Amazing and Unique Opportunity!

I notice that the London Probation Trust has teamed up with UserVoice in order to set up four pilot Service User Councils as part of the Offender Engagement Project. On the face of it, a good idea worth trying, but I can't help thinking they've slightly over-egged the concept - 'amazing and unique' - especially as funding only seems to be in place till the end of the current financial year. I think there are a couple of dead giveaway signs of a degree of panic amongst senior managers. The blurb talks about 'issue-based groups' and the need for responses to be 'solution-focussed.' If I'm not mistaken code for 'the last thing we want to hear is a lot of carping about how crap the Service is.' But I am an old cynic.

In a funny way it reminds me of my confirmation year having gained my qualifications at University. In those days you served an appropriately labelled 'probationary year' during which support was provided in the form of a First Year Officers group. A great idea that worked well from the new practitioners point of view, but quietly dropped by management when they became suspicious of the potential problems caused by an organised element within the workforce. A familiar story eh?

This initiative by London gives me cause for another wry grin and that's to do with the seemingly interminable internal discussions about exactly what to call people. It would seem that the term 'offender' is well and truely buried, in favour of 'service-user.' At least this is preferable to being called a 'case' but I understand officers who stick resolutely to the traditional term 'client' will not be penalised. Thankfully it looks like the Service nationally is set to drop 'offender manager' in favour of - yes you guessed it - Probation Officer! Well I for one never used it so I can be slightly smug and say 'I told you so.' At least we will now be able to once more differentiate between Probation Services Officers and Probation Officers, although this will not be universally welcome I suspect.    

Mixed Messages

As we all know, a week is a long time in politics and the fallout from the riots seem set to erode yet further many of the laudable aims embraced by Ken Clarke's 'Rehabilitation Revolution.'  First to go of course was the 50% reduction in sentence for a timely guilty plea. Then the riots served to focus attention on the whole business of granting bail pending conviction with a widespread suspicion that refusal to grant bail in over 60% of cases was being used as a punishment in itself and strictly not allowed.

Of course in many quarters - lets call them the usual suspects - this has met with warm approval, thus making tinkering with the operation of the bail system less likely. Ken had hoped to be able to restrict remands into custody as one part of his strategy to reduce the prison population, but getting that aspect through Parliament now looks doubtful. Now it seems that the Prime Minister is so concerned about the Daily Mail and Express that he feels it important that the 'Rehabilitation Revolution' becomes the 'Rehabilitation and Punishment Revolution.' The suspicion is that all kinds of extra punishment options might find there way into the bill, like benefit removal and housing eviction. How this will assist with rehabilitation I have absolutely no idea.

I've always had a great deal of respect for normally plain-speaking Ken Clarke. Lets be honest, any politician that incurs the wrath of the right-wing press can't be all bad in my book. The trouble is he absolutely detests the Probation Service and just like a disgruntled son-in-law who can't bring himself to talk about the mother-in-law, simply never mentions us. I listened to him again recently being interviewed on BBC 2's Newsnight and all he could bring himself to say somewhat tardily was 'there are some good probation and prison officers.' But that was in the same breath as his repeated desire to put all our work out to tender in the private sector. He normally fails to mention us at all which you can imagine does nothing for morale. Where is that White Knight coming to our aid when you need him?

Attitudes to Crime

This weekend I found myself having an unusually long think. In this case it was triggered by the news that yet another burglar had been killed by a householder, but it'd been brewing all day. The Sunday Times had the astounding story of sheep rustling on its front page. Not the usual odd animal dragged into the back of a 4x4 in the dead of night, but an entire flock of 1,500 total value £100,000. This is becoming outright plundering of Britain's green and pleasant land and comes hard on the heels of the desecration of churches by lead thieves and routine stripping of northern streets of yorkstone paving. So many statues are being stolen that copies are having to be made in plastic and sadly not even war memorials appear to be sacrosanct anymore.   

Crime is the bread and butter world for probation officers of course and on a routine basis they have to try and make sense of the often tragic consequences of all kinds of human behaviour and depravity. We are always on a quest to answer the question 'why?' Sometimes it's easy, sometimes not, but at the same time we have to deal with our own feelings and attitudes as citizens and human beings.

I well remember this being brought home to me forcefully when still in training and on placement in a busy city probation office. Quite unexpectedly, one of my cases turned into a major child protection investigation with serious allegations of sexual abuse. Clearly this was taking matters out of the appropriate realm for a student and I sought urgent advice from my practice supervisor. Imagine my surprise then when he said 'oh don't bring that to me - I've got kids of my own.' I never did have much respect for the guy and that kinda put the tin hat on it. 

As with many of us, I've been the victim of a burglary and experienced the outrage of someone violating my private space, my home. Equally the mindless vandalism of my car. I suspect my initial reactions were not much different to most people, but that's without knowing the story behind the actions. Burglary of an occupied house is pretty unusual in my experience. Even more so if there is a confrontation. On Sunday I found myself contemplating what I would do in such a situation and it's not a particularly comfortable process. I think it highly likely that my 'fight or flight' response would be violent. In mulling it over, I concluded there can't really be any other explanation for a normally non-violent person keeping Dads old truncheon hanging behind the door.

    

What's in a Word?

The ramifications of the riots continue and I can't help noticing how many politicians have been talking about making those convicted of riot-related offences do certain things, like meet the victims. No doubt mindful of up-coming elections and criticism of his slow return from holiday, Mayor of London Boris Johnson was quite quick off the mark in telling Justice Secretary Ken Clarke that rioters should be made to repair the damage and meet the victims. Poor side-lined Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said much the same thing in a speech emphasising that those convicted had to be made to face up to the consequences of their actions by meeting the victims. 

Now the concept of perpetrators of crimes meeting their victims has been around for a long time and pioneered by the Probation Service. Experiments in this area of work have variously gone under the name of Mediation, Reparation and more recently Restorative Justice. The idea has broad political support and the coalition government signalled early on their intention to encourage its development, dependent on resources of course. It has always been an important part of Ken Clarkes so-called 'Rehabilitation Revolution', so it shouldn't be surprising that the Prisons and Probation Minister Crispin Blunt recently announced some funding for a register of Restorative Justice Practitioners. He said:-

'Restorative Justice is a unique process that helps to repair the damage caused by crime as well as helping to stop offenders committing further crimes. It demands criminals take an active role in acknowledging the harm they have caused, as well as making amends.   'If we are to better tackle the rate of criminals who reoffend, and so bring down crime, we are clear that we must have robust programmes of both punishment and reform available to our courts.

'Making criminals see for themselves the consequences of their actions, as well as undertake tough punishments, can be an effective part of this; and crucially, this gives victims a say in how offenders make amends.'

What caught my eye was the tenor of the statement and choice of the word 'demands' coupled with 'making'. So here we have yet another politician talking tough in the wake of the riots and this time a government minister with departmental responsibility. The trouble is that the sentiments being expressed, involving as they clearly do that of implied compulsion, are completely counter to my understanding of the concept that underpins the restorative justice process. 

For it to be effective in its twin aims of encouraging the perpetrator to face up to the consequences of their actions and trying to heal the pain caused to the victim, it has to be a voluntary process on the part of both parties. Not only does it have to be voluntarily entered into, the whole thing has to be very carefully and sensitively arranged and moderated so as to avoid the possibility of it making a bad situation worse. It is definitely not something to be entered into lightly and it won't be suitable in anything like all cases, but where it is deemed appropriate and entered into with good faith, it has the capacity to change lives and help heal tremendous hurt. 

So, politicians please note. This is not a magic silver bullet solution to be imposed upon unwilling or unprepared convicted rioters. It is however a very potent process to be undertaken in carefully selected instances and administered by trained professionals.     

Stating the Obvious

Although often ridiculed - remember the 'quiet man speaks out' speech? - I've never-the-less had an increasing degree of respect for the short-lived previous Tory party leader Iain Duncan Smith, now Employment and Pensions minister. I was particularly struck by his sadly limited involvement in one of those reality tv shows masquerading as documentary/social commentary when the producers think it would be fun to mix the social classes up and see what happens. 

Along with several other Tory, Liberal and Labour party MP's, they were visited upon residents of an awful estate tower block for a few weeks in order to see 'how the other half lives.' Even though Iains involvement was curtailed because his wife was very ill, he was much more able to adapt and empathise with his temporary hosts than his colleagues. The Lib Dem guy almost had a nervous breakdown trying to come to terms with the sheer awfulness of the surroundings and the attitudes of his hosts and the pompous MP for Grimsby Austin Mitchell insisted on a minder. Only Iain seemed perfectly at ease and I remember thinking if it was because of his military background or just breeding - that very old-fashioned self-assuredness that comes with being a One Nation Tory grandee?

Anyway, it definitely seems that the tv producers time wasn't wasted in their experiment of placing legislators eyeball to eyeball with some serious social issues. This is what Iain said very recently in an article for The Times and widely quoted elsewhere:-

"Too many people have remained unaware of the true nature of life on some of our estates. This was because we had ghettoised many of these problems, keeping them out of sight of the middle-class majority. Occasionally some terrible event would make it on to our front pages, but because they were small in number people were able to turn away from the problem. But last month the inner city finally came to call and the country was shocked by what it saw." He went on to say "it was not possible to arrest our way out of the riots, and a social response was needed." 

In picking up on this, Inspector Gadjet quite rightly reminds us that frontline services like the police have known all this for ages and he has blogged eloquently and vividly on the topic. But probation has known too. I well remember paying a visit to an office on the 'frontline' in Liverpool over 20 years ago and being truely shocked. There it was, standing all alone in the middle of the desolate vandalised remains of a grand post war housing experiment, a single storey temporary-looking building covered in razor wire, barred plastic windows, steel doors and all thoroughly decorated with graffiti. Heroin had already got a strangle-hold here and I remember thinking 'God, I wonder how long we've got down our way?'

But of course that was 20 years ago. I don't know for certain, but I bet that office has long gone. As I have previously lamented, probation has been retreating from such 'frontline' locations for years and now typically reside in edge-of-town megga-sized 'service delivery units' pretty well isolated from the communities they supposedly are meant to serve.

Iain has a good track record in terms of thoughtfulness on social issues and of course prior to the last election was the author of the report into child development, stressing the need to address the first signs of neglect and poor parenting as soon as possible so as to save greater heartache and cost to society later on. It's just unfortunate that he now finds himself part of a government unwilling or unable to make the necessary investment. But at least he's an enlightened voice I feel and on the face of it, an unlikely bedfellow of Inspector Gadjet's. I can't help but notice that Gadjet did not quote that bit about 'not being able to arrest our way out of the riots'. But there again, I suppose we're all guilty of some selective quoting when it suits us.  



   

Back to Work

Yes going away is great - but so is the coming home and to a surprise surge in readers due to a recent plug by the American Association of Probation and Parole Officers. You are all most welcome. I have to say I spent a couple of very interesting days with colleagues in New York some years ago, including a fascinating morning observing a lower court in Manhattan. Of course there are many differences between our respective criminal justice systems, but lots of similarities too. 

Whilst away, I couldn't help but hear several snippets of news, one of which made me utter expletives in an uncontrolled manner. Has prime minister David Cameron taken leave of his senses bringing in the dreadful Louise Casey to advise on the aftermath of the recent riots? Yes the self-same person plucked from obscurity by Tony Blair to advise firstly on homelessness "stop soup runs - it only encourages it", then to champion the utterly failed Anti Social Behaviour Order that criminalised whole swathes of people, going on to spearhead the so-called 'respect' agenda and subsequently gaining promotion from Gordon Brown to Victim Commissioner. One can only hope that she's there for window dressing and wiser counsel will prevail in coming up with sensible lessons to be learnt from the recent civil disorder.

I notice that much is being made of the fact that 75% of those appearing in court as a result of the riots have an offending history, thus providing proof of the failure of our criminal justice system. I don't think it does any such thing and it certainly is no great surprise. If anything, it's the other 25% with no previous that should be of concern and serve to remind us that lurking just beneath the surface of our supposedly civilised society there are some very unpleasant forces capable of release when normal controls become absent. I hate to say it, but I did predict both this aspect and that harsh sentencing would result.

The discussions continue as to whether the sentences being passed are justified or not and the prison population breaks historic records each week. I can't help but feel echoes from history, whether that of the Luddites, the Suffragettes or Miners even. Some might say that they were very different examples of civil unrest, borne of social changes, inequalities or perceived grievances. Surely this was 'just' criminal activity by 'feral' youth? Hang on a minute - a group sidelined by social change, victims of an unequal society and harbouring grievances......

As a footnote and because I love history and believe it always informs our present situation, citizens of London particularly might like to reflect on why so many of their old or not-so-old police stations have flights of steps up to them? Clearly not very access-friendly in the current age of the Disability Discrimination Act, but a design feature conceived many years ago just in case the unruly masses ever revolted and decided to attack the forces of Law and Order in the shape of the local police station. Much easier to repel people coming up a set of stairs. That actually happened at several stations during the recent disturbances. It's also worth noting that fire stations were attacked and crews threatened and prevented from attending major fires during the riots. 

As I go to press, the Metropolitan Police are absorbing what the new Commissioner will bring to the party and with the London Olympics just around the corner, we must all hope his are indeed a safe pair of hands. The appointment of acting Commissioner Hogan-Howe was no great surprise with Sir Hugh Orde effectively ruling himself out by being far too gobby for government's liking and lets be honest, bringing in an American, no matter how illustrious, was never really a possibility was it? After all, he would never have been able to accept the knighthood that goes with the job.

Anniversary Fever

I'm conscious that this piece of self-indulgence will shortly reach it's first anniversary and being somewhat sentimental, I can't let my impending enforced sojourn from the computer interfere with marking the occasion in some way.

It's been quite a journey of surprises, enlightenment and not infrequent laughs. I've been genuinely surprised by the amount of interest, especially from clients and I must admit I had never considered myself particularly well prepared for the role of 'agony aunt.' It's been a great relief not to have attracted so-called 'trolls' that seem to be the bain of so many blogs and I'm not being platitudinous in saying that feedback in the form of readers comments really does lift an authors spirits when it seems you might just be 'whistling in the dark.' Thankyou to everyone who took the trouble to comment.

This blog started out of my personal outrage and pent-up frustration about a vocation I care very much about. Probation as a concept or as a 'job' has never been particularly well understood and if my mission has been about anything, it's been about trying to convey the subtleties, skills and workings of a simple idea that's been around for well over a hundred years. But sadly too often I've found myself responding to it's systematic marginalisation and without mincing words, impending destruction. 

It's quite ironic really that at a time when our still fairly-new government is using rhetoric such as 'localism', the same government is doing its best to further centralise major aspects of the criminal justice system such as Magistrates Courts, Police and of course Probation. All this whilst imposing across-the-board cost savings and at the same time encouraging an explosion in prison numbers as a result of recent riots. A truly effective Probation Service is needed now more than ever.

A year on I wish I could say that I felt more optimistic about our future, but I can't. The recent Justice Select Committee report failed in my view to get to grips with OASys and it's fundamental negative effect on Probation. The Pre Sentence Report, an absolute cornerstone of our work, is all but dead, killed off by OASys and Probation Management no less and now seemingly with the full support of senior Judges. This is a recent quote from the Director of Operations of a large metropolitan service:-

"In respect of our work with courts, we are looking to shift the bulk of offender/defendant assessment from pre to post sentence........This approach has been endorsed by two senior Judges........We are currently in discussion about the relevance of this approach in the Magistrates Courts."  

So that's it then. No need for PSR's. I'm not sure there's much of a need for Probation any more. But maybe I'm just getting carried away with anniversary fever and the feeling will pass? All being well, I hope to be back in mid September.     

What Price a PSR?

Regular readers will be aware that I have previously discussed at some length the disgraceful fall in standard of computer-generated Pre-Sentence Reports and have gone as far as to predict their complete demise. When the history comes to be written, I believe that the blame will be placed fairly and squarely at the door of OASys. It's been pretty much a self-inflicted double-whammy, not only making the production of a quality piece of work nigh on impossible, it's more than doubled the time it takes to prepare and hence doubled the cost.

Rather than admit that the whole thing has been a disaster, management ushered in the so-called Fast Delivery Report which had the handy aspect of avoiding the time-consuming OASys completely. They could be completed by non qualified staff and within a matter of an hour or so. But, according to Jonathan Ledger's NAPO blog, even this is being dispensed with by some courts in the rush to deliver speedy justice to some of the early riot defendants. Of the two young men sentenced at Chester Crown Court recently to four years each for Incitement on Facebook he says:-

"Word is that in this case the Court did not want either a standard or even a fast delivery report but merely an on the spot assessment of the impact of custody on the defendants by the Probation Service. I don't know how common this practice is becoming but it is a disgrace and runs against the state's duty to properly assess background and behaviour."

If correct, it seems my ominous prediction some time ago has come to fruition rather sooner than even I predicted. It will be very interesting indeed to see what the Appeal Court makes of this aspect of these two cases. According to press reports, Lord Justice Judge has cleared his diary in order to fast-track any appeals, so we should find out what the higher courts' view is pretty quickly. My feeling and hope is that the sidelining of proper probation PSR's in this somewhat unseemly rush to summary justice for the rioters will be scrutinised thoroughly by the Appeal Court and Judges reminded of their duty to commission full reports.  

As an aside, I notice that there are several urgent appeals on the Guardian website for qualified probation officers in London required immediately for court work.

Reflection

I'm probably being a little presumptuous, but regular readers might have wondered why the silence of late, particularly given the vast quantity of comment and analysis that has been flowing on the airwaves and via the blogosphere in the wake of the riots. I haven't been away on holiday yet, but to be honest I've been having a long think.

Thank goodness the rioting stopped, but the row between police and politicians about who should take the credit has been unseemly to say the least. The Criminal Justice System has sprung into action rather quicker than most felt it was capable of and I've certainly been amazed with the speed some committals to Crown Court have been effected, and weighed off indeed. The first cases dealt with at Manchester Crown Court, by the Recorder no less, clearly had the benefit of fast probation Pre Sentence Reports, but it seems most if not all were current clients with significant offending histories.

The two young men of previous good character and who received four years imprisonment at Chester Crown Court for Incitement has attracted much adverse comment as being far too harsh for what friends described as 'a prank or just having a laugh on Facebook'. I've been trying to decide what I might have put in their PSR's in terms of sentencing recommendations.

Firstly, had they related the 'having a laugh' line to me, they would have been on the receiving end of a lecture, a form of client engagement I haven't used much but which can still be appropriate at certain times. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm not sure any appeal will succeed significantly because of the context in which these two lads decided to 'have a laugh.'

Mayhem was breaking out in many parts of the country, some initiated by incitement via social networking media, and these two decide to 'copycat' with a geographic location, time and invitation to rampage. As a result it necessitated deployment of significant police resources at a time of emergency and when they might have been required at other locations urgently. It is not unlike the making of malicious phone calls to the fire service at a time of serious emergency. Not unlike the joke of 'having a bomb' on a plane at a time of heightened security, or shouting 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre even.

To me these and other examples such as stealing lifebelts or in the past vandalising phone boxes so they are not available for emergency use, all serve to underline the fact that every citizen has shared responsibilities as well as rights. It underlines that actions have consequences, some unintended but serious nevertheless. Normally society can get along relatively well when there is a clear majority of people acting responsibly, but when the balance tips as it did the other week, that is the context in which punishment has to be assessed.

Secondly, just because a riot did not result from this particular act of incitement, is not greatly significant in my view. As far as I know, the act of attempting arson endangering life can be treated as seriously as if arson resulted and lives were put at risk. Only lack of skill or good fortune might have averted a much worse situation, but if either intent or recklessness were present, the perpetrator would be likely to receive serious punishment. 

I think my report would have made a not-too-serious suggestion for Unpaid Work, but with an acknowledgement that if the Judge felt only imprisonment was appropriate, it could be suspended. I don't think this would have been an appropriate occasion in which to turn up at court in person in support of my report. In short, I don't think it would have been a full blown, fully articulated and argued plea for a community disposal, because of the context in which the offence had been committed. I notice that Inspector Gadjet is making much of the courts demonstrating that they can hand out 'decent sentences', but as I say, they have to be viewed in context. 

Perhaps I might not go as far as saying they got what they deserved, but I do say I'm not surprised. In relation to some of the first cases dealt with at Manchester Crown Court, the sentencing judges' full reasoning is well worth reading.          

Beware Politicians

Having seemingly recovered from the ignominy of the expenses scandal and bruising from the universal aprobrium heaped upon them as a result, but emboldened by the facing down of Rupert Murdoch, politicians now seem hell bent on flexing their muscles. The recent pronouncements by prime minister David Cameron in the wake of the riots were clearly designed to sound tough and have played well both in Parliament and the country at large. But not everyone is happy with the tough rhetoric and indeed there are mutterings that our senior politicians having exceeded their authority.

A piece in yesterday's Guardian written by an experienced lay magistrate and popular blogger raises concerns over what appeared to be instructions by the prime minister as to how the courts should deal with those arrested and charged with riot-related offences. We all know that under our famously unwritten constitution the Judiciary are supposedly independent and historically don't take kindly to being pushed around by government. This is particularly true of the Lay Bench, as recently demonstrated here.

But it would be naive to think that as a result of the unprecedented public disorder and numbers arrested that the Criminal Justice System would just tick along as usual, but possibly at a slightly higher gear. Huge numbers of arrested people had to be shipped out of the capital to surrounding police custody suites and Magistrates Courts in several cities undertook all-night sittings. The thing is, unless I can be corrected, these all night courts have not been the preserve of Lay Benches, but rather exclusively District Judges. 

Ever since the few Stipendiary Magistrates were renamed and increased in number, there have been understandabe tensions between them and the Lay Bench. There was a widespread suspicion that it was all part of a grand plan to do away with unpaid, amateur justices, not withstanding their 700 year-old history, and replace them all with highly paid professional judges. Although this has been regularly denied and further recruitment slowed down, tensions still remain that all the interesting or difficult stuff get reserved to the DJ.

To some extent this is an understandable consequence of having paid Judges, but the suspicion now is that they have been influenced by political pronouncements over how to deal with rioters. Many being processed through recent all night sittings have been denied bail and there is just a tad of a suspicion that denial of bail might be being used as a punishment in itself. As 'Bystander' makes clear in his recent article, very naughty indeed. 

But it's not just worries about political influence on the judicial process, it's also surfaced in relation to the police. Sir Hugh Orde, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers has reacted angrily to the suggestion that it was the home secretary that ordered Chief Constables to cancel leave and flood cities with officers. He has stated what I think is the true constitutional position that she has no authority at all to order Chief Constables to do anything. I believe that the position, at the moment at least, is that Chief Constables hold their post as a direct Crown Appointment and as a result have complete authority to act as they, and they alone, see fit. Ok they can be censured, suspended, arrested or sacked even, but they cannot be ordered to do anything. Some might say a pedantic point, but I think we ought to think very carefully as a society what it will mean if we go further down the road of political influence over chief police officers, or judges even.