Corporate Moral Nihilism

As the clock ticks on my probation career (not a social worker qualified probation officer) I grow ever more despondent about what legacy I will leave those following me. I look at the quality of PSR’s, parole reports, OAsys, sentence plans (by the way the new ones are a complete joke) and realise that the professional standards that we previously adhered to are sinking fast. 

There is a lack of industry and focus on the work and I am sick of colleagues who will not go try their best to speak with a punter before they recall him. Recall bingo seems to be the new game now closely followed by enforcement bagatelle. Why? Because we are not allowed to develop our own profession it is all done by external people, some of the academics have made a meal ticket out of probation theories, the four pillars for instance! Academics sitting in their universities away from the real world dreaming up projects to get funding and then sell it to those at the top with no knowledge and then it is made mandatory learning so that if something goes wrong you can be hung out to dry. 

An SFO occurs and watch everyone from SPO up retreat into their offices and leave the officer to deal with the SFO team those with largely limited experience of punters because they did not really want an active career in offender management. It is always the PO’s fault, not the lack of management oversight because they do not have the professional knowledge and experience to provide it, just to bully weaker staff and then try to manage those who stand up to them out of the team or service. 

In a few years everyone will be in Serco uniforms, with welcome to probation badges on, ‘Hi, my name is Bruce’ and the punter issued with yellow and red cards to display during sessions prescribed by AI. You can only really effectively assess someone’s risk by sitting with them discussing their behaviour and linking in with other organisations. Tick box probation does not deliver. Last one out switch the lights out.

Anon

*****
It astounds me that, despite the knowledge, talent, experience and expertise that exists within probation, the profession and its practices are so consistently designed and shaped by people who have very little to do with the actual practice of probation.

Imagine law, social work or even the police accepting this as normal. Imagine people who had never qualified as lawyers or social workers, or who had never walked the beat, routinely telling those professions how they should practice and introducing the latest “new” ways of doing their jobs.

Yet probation seems to lap it up. We have become remarkably accepting of being told how to do our own job by people who have never actually done it. This isn’t simply a consequence of the modern Civil Service structure or the Civil Service Code. It was happening long before either existed in their current form. The deeper problem is that probation has repeatedly surrendered professional authority over its own practice.

For a profession with a 100 year history and such a wealth of frontline knowledge and expertise, that should be a far more uncomfortable truth than it appears to be.

Anon

*****
Can anyone think of another 'profession' which, having spent decades developing an ethos & core strategy to successfully "advise, assist & befriend" the most reviled in our communities, meekly & naiively surrendered itself to the whims of corporate moral nihilism?

And so here we are; stripped of any & all capacity to achieve meaningful outcomes, slaves to the unrealistic diktats of 'the centre', pawns to be sacrificed for the benefit of the kings & queens who hide in the shadows.

Once we've set aside our bruised egos & broken hearts, we need to accept that there are real people who have truly lost something vital as a result of this shameful, farcical dismantling of the only organisation that addressed the unspoken distaste for the criminal classes.

Who? Have we forgotten already?

Those sent by the courts to be assisted by the probation service. Yep, the punters, clients, cases, pops, old lags, crims, offenders, etc etc.

I'm certain the courts (for the most part) really believe that sentencing someone to be supervised by the probation service will involve them receiving assistance in addressing the reasons for the behaviour/s leading to an appearance in court.

I'm equally certain that the courts are complicit in being gravely misled. For decades successive governments of this country have shown no inclination to facilitate true 'rehabilitation';, despite a vague nod in the .gov.uk declaration:

"The Probation Service is a statutory criminal justice service that supervises offenders serving community sentences or released into the community from prison.... it protects the public, assesses risks, works to reduce reoffending & offers help and information to victims of crime."

Anon

--oo00oo--

Despite dire current warnings that AI will almost certainly supplant human life, but whilst we're still at the 'party trick' stage, I thought I'd ask it about 'corporate moral nihilism', and this is what it produced:- 

The concept of corporate moral nihilism within the criminal justice system refers to an organizational ethos where intrinsic values—such as justice, human dignity, and rehabilitation—are discarded in favor of efficiency, market metrics, and profitability. In probation services, particularly highlighted by the UK’s experimental privatization era, this creates what criminologists call a "moral void." Instead of treating rehabilitation as a human enterprise, the system treats it as a series of risk-managed transactions. 

Evidence of this phenomenon in probation manifests across three primary dimensions:

1. The Marketization of Human Transformation

The most explicit evidence of moral nihilism occurred during the UK's "Transforming Rehabilitation" (TR) reforms introduced in 2014. This policy split the probation service, handing 70% of low-to-medium risk cases over to private Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) operating on a "payment-by-results" model. 

Values as Liabilities: The traditional, relationship-based ethos of probation—historically defined as to "advise, assist, and befriend"—was structurally incompatible with commercial targets.

Perverse Financial Incentives: Private providers were incentivized to maximize profit margins, leading to systemic corner-cutting. The National Audit Office and Chief Inspector of Probation eventually labeled the experiment "irredeemably flawed," noting that business imperatives routinely trumped public safety and genuine care.

2. The Rise of "Tick-Box" Managerialism

Corporate moral nihilism shifts the focus from substantive ethics (doing what is right for the individual and community) to formal compliance (doing what protects the institution on paper). 

Abstracting the Individual: People on probation are reduced to risk algorithms and data points. Criminological research shows that a pervasive "tick-box" culture forces practitioners to focus on technical compliance over meaningful engagement. 

Automated Surveillance: Under corporate structures, meaningful face-to-face intervention was frequently replaced by rapid, automated telephone check-ins. This reduced the deeply complex process of desistance from crime to a mere administrative reporting requirement.

Meaningless Labour: Punitive community service under outsourced contracts often degenerated into tasks devoid of rehabilitative value, such as moving mud back and forth in graveyards purely to satisfy contract hours.

3. Moral Injury and Staff Burnout

When an organization operates in a moral vacuum, the burden of that emptiness falls heavily onto the frontline staff.

Compromised Professionalism: Studies on the privatization era revealed that over a third of probation officers admitted to regularly cutting corners and lowering professional standards just to meet corporate targets. 

The Care vs. Control Conflict: Forcing vocationally driven staff to act as low-cost monitors rather than agents of change creates systemic moral injury. Practitioners report extreme psychological distress because the systemic pressure to process high volumes of cases prevents them from providing the safe, ethical care required to actually reduce reoffending.

The corporate nihilist framework views these failures not as ethical disasters, but as mismanaged logistical parameters. While the UK fully reunified and returned probation to public control in 2021 to correct this "shambles," the lingering legacy of understaffing, target-driven strain, and administrative detachment remains a central critique of modern penal bureaucracy. (my emphasis)

Duck and Cover

Oh deary deary me, what a pickle we're all in.

In prehistoric times probation officer training entry criteria in England and Wales were strictly governed under a social work framework. To qualify as a probation officer, applicants had to gain entry into a higher education program recognized by the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work (CCETSW) to obtain the Certificate of Qualification in Social Work (CQSW), which included a specialised probation option. Undergraduate applicants needed standard university matriculation requirements (typically 2 to 3 A-Levels or equivalent) to enter a 3- or 4-year undergraduate degree combining a social science discipline with the CQSW. Graduates holding a relevant first degree (such as Sociology, Psychology, or Law) could apply for an accelerated 2-year postgraduate CQSW program. Mature applicants without a degree could apply for a 2-year non-graduate CQSW diploma if they could demonstrate the academic capacity to cope with higher education.

But... Academic qualifications alone were insufficient. Candidates were strictly vetted on their practical experience in social care, voluntary work, or the criminal justice sector.

While applicants were generally required to be at least 20 or 21 years old at the start of training, the Home Office actively encouraged mature applicants, frequently recruiting individuals in their late 20s or 30s who brought broader life experience to the role.

Tuition was funded and candidates would receive a salary/stipend while training. Candidates had to pass a competitive selection process managed by the Home Office, who funded the sponsorship. To this end selection panels evaluated candidates for specific core character traits, including personal resilience, strong communication skills, emotional maturity, and a core belief in rehabilitation. Background checks were also mandatory to ensure suitability for working within the court system.

The artifical thing inside my machine provided the following analysis of that old dinosaur shit:

Training Structure and Context

• Social Work Foundation: Training was firmly rooted in social work discipline and casework models rather than standalone criminal justice curricula.
• Core Philosophy: Officers were trained under the rehabilitative tradition to "advise, assist, and befriend," focusing on personal relationships and domestic/community context.
• Court Preparation: Trainees learned how to interview offenders and compile social background reports (pre-sentence assessments) to guide judicial sentencing.

Sounds to me like them dinosaurs were pretty smart in many ways; but sadly not smart enough to stop the psychobullies in Whitehall nuking the lot & issuing the new Duck & Cover series of online training.

For the uninitiated, "Duck and Cover" is the official method of personal protection against the effects of pretty much, including a nuclear explosion:

"A log, a large rock, or any depression in the earth's surface provides some protection. Close eyes. Remain facedown until the blast wave passes and debris stops falling. Stay calm, check for injury, check for equipment damage, and prepare to continue the mission."

Anon 

*****

So when I started in probation over 10 years ago sitting in on two extremely rudimentary supervision appointments with 2 different officers and 2 different cases was sufficient training for me to go and manage a caseload of 30 cases of all different personalities and offences, ages etc etc. 

In my 15 month training whilst managing 30 cases I had 2 day motivational interviewing training, 3 day DV training, 4 day sex offender training and that's it and then could manage the most complex cases. Now all these years later they are finally telling staff how they should talk to offenders, how they should respond,.. Its just a joke, an absolute joke!!! 

I had imagined when I started my training I would be sitting in watching a qualified officer do intensive work with offenders with a range of personality types, learning styles and that I wouldn't even be allowed to speak to an offender for at least a year. Nope. 2 basic 15 minute supervision appts then off you go.. Basically you're qualified..no one gave a shit! No one gives a shit now - this training is all legal back covering whilst they destroy what's left of the smoking turd that is the probation Service in the uk.

Anon

That New Training

OFPS online training knowledge check question.
Q. What does EM stand for?
A. Electronic Monitoring!

I sh*t you not, how condescending are the ‘experts’ compiling this training for POs with Bachelor’s Degrees, MSc’s and other post graduate qualifications. Has it come to this because the probation qualifications have lost credibility, training reduced to 15 months, struggling to recruit educated individuals with lived experience? Then again it might be just so those further up the management chain can pass the online modules after all they have had their crayons removed. 

Let’s see what things look like in October, I have enough in my pension pots to retire and leave all this behind but I still want to get a few through their licenses and settled because I still have the positive probation skill set developed over several years, online training cannot teach you experience.

Anon

*****

I’m currently working my way through the OFPS mandatory learning and can confirm that the promised 25% increase in practitioner capacity is going extremely well. So far I have learned that home visits help us understand people’s circumstances, that we should consider risk when deciding whether to see someone, and that if somebody stops engaging we should apparently continue trying to engage them.

I’ve now completed the Supervision Packages module. I still have several more to go. At this rate I’m expecting the final module to explain that offending is generally discouraged.

The humour wears rather thin though, because underneath the painfully simplistic presentation are significant changes to how probation supervision actually operates: capped contacts, restricted home visits, contingency arrangements, new rules about when additional contact can take place and systems for monitoring how practitioners use them.

Those changes deserve proper professional discussion. What happens when the person in front of you doesn’t fit neatly into the model? When risk is changing but not sufficiently to satisfy a prescribed threshold? When professional judgement tells you more contact is necessary? And, inevitably, when something subsequently goes seriously wrong, whose judgement will be examined?

Apparently qualified practitioners can be trusted to manage serious risk, safeguarding, domestic abuse, complex offending and decisions which may have enormous consequences for the public — but first we must click through several screens explaining the purpose of a home visit.

I’m exhausted by it, frankly. Not because professional development is unnecessary, but because this isn’t professional development. It is information transfer dressed up as training, consuming the very practitioner capacity OFPS is supposedly designed to release.

Perhaps when I finally reach the end there’ll be a certificate confirming that I am now competent to press “Continue”. I’ll treasure it.

Anon

*****
Where has the real probation uplift training gone? Do you remember sitting in a room with 12 other people, catching up about what was going on in the area and then having knowledgeable colleagues delivering proper training, ice breakers, break out rooms, role play meaningful discussion and feedback. 

Now it is online training for dummies, that is exactly what the hierarchy think of us, let’s belittle them and not only give them massive caseloads, stress and anxiety for many, but give them the Peppa Pig Production of OFPS, you know the one that teaches experienced practitioners how to suck eggs but also at the same time ‘develop’ the ‘new’ workforce, automatons who do everything by the book, tick all the boxes, have never used professional curiosity, identified disguised compliance or exercised professional judgement without permission of their SPO and spend hours on RMP’s fearing the contact with offenders but talk a good plan and then go off and leave it to the old heads with resilience in abundance and the ability to develop professional meaningful relationships that actually matter.

The probation service that I knew is dead, the new one will not be able to cope with our communities which are declining into serious unlawfulness where the balaclava and [Surron?] rule!

Anon

Ownership

Having worked as a probation officer for over 25 years, the most significant change I've witnessed isn't just in caseload volume — it's in ownership. Case management used to mean exactly that: we held the case, from initial contact through to the end of licence or order, coordinating referrals and services but retaining responsibility for the plan and the outcome. That model has eroded. Several structural shifts help explain why:

Fragmentation of the system. Since the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms and the subsequent 2021 reunification of the National Probation Service, practitioners have had to work across a patchwork of prison, community, and third-party interfaces that were never fully reintegrated. A case now passes through multiple institutional hand-offs — prison offender management units, community rehabilitation partners, housing, substance misuse services — each with their own reporting lines and none with clear overall accountability for the case as a whole.

Audit and compliance culture. The rise of centralised risk-management frameworks (MAPPA, OASys, structured risk assessments) has embedded a compliance layer over practice. HM Inspectorate of Probation reports have repeatedly flagged that administrative and recording burdens are consuming time that should be spent on direct engagement with people on probation. The result is that "doing the job well" is increasingly measured by paperwork completion and timeliness rather than by engagement quality or risk reduction outcomes.

Digital case management systems. Tools like nDelius were intended to streamline processes, but in practice they've generated their own compliance metrics — character counts in case notes, mandatory field completion, appointment-loading deadlines — that function as a parallel workload independent of the actual casework. Bloody Dashboards!

Asymmetric accountability. Perhaps most tellingly, the escalation culture runs one direction. A probation officer who is late on a task/Kpi faces automatic escalation to their line manager, then upward through the hierarchy. But there is no equivalent mechanism for probation to hold external agencies — EMS,housing, drug and alcohol services, prisons, police, social services etc — to the same standard when they fail to respond. This structural imbalance means us Officers absorb delay and dysfunction from across the system without the authority to push back.

Staff attrition figures — the Probation Service has struggled for years with vacancy rates and retention, according to its own workforce data and repeated union reporting — are, I'd argue, a direct consequence of this shift. It's not that the job became harder in a clinical sense; it's that practitioners lost ownership of the thing that made the job meaningful, while absorbing all of the accountability for a system they don't control.

******
This really resonates, particularly the point about ownership. Perhaps that’s why I reacted so strongly to the OFPS training in the first place. Taken in isolation, patronising e-learning is merely irritating. Put it alongside everything else that has happened to probation and it starts to look symptomatic of something much bigger.

• We increasingly don’t do things. We refer.
• We increasingly don’t own the intervention. Somebody else delivers it.
• We increasingly don’t determine the structure of supervision. A framework does.
• We increasingly don’t decide what constitutes sufficient work. A package, process, dashboard or target tells us.

Yet somehow, when the whole fragmented arrangement fails, responsibility has an extraordinary ability to travel back through all those interfaces and land on the desk of one probation officer. That’s the bit I find increasingly absurd.

If I’m going to carry professional accountability for complex risk, then treat me as a professional capable of exercising judgement about it. Don’t simultaneously remove ownership, prescribe practice, outsource interventions, give me Playschool-level mandatory training and then expect PhD-level foresight when something goes catastrophically wrong.

And the point above about the knowledge already sitting within probation is important too. We have practitioners with decades of operational experience, postgraduate qualifications and enormous accumulated knowledge of risk, rehabilitation and multi-agency working.

Were they meaningfully involved in designing OFPS? Were frontline practitioners presented with the evidence, invited to challenge the assumptions and allowed to shape the model? Were experienced POs asked what actually helps them manage complex cases? Because professional development could look completely different.

Give experienced practitioners difficult anonymised cases. Put six POs in a room. Give them incomplete and conflicting information. Ask them what they would do. Let them disagree. Introduce new information halfway through. Challenge their decisions. Bring in research. Bring in an experienced SPO. Debate recall versus continued management. Examine what happened afterwards without pretending hindsight was foresight. 

That is training for professional judgement. Clicking through cartoons until the system records “complete” isn’t. And perhaps we’ve arrived at the strangest contradiction of all:

Probation officers appear to have progressively less ownership of the work, while retaining potentially enormous personal accountability for its outcome.

If Registered Probation Officer status is going to mean anything, that imbalance needs addressing. Otherwise we’re not professionalising probation. We’re professionalising the blame.

Playschool Probation

Some critics and commentators have referred to the Our Future Probation Service (OFPS) programme as "Our Futile Probation Service."

*****
Our Future Probation Service training materials and online learning is academically demeaning. I have never been so embarrassed by the training they are pushing out, it is BBC bite size for probation. The sentence plans have no professionalism about them and I have had enough. It is Playschool Probation.Tomorrow my papers are going in, don’t need to be treated so abysmally as we are currently, registered probation officer status is a joke, remuneration package poor and there are less stressful options out there.

*****
I took a look at the OFPS training, came across the first question and demeaning doesn’t do it. I completely understand the anger and desire to leave. If you can -run for the hills. My motivation is so low I think I am going to have to get a sharp spade and dig down for a long time to find it. How on earth did I arrive at this soulless place after 30+years, I am embarrassed to be a Probation Officer. No energy or interest to work at all.

******
Mandatory training! Mandatory this, mandatory that, the probation service are a purveyor of online training aimed at the lower end of the market. I heard the moans and groans in the office today as we were directed to take an hour out to start it! I was so embarrassed to be expected to complete this. The cartoon character with a blue shirt and Captain Custer beard, the dieversity pictures, the condoning attitude of the presenter. The directorate for training, the directorate for this, that and the other, there is only one directorate and that is the one for the buffoons sanctioning this training, just shows the lack of respect for operational staff, Bob the Probation Officer, can he fix it? can he boll**ks. RIP probation. I think I will be moving on now this organisation is a joke.

*****

It is a bit much to call this new training……’training’ ….more like an insurance policy for the centre……they know it will be despised yet they will persist with it as it will be used against you in a future SFO……..as in ‘ did you complete your mandatory training’?

Petitions Decide Government Policy

Well, it hasn't taken long for a new PM that knows nothing about criminal justice to decide the best way to proceed is to let the media, victims and public petitions decide policy rather than Parliament:-

Prime Minister blocks hundreds more criminals from sentencing changes  

Unlawful killing and historic child sex offences will be blocked from upcoming changes to prison sentences after the Prime Minister ordered more serious offenders to be kept behind bars for longer.  

•  Prime Minister blocks manslaughter, death by drunk or dangerous driving and historic child sex offences from sentencing changes  
• Builds on action to keep those in prison for rape, child sex or grooming offences behind bars
• Victims of domestic violence will be better protected from perpetrators, with record numbers of offenders set to leave prison tagged and the new restriction zones put in place, some as little as a few miles wide, for some sexual and violent offenders
• The government will deport thousands of foreign criminals and bring the injustice of IPP sentences to an end during this Parliament 

Unlawful killing and historic child sex offences will be blocked from upcoming changes to prison sentences after the Prime Minister ordered more serious offenders to be kept behind bars for longer. 

The Prime Minister’s intervention will mean offenders in prison for killing an emergency worker in the line of duty will not be released any earlier. Historic grooming offences, all forms of manslaughter, death by dangerous driving and causing or allowing the death of a child will also be barred from the changes to the prison sentences.

This builds on the action already taken by the Prime Minister and Lord Chancellor to stop anyone in prison for rape, serious child sexual offences and grooming from being released earlier. Murderers or anyone deemed the most dangerous by a court and handed a life or extended sentence were already blocked from seeing any reduction to their sentence and will stay locked up until they go before a Parole Board.

As a result of these changes today, hundreds more victims will no longer face the anxiety of seeing their offender coming out sooner than they were expecting.

Since coming into office, the Prime Minister and Lord Chancellor have made significant changes to the plans they inherited. They want to go even further, but cannot do so without risking the entire justice system collapsing. This would mean the police would be unable to make arrests, the courts would stop sending criminals to jail and criminals would be left unchecked on our streets.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham said:  

I know how strongly people feel about this issue. I understand the concern and anger because I share it. That’s why I took action during my first weeks as Prime Minister to block some of the very worst in society being released before they should. We moved quickly to block vile criminals who commit rape, sexually abuse children and groom vulnerable young people.

But I always said I wanted to do more. We will now not only be keeping offenders serving time for indecent assault locked up, but also those in prison for manslaughter and death by dangerous driving. This means that the awful criminals responsible for the killing of PC Andrew Harper will not have their sentence shortened.

The truth is I wanted to go even further. But I’ve pushed the system to the very limits of what’s possible without risking the prison system collapsing within months, putting the public at enormous risk. To protect victims, we will be introducing the toughest ever supervision measures for offenders, which effectively mean that someone’s sentence will not end when they leave prison. This includes tagging offenders and, for the very first time ever, putting restriction zones in place to stop offenders getting anywhere near their victims.

The Prime Minister has also announced that he will end the injustice of Imprisonment for Public Protection sentences this Parliament, meaning people will no longer be trapped indefinitely under a sentence abolished more than a decade ago.

This decision recognises how deeply unjust it is that some offenders who have been locked up for nearly twenty years remain in prison, despite serving their sentence many times over, whereas many serious criminals convicted in recent years could have their jail time cut. While work on this will begin immediately, and on a cross-party basis, it will take time to get this right and balance fairness with public safety.

This is just one part of the government’s plan for a fairer justice system, looking at how some people can be punished more effectively outside prison – freeing up cells for those who pose the greatest risk to the public.  

This will include considering how to safely reduce the number of and young offenders and women in custody, in particular those who are pregnant or have young children.

Powers will also be implemented early next year to deport some foreign criminals immediately after sentencing, blocking them from ever returning to the country, while keeping those in prison for the most serious crimes locked up for a substantial period before they are removed.

Justice Secretary Alex Norris said:  

The Prime Minister and I have rightly looked again at these reforms and we are clear that people responsible for taking a life, or for appalling crimes against children, should be kept behind bars for longer.    

But protecting the public also means fixing the prison system for good. We will build the cells we need, put offenders under much tougher controls when they leave prison and end the historic injustice of IPP sentences.   

This is a government running towards problems and not shying away from the tough decisions needed to build a justice system that is firm, fair and protects the public.

The Prime Minister and Lord Chancellor have also insisted that victims must remain at the centre of the justice system, with survivors of domestic abuse seeing offenders put under some of the toughest restrictions to date.

This includes a presumption that all prison leavers will be tagged and imposing possible bans on pubs and public events.

Perpetrators could also be confined to a specific area – some just a few miles wide – giving victims greater freedom to live their lives. In a world first, new ‘restriction zones’, which have been directly shaped by the experiences and campaigning of victims, will limit the movement of some sexual and violent offenders, with victims having a say in how zones are drawn up.

Victims advocates Hetti Barkworth-Nanton CBE, chair of Refuge, Frank Mullane MBE, CEO of Advocacy After Fatal Domestic Abuse, and Jo Early, chief executive of Support after Murder and Manslaughter, said:

We welcome the Prime Minister’s decision to exclude all manslaughter cases from the early release scheme.

The original sentence lengths for these offences were, in part, intended to protect the public. The problem of prison capacity does not alter that underlying need for public protection. Therefore, making manslaughter offenders eligible for early release would risk undermining a key purpose of their sentences and could represent a significant compromise to public protection. This also re-assures families bereaved by homicide that they are not being asked to trade justice so prison overcrowding can be resolved.

The government inherited a prison system on the brink of collapse with fewer than 100 spaces left in the summer of 2024. 

A lack of investment in the prison estate with just 500 net places added for over a decade has led to a situation where adult male prisons are now at 98% capacity. That is why this government is taking decisive action to fix the broken prison system for good.  

Under this government, more than 3,200 prison places have already been built, with 14,000 expected by 2031 under the largest prison build expansion since the Victorian era.

The Sentencing Act will restore order to the prison system and make sure we have cells available for dangerous criminals. Alongside record prison building, the reforms will put prisons on a sustainable footing and end the cycle of emergency release measures used before July 2024 when prisons repeatedly came close to running out of space.  

Why So Many Recalls?

Typed in "recall rates uk"... this was the summary presented by whichever AI bot is hiding inside the machine:

"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.

And then y'all have your own issues:

• 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.

And more widely:

• 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.

Anon

Reality Check

World-first crackdown to restrict offenders’ freedom and give it back to victims

So, it’s 2:30 am, little Johnny has had one over the eight, triggering his alcohol tag……he is at his ‘mates’ house who told him to ignore his curfew at 11 pm, but being the good little soldier he is, he decides to walk home and in the dark mistakes Sevestapol Terrace for Florizel Street and breaches his proximity tag……he gets home safely and decides to get his head down…..that’s three breaches to address at 9am by his PO …..

In a bad night if you have two or three in a similar position it will be afternoon before you have done all the paperwork……but don’t worry the SPO says let the AI do it……but as his PO is covering two officers on maternity and stress leave, it’s closer to mid afternoon before it gets done….in the meantime little Billy has been picked up by the Feds for dropping his trousers in Tesco, it was in Lidl that triggered the original offence last time….and little Amelia has failed to turn up for her appointment....

Two Parole reports to be completed by Friday……a Mappa referral for little Billy at the insistence of the SPO and all day is spent trying to complete a housing referral for houses that don’t exist.The next day on the all staff call, the PO is told how much they are valued but the questions and comments are turned off as the management don’t want to hear what the valued staff members think…..it now turns out that Little Billy held a worker against their will for 15 seconds and has also been charged with False Imprisonment triggering an SFO…………..but don’t worry, our staff are the heartbeat of the organisation…………..

A fairy tale or an apocryphal future, coming soon to an office near you…….with apologies to the London and Manchester offices as it has already arrived there………

Anon

--oo00oo--

So the annual recruitment fiasco is now complete. Three different closing dates tells the tale, they cannot recruit enough staff, nobody wants the job and the attrition rate amongst the newbies is high. The reasons are simple, the recruitment process is flawed, partially because of the online process and like the promotion interviews give people the opportunity to inflate their knowledge and experience and then are found wanting in the role. 

Those of us with 25 years plus service are seen as dinosaurs by the management, the young thrusters are all 'yes' people and cannot deal with push back and this will not work. Recalls are through the roof because POs are not as versatile or able to deal with challenges and I am aware of certain SPOs operating a recall process to reduce caseloads especially those with 18 months and less to serve. 

There is a culture of giving many license conditions to those that don’t really need them but it is a 'just in case' scenario, not a fully fledged risk assessment and management process. There are far too many SPOs that should be back on the floor learning the profession and get all these QDOs back on field duties and have their crayons and bar charts removed and PTAs should have at least ten years post qualifying experience. 

Hark, I hear, 'why don’t you take up a SPO role?', because I am not a mouthpiece for management, I can do a lot more good managing complex and risky cases and pushing back and annoying the management and not ticking boxes, keeping a list of things that I have not done this week because I did not have the time. 

Work your hours and push back, we are in a position of strength and the worst they can do is threaten you with competency, but if you get your team to do it with you, you have the power and the upper hand. Be strong, be brave but most of all be honest to yourself and live a life.  Switch the phone and laptop off on Friday and leave it until 0900 Monday morning and switch off every day when you want to, but only do the hours and then the SPOs will have to pick up the incomplete work not you and not your colleagues.

Anon

Editor's note

Who writes this crap?

Probation Has Leverage

Probation probably has more leverage now than it has had for years. The Government’s entire current strategy depends on probation.

• Earlier release depends on probation.
• Community sentences replacing short custody depend on probation.
• Electronic monitoring, restriction zones, curfews and tighter licence conditions depend on probation.
• Recall decisions depend on probation.
• OFPS depends on probation.
• Public reassurance that people released earlier can be “safely managed in the community” depends on probation.

So perhaps the question is no longer whether probation staff are angry enough to strike. It is whether the unions are prepared to use the leverage that is sitting right in front of them.

We have been here before. There was industrial action during TR, but the Government still pushed the reforms through. Whatever view people take of what happened then, the lesson surely has to be that symbolic action is not enough.

If industrial action happens this time, it needs to have a clear objective and it needs to matter operationally. There is little point in a protest that allows the machinery of the system to continue almost unaffected while everybody congratulates themselves for having “made their voice heard”.

The Government needs probation functioning. That is the bargaining power. And this cannot be reduced to “staff want more money”. Pay matters because retention matters, but the dispute is much bigger than that: workload, professional judgement, staffing, experience, safety, OFPS, the removal of workload visibility and the expectation that probation will absorb every consequence of the prison crisis.

Practitioners have spent years being told that they are essential, valued and the “hidden heroes” of the justice system. Fine. Then perhaps it is time to discover exactly how essential probation really is. Because if the Government genuinely cannot deliver its sentencing reforms, early-release programme and community supervision model without probation, then “without probation none of this can happen” should not just be a slogan in a press release. It should be the starting point for negotiations.

And if ever there were a moment for the unions to stop asking politely, stop “urging”, stop accepting warm words and actually use the collective power of the workforce they represent, surely this is it. The Government has built its solution to the prison crisis on the assumption that probation will somehow absorb the consequences. Perhaps probation should finally stop making that assumption safe for them.

Anon

Lessons to be Learned?

It's been some time since we highlighted Rob Allen's reflections, now regularly appearing on the Substack platform:- 

Releasing Tension
Thoughts on the Latest Prison Crisis

When I was seconded to the Criminal Department in the Home Office in the early 1990’s, a paper used to be circulated by the Prison Department each week listing convicts of particular note who were due for release.

In the days before “end to end offender management,” one function of it seemed to be to alert ministers and officials responsible for police and probation about the need to ensure practical arrangements were made in high profile cases. I recall colleagues wrestling with the idea of locating a notorious sex offender on a remote island.

The lists also confronted those making policy with its real world consequences, which were sometimes intended, quite often not. And of course they enabled the preparation of “lines to take” in the unwelcome event of press interest.

So I was surprised that the present day Ministry of Justice were caught so badly unawares about the impending human impacts of the earlier release provisions which became law earlier in the year and are due for implementation this autumn.

During the passage of the Sentencing Bill, officials and ministers will have understandably been focussed on avoiding unsustainable demands on prison places to prevent the apocalyptic vision of a gridlocked justice system which they faced two years ago.

I can see how having rejected David Gauke’s proposal to bring forward the potential release dates for prisoners deemed dangerous by the courts and given extended sentences, an exemption for any offenders on standard determinate sentences from earlier release would have seemed unattractive to the MoJ in terms of its impact on prison numbers.

But surely less unattractive than the huge row and last ditch review which has led to the decision that prisoners convicted of serious sexual offences will now be excluded from the scheme. Given the widespread outcry about the proposed earlier release of two men convicted in the dreadful case of PC Harper, it seems likely those sentenced for manslaughter or particular forms of it will also find themselves staying behind bars until the two thirds point of their sentence has elapsed rather than being released under supervision at the halfway point.

So what are the broader lessons from this fiasco?

First, obviously enough, for a government to use its parliamentary majority to whip and rush through legislation in the teeth of widely held concerns only stores up trouble. When I was in the Home Office, it was only after the implementation of the 1991 Criminal Justice Act that problems came to light. An over rigid system for setting fine levels and unworkable limitations on courts ability to consider previous convictions when sentencing were rapidly repealed. Then as now it was a new Secretary of State who inherited the task of implementing (and then unimplementing) controversial legal provisions.

This time, it is a new Prime Minister who has applied the brakes prior to provisions coming into force. He was not an MP when they were enacted. But had his predecessor and colleagues properly considered a more flexible approach earlier on, this summer’s unseemly mess might have been avoided or mitigated.

Second, while the government could conceivably have stuck to their Sentencing Act guns, the forces ranged against them- bereaved family members, almost the entire police service and most of the media- as well as a 1 million strong petition -have been simply too powerful to withstand.

It’s 20 years since Tony Blair pledged that the legal system must dispense justice to the victim as well as the accused. But it seems to me that a settled and well understood view has never been reached about what that should mean in practice. What is the appropriate level of say which victims of crime should have about sentencing and release decisions in individual cases and policy terms. That’s something that needs to be carefully reviewed along with a much more vigorous promotion of restorative justice.

But as things stand, having parroted in their 2024 manifesto promises of “a justice system that puts victims first” and acknowledged that sentences “often do not make sense either to victims or the wider public”, making the case for the automatic earlier release of serious offenders surely needed much fuller justification than the need for prison space. The case would have been easier to make with the exceptions we have ended up with and potentially a greater involvement of the Parole Board in certain cases.

Third, the failure to make that fuller justification revealed the depressing fact that for most of the public and it seems many in the government, the only purpose of sentencing is punishment, and the only punishment is prison. Never mind the proportions involved, the basic idea that a sentence of imprisonment comprises a period locked up followed by a spell at home under supervision with a liability to be recalled to prison is not widely enough understood. Even less I suspect the admittedly confusing notion of the three phase Progression Model, which requires so little for prisoners to progress along.

Nor is it appreciated that sentence lengths for serious crimes have increased so much in the last 20 years that half the average prison sentence now exceeds two thirds of what was the average in 2006. In their 2024 critique of sentence inflation, the most senior former judges in England and Wales argued that release at the half way point should be restored. It’s disappointing that they and many others have not at least sought to defend the Sentencing Act provisions which do just that.

After the failings of the 1991 Criminal Justice Act, whose aim had been to reduce the use of prison, there followed what one academic described as the biggest volte face in penal history. The revised law paved the way for a sustained rise in prison numbers whose consequences we are to an extent still living with.

One can only hope that the 2026 crisis does not lead to a similar result.

Rob Allen