries me now is that the service increasingly seems organised around defensibility:
Can I prove I followed the process?
Can I show I escalated?
Can I demonstrate I acted?
Can I defend this decision afterwards?
Those are understandable questions in the current culture, but they are not the same as asking:
What is most likely to help this person change and make the public safer in the longer term?
And if we create a system where practitioners are punished for taking proportionate professional risks, then we shouldn’t be surprised when they stop taking them.
That is how rehabilitation gets squeezed out and recall becomes the safer organisational option.
Protecting the public through rehabilitation requires the service itself to tolerate professionally managed risk.
I’m not convinced the modern Probation Service does anymore.