Right, Wrong or Fair?

On day one the prosecution case was utterly compelling and that's not just my view, even Trump's lead lawyer said he'd been so impressed he'd decided to rip up his prepared presentation. We'll never know if it was any good or not, but his rambling 30 minutes in the limelight certainly hasn't enhanced his legal career, or standing with his client, especially by confirming Trump had indeed lost the election. It's said Trump was screaming at his TV down there in Mar-a-lago and maybe we were only robbed of the spectacle of an instant sacking by his lack of access to Twitter?   

Of course it's not just Trump on trial as all those 50 Republican Senators have to decide which way to jump and they had all been so hoping judgement day could have been avoided had the process been declared unconstitutional. Unfortunately for them, Trump's last minute cobbled-together legal team lacked a constitutional expert and not even 90 minutes of fast-delivered but completely incomprehensible and contradictory verbiage prevented six Republicans voting with the Democrats.

Now I'm no lawyer and my knowledge of the US Constitution remains minimal, but am I alone in feeling just a tad concerned about the accused being able to get a fair trial when the judge and jurors are all witnesses and victims of the crime? The trial is even being held at the crime scene. Sorry about muddying the water like that, but just thought I'd better throw it in now just in case further down the line there might be reference to kangaroo justice or show trials even. But I guess it's ok because due to partisanship there's absolutely no chance of conviction, but entirely for the wrong reasons surely?    

Even before we get to the main prosecution case, observers and commentators alike are beginning to ponder on what exactly would it take for more Republicans to break rank and just do the right thing? It's even being seriously suggested that had any Congress men or women died during the insurrection, such is Trump's hold over the GOP with the real fear of being 'primaried' or worse the target of violence, they will still publicly stay loyal. That's surely truly astonishing and demonstrates just how low US politics has sunk under the pernicious influence of Donald J Trump. 

So, if I've got this right, despite being both witnesses and victims, if 17 Republicans still cannot bring themselves to convict, I guess we can say history must record for posterity who did the right thing and who the wrong when destiny came calling. But what if all 50 did the 'right' thing? Would that be right or wrong? Would it be for the right reasons and would it be fair? Maybe it doesn't matter because Trump is just dreadful, right?    

Grand Plans

What with morale being so low and us all distracted and worn down by Covid concerns, I guess we should have been paying a bit more attention to the government's sentencing White Paper published last September. We covered Napo's initial response here we raised an eyebrow at the aim for a world class service here and other cliche's here, but maybe a close look at the whole probation chapter would be wise:- 

A Smarter Approach to Sentencing

Strengthening the way that offenders are supervised in the community requires a stronger, world-class probation service – one that keeps the public safe through effective community sentences which combine punishment with tailored programmes and treatment requirements to address specific criminogenic needs. With the support of skilled practitioners, a successful period of probation supervision can challenge and motivate offenders to address the causes of their offending. Through our reform programme, our aim is for probation practitioners to have the time, support and tools to develop productive relationships with those they supervise, to deliver interventions directly, and to place offenders with other rehabilitative services.

3. Empowering Probation 

Chapter Summary 

The probation service has for too long operated in the shadows and with the work of its dedicated professionals not sufficiently valued or understood. We want this to change. Probation services deliver more than merely the supervision of offenders. With the support of skilled practitioners, a successful period of probation supervision will see offenders challenged and motivated to address the causes of their offending: supported to find stable accommodation and employment, and to make a sustained move away from relationships, associations or addictions that will lead to reoffending. 

Effective supervision is at the heart of our plans to improve probation services. We want probation practitioners to have the time, support and tools to develop effective relationships with those they supervise, to deliver effective interventions directly, and to place offenders with other rehabilitative services. We will do this through investment and reforms to the way that probation services are delivered, alongside improvements to the powers available to probation practitioners. 

Partnership working: We want to ensure that there is improved strategic delivery and local partnership working. A refreshed joint policing and probation strategy for IOM will be published by the end of 2020. 

Improving the service to victims and the wider community: Community sentences should also be seen to be served in the community and should be actively benefiting the community within which they are being served. We want to make sure that, in particular, there is a greater community voice in determining how Unpaid Work schemes should be focussed to bring about the most benefit. 

Increasing the powers of probation practitioners: We plan to consider the strong arguments for varying the responsibilities and powers available to probation practitioners to enable them to act swiftly and responsively on their professional judgement, to make sure we have a strong and responsive probation service that is delivering reductions in reoffending. 

Introduction

189  Strengthening the way that offenders are supervised in the community requires a stronger, world-class probation service – one that keeps the public safe through the effective supervision of offenders in the community, by delivering programmes and other interventions to address criminogenic needs, and by bringing together a wide range of statutory agencies and private and voluntary organisations to provide rehabilitation and support. 

190  In strengthening probation we want to ensure that services are effective and give confidence to judges, magistrates and the public, and that are structured in a way that supports local partnership working and is responsive to the needs of local areas.

Unifying probation supervision 

191  In May 2019, we announced that when Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) contracts came to an end, all sentence management responsibilities for low-, medium-, and high-risk offenders would be held by the National Probation Service (NPS). This means that from June 2021, the NPS will be responsible for the effective delivery of community sentences, licences and other forms of post-sentence management by ensuring offenders are properly supervised, requirements are coordinated and delivered, risks are managed and enforcement action taken after any breach, including recall to custody. This will sit alongside and complement the existing NPS responsibility for providing advice to courts ahead of sentencing on the most suitable type of sentence for the offender. NPS Wales unified their offender management services in December 2019, and the learning from that process is helping to shape the future design for England. In March 2020 we published a detailed vision for the probation structures in the Draft Target Operating Model for the Future of Probation Services. 

192  In June 2020 we announced changes in this model in response to the experience of COVID-19. Under our revised approach to probation reform, Unpaid Work, Accredited Programmes and Structured Interventions will no longer be contracted out but will instead be delivered by the NPS directly. We consider that bringing these services into the NPS in addition to sentence management will put us in the best possible position to respond to any further disruption caused by COVID-19 and enable a smoother recovery out of exceptional delivery arrangements we have had to put in place. Advice to court will continue to be a core duty of the NPS with increased focus on quality of assessment and pre-sentence reports. The NPS will build on the existing enhanced through the gate services with a new resettlement model which improves links with prisons, enhances pre-release planning by probation practitioners and provides increased focus on short term sentences. 

193  The revised model puts us in the best place to be able to deliver these ambitions. It will facilitate more strategic and integrated probation supervision through fostering close collaboration with strategic partners including local courts and Police and Crime Commissioners.

194  Our approach for all services for Day 1 of the new model will be to move existing CRC staff and delivery models into the NPS with minimal disruption with ongoing work thereafter to embed and improve service delivery. The transition to a level of service as envisaged by the Draft Target Operating Model for probation is likely to take time given the backlogs to Unpaid Work and Accredited Programmes created by exceptional delivery arrangements as well as a likely spike in court orders once jury trials resume. This would be the case regardless of which organisation delivery sat with, but we consider that bringing this work in-house gives us greater flexibility to deal with this. 

Structural and organisational changes to probation 

The National Probation Service (NPS) will be responsible for managing all offenders on a community order or licence following their release from prison in England and Wales. 

The NPS will continue to deliver those services reserved to the public sector such as advice to court. From June 2021, the NPS will also deliver offenders’ Unpaid Work and behavioural change programmes in England and Wales. 

The voluntary and private sectors will play an enhanced role in the probation system, running services such as education, employment, and accommodation commissioned through the Probation Services Dynamic Framework. 

There will be 12 probation areas across England and Wales, introducing 11 new probation areas in England, with existing arrangements remaining unchanged in Wales. 

In England, each area will be overseen by a new dedicated regional director who will provide strategic leadership and be responsible for the overall delivery and commissioning of probation services. 

The regional directors, along with the NPS Director in Wales, will work closely to ensure an effective, unified approach from the pre-sentence stage in court through to supervision in the community. 

We will take action to strengthen the standing of the probation workforce and also make changes that support continuous professional development. 

Benefits of the future model for probation 

195  In developing the future model for probation, we want to ensure that services are effective and provided in a way that judges, magistrates and the public have confidence in, and are structured in a way that supports local partnership working and is responsive to the needs of local areas. 

196  Unifying sentence management under the NPS should have a positive impact on the judiciary’s faith in probation’s ability to deliver, as we know sentencers have expressed greater confidence in the NPS, with whom they have a more direct relationship than CRCs. There will be a single organisation responsible for providing advice to court and delivering the sentence, and we anticipate that this will result in benefits in the preparation of pre-sentence reports (PSRs). 

197  Additionally, it will mean greater central control over the quality of services and enable greater clarity around minimum standards. It will also mean that there will be one probation voice in local partnership arrangements. 

198  The creation of a Dynamic Framework for resettlement and rehabilitative interventions will enable more local commissioning and support the direct participation of smaller voluntary sector and specialist organisations in the delivery of these interventions, something that has not been consistently achieved under the current model. This will help services to be more locally responsive and provide more ready access to services that better address individual needs, particularly vulnerable offenders and those with complex needs. 

Partnership working 

199  Across the system, we want to ensure that there is improved strategic delivery and local partnership working. In creating 11 new probation regions across England, alongside the existing area in Wales, we have sought to achieve the right balance between the potential for efficiencies across the probation system and arrangements that are closer to other criminal justice system structures and which can facilitate partnership working.

200  In England, each of the NPS divisions will be overseen by a Regional Probation Director who will provide strategic leadership and be responsible for the overall delivery and commissioning of probation services. In Wales, the Executive Director for HMPPS already has responsibility for all probation services and prisons, and this will remain unchanged. These leaders will have clear responsibility for strengthening engagement in local and regional partnerships. 

201  This will ensure there is greater transparency around probation performance, that services are responsive to local priorities, and opportunities are taken to co-commission those services that are key to reducing reoffending with partners such as Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs), local authorities and health commissioners. 

202  We want to support probation providers to work with local partners to develop innovative services that respond to offenders’ needs. There are already schemes in some areas, and in future we would like to see arrangements develop in other areas. The plans set out in our response to the probation consultation for Regional Directors to have funding reserved for innovative, cross-cutting approaches, will support this.

203  We also want to re-focus how law enforcement partners work together to supervise offenders in the community, through strategic arrangements such as Integrated Offender Management (IOM). IOM enables the police and probation to jointly provide an enhanced supervision of priority offenders identified in local areas in line with the government’s crime reduction and reducing reoffending plans. We will publish a refreshed joint policing and probation strategy for IOM by the end of 2020. 

204  Community sentences should also be seen to be served in the community and should be actively benefiting the community within which they are being served. We want to make sure that, in particular, there is a greater community voice in determining how Unpaid Work schemes should be focussed to bring about the most benefit. This is why we are introducing a statutory duty for probation to consult a range of voices when designing and delivering Unpaid Work placements and schemes. Further detail on the design of Unpaid Work under the new model for probation is available in the ‘Supervising Offenders in the Community’ chapter of this paper. 

Probation Workforce Programme 

205  In January 2020, the Probation Workforce Programme was launched to ensure the wider changes happening in probation go hand-in-hand with positive changes for our workforce. Our staff are integral to the successful operation of the NPS model, and we need to ensure we have a motivated and professional workforce that can deliver for the probation service.

206  The Workforce Programme will seek to address the significant shortfall of trained probation officers in the system by focusing on four key workstreams: capacity and efficiency, capability, pay rewards and policies, and infrastructure. This will ultimately ensure that we have the right number of people with the right capabilities and appropriate support to deliver a strong and effective service both now and in the future. The workforce strategy was launched in July 2020 and we have already started recruiting new probation staff. This strategy set out our commitment to increase recruitment of probation staff this year and have a minimum of 1000 new probation practitioners in training by January 2021. Our ambition is to make sure probation officers have manageable and varied caseloads and are encouraged specialisms. As part of this work, we will explore options to improve the professionalisation of the probation officer and probation support officer role. 

Trusting probation staff to take action 

207  We want to make sure that probation practitioners have the necessary powers to be able to properly supervise offenders in the community, in particular, that they are able to act quickly and responsively to behaviour that needs to be addressed without necessarily needing to return to the courts. 

208  A core function of the probation service is to supervise offenders in the community. That is, to require an offender to attend an appointment so the probation practitioner responsible for their sentence can identify existing or emerging needs and risks, and either provide interventions directly or refer them to other organisations. For offenders released from custody, this kind of supervision is built into the duration of their licence. 

209  In contrast, not all Community Orders or Suspended Sentence Orders provide for this general supervision power for the length of the order. Unless an Order contains a Rehabilitation Activity Requirement (RAR), legislation as currently framed explicitly provides for supervision only in connection with the requirements imposed by the order. While offenders are under a general duty to keep in touch with their Responsible Officer in accordance with such instructions they may be given from time to time, the legislation does not clarify what ‘keeping in touch’ means and if it includes attending probation supervision appointments. 

210  In practice, this means that a probation practitioner who may wish to supervise offenders who have completed all of their requirements (but whose Order has not expired), do not currently have legislative cover to do so unless the Order contains a RAR. Also, practitioners who may wish to supervise offenders for reasons unconnected to the requirements of the Order do not currently have legislative cover to do so. 

211  We believe there is an important role for the Court in setting out the requirement(s) an offender should undertake as part of their community order at the point of sentencing. And the priority of the probation service must always be to support the purpose of the Order and the administration of justice. However, we also believe there is merit in probation staff having sufficient flexibility within their prescribed duties and responsibilities to respond to the unique journey of each offender as they progress through their sentence. Supervision unconnected to requirements, carried out after the completion of requirements, may be warranted for two reasons. First, the Responsible Officer may feel that supervision is necessary to address issues that either arise post-sentencing and are not strictly related to the original requirements, or after requirements are complete and remain outstanding. Second, the Responsible Officer may also feel supervision is necessary if there is reason to believe that the offender’s level of risk to the public has increased. 

212  We will therefore legislate to give probation practitioners greater flexibility to take appropriate action where they have concerns about an offender’s rehabilitative needs or risk to the public. In practice, this would empower Responsible Officers to compel offenders to attend supervision appointments and, where appropriate, participate in rehabilitative activities for the length of a Community Order or Suspended Sentence (either through supervision sessions or onwards referral to other organisations). 

213  Alongside this change, we plan to consider the arguments for varying the responsibilities and powers available to probation practitioners to enable them to act swiftly and responsively on their professional judgement. We want to take the opportunity provided by the Probation Reform programme to bring about greater change. 

214  It is currently possible for courts to bring community sentences to a conclusion before the original end date if the individual has sufficiently fulfilled the order’s requirements. Where offenders breach their order, there is a process where Responsible Officers can give warnings before taking enforcement proposals to court. 

215  We recognise that swift breach action where individuals fail to comply with a requirement of the court’s order is central in securing public confidence in community sentences, as well as having the potential to further influence and change offender behaviour. Effective use of community sentences relies on the relationship between the probation practitioner and the offender; we therefore need to ensure that probation has the right mechanisms, tools and powers to support and enhance this relationship. 

216  Other jurisdictions will mark progress made by offenders with events recognising the positive changes they have made. In England and Wales, we have seen examples of offender achievements being recognised with letters or certificates. For individuals who have experienced difficult relationships with the state, for example through the education system or the care system, it may be the first time anyone in authority has ever acknowledged progress. 

217  In view of this, as well as the potential to harness the improvements to the probation service brought about by reform, we will further explore the options and their implications. There is a spectrum through which we could consider giving probation practitioners a range of more immediate options before taking an order back to court: 

• ‘Administrative’ variation of existing requirements to respond to an offender’s changes in circumstances. We are pursuing this policy via the powers to vary timings of curfews, outlined in this paper. 

• Flexible enforcement of court-imposed requirements, that would allow the Responsible Officer to adjust and vary these requirements to encourage and influence changes in offender behaviour. Under this model, we would consider whether the sentencer (at sentencing) should specify the minimum and maximum number of hours to be completed at the discretion of the offender manager.

• Imposition of new requirements for non-compliance/breach. 

218  Options under this spectrum could mark a distinct change in the way in which probation supervise offenders in the community. We believe that enhanced powers could afford probation staff greater flexibility to respond to offenders’ needs in a way that reflects their professionalism and expertise. 

219  However, within this policy, it is vital that the flexibility afforded to probation is consistent with the court’s original sentence. Due to the importance of the relationship between the courts and probation, we will explore these options with relevant key stakeholders to decide on the most appropriate and effective powers to potentially introduce. 

Conclusion 

220  In order for community supervision to work effectively, it needs to be accompanied by a robust probation service, to fulfil the key aims of protecting the public while also providing support for offenders who wish to turn their lives around. 

221  This chapter has reiterated plans for the National Probation Service. By strengthening probation in this way, we want to ensure that services are effective for those who require them and give the public confidence in the system.

Losing the Plot

Probation of Offenders Act 1907 Clause 4d : "It shall be the duty of a probation officer, subject to the directions of the court - to advise, assist and befriend him, and, when necessary, to endeavour to find him suitable employment." 

As we continue to struggle with an increasingly bureaucratic, punitive and fractious probation service, it's worth remembering that when this enlightened and pioneering legislation was enacted, it predated the arrival of the social work profession; the court disposal was not a criminal conviction; and the recipient had to give consent. Interestingly, the Act remains in force in the Republic of Ireland. 

--oo00oo--

"Are you honestly saying probation officers should undertake 21 months of training and be paid £30-35k to go to the cinema?"

I really can't fathom out what point this person is trying to make? Why should encouraging our often dis-enfranshised, dis-engaged and socially excluded service users to do different things and getting to know them outside of a formal interview room, be "beneath" the work of a probation officer, irrespective of what they are paid? What are you saying the role of a PO should be, as all I see are risk management and sentence plans about "addressing lifestyle", "engaging in pro-social activities" or "moving away from peers", with no substance or skill attached on behalf of the PO to actually making this happen.

I once took a service user to the theatre (in my own time and while I very briefly mentioned this in Delius records I feared my employer actually finding out which itself speaks volumes). And why did I do this? Because I was getting NOTHING meaningful out of him in office visits and wanted to open his mind to "another world" and felt he had the potential to enjoy and experience other things in life (he'd never been to the theatre before, was a chronic alcoholic, it was actually a free event, but he had no idea these things even existed or how to access them). Am I bad probation officer? Would you not class this as an "intervention to assess and manage risk"?

As I recall it, the recent thread of posts started off due to a (yet another) commissioning proposal about NPS employing "mentors" to "support" our vulnerable and isolated during COVID19. So while such mentors get to know the "real person" outside of an office context, our jobs once again become fragmented - we try to "manage risk" with only partial information because the person is engaging with so many other agencies, or get in trouble if we weren't effective enough at "joint partnership working". We've fragmented off the job to so many disproportionate and disparate agencies, that it's no wonder our job is often described as reading a million emails and phoning people all day long, interspersed with "check ups" with our service users about whether they have done X or Y with another agency - personally I don't think that's worth £35K either, and writing crappy OASYS isn't either.

So in response to this poster, why should it be OK for a mentor to "take our service users to the cinema" and not develop such relationships ourselves? Why is "mentoring" seen a valid endeavour, but probation officers delivering mentoring not?

Be warned that the more we accept our jobs being farmed off to (generally lower paid) keyworkers, ETE workers, mentors, resettlement agencies, drug workers, charities, mental health workers, generally none of which are particularly more trained than us to deliver useful interventions in their respective fields, that our role will become even less necessary than it already is. Just look at the list of "day one services" under the new model - ETE, housing, "emotional support", accredited programmes, and I believe "one to one" interventions are being delivered by a separate team too - just what exactly is left to do for the Probation officer paid £35K?

*****

Equally, be warned that if we don't farm off the lower-skilled aspects of our work to 'generally lower paid' keyworkers etc, then we are at greater risk of becoming the lower paid partner in the arrangement ourselves. We may all aspire to be part of a nobler profession, but there's a limit. And to be frank, what would the justification be for, say, accompanying a service user to buy new bedding, or escorting them to a healthcare appointment if someone else can help out (aside from just limiting the pressures of our own workloads)?

*****

NPS employing "mentors"? Nope. Let's look at it again: "I understand the probation service is in discussions with a major volunteering charity about providing volunteers who can support the more vulnerable people on probation, mentor and befriend them." They're going to pay someone like Bubb to oversee carefully selected folk to do the work for nowt. Gratis. So you can be chained for many more hours inputting data & taking the shit when it all goes tits up. Haven't heard much from Napo or Unison about this. Anyone?

******
Animal farm Orwellian dystopia probation. It's already impossible to see who the real leaders are. If the work is shed externally there will be less of a need for all staff. Are we all so daft on this blog. Thatcher's legacy the privatised structures are all about self employment. If you once worked for telecom you now work in a franchise. Public sector lost staffing to private ownerships on reduced pensions and piece meal working. There can be no advocating our work out. Instead you must define the professional work and get it established as key core PO functions. Stop the rot.

******
I agree. I'm the person who started this initial thread. To confirm, by stating the other individuals were "generally lower paid", I did not mean to infer they have lessor skills; in fact, I made a point of saying they are no more or less trained than us to deliver the work in their allotted fields. By de-professionalising probation and commissioning out aspects of the work which I derogatively described as "farming out", they have been able to allow such work to be paid at far lower rates, with far less employment or pension rights, in the name of "charity" or "third sector" work. Obviously they tried to do this also with CRC, who (alongside NPS with reliance on PSO), were allowed to employ "responsible officers" or such like, to do the same work, again at far less pay. So we should all be worried, unless as others have stated we re-claim the professional ground and not accept that, as [above] seems to, taking a one-dimensional view about "buying bedding".

I for one feel very privileged to be working for what is still a public service, with (in comparison to many) a good rate of pay which includes other benefits such as a good pension, sick pay, fantastic holidays and generally good employment rights and stability, not to mention job satisfaction. I had the choice to work in the private sector (which I did for many years as a graduate) - had I stayed there the pay may well have been better now, but without all the other benefits mentioned, and the work and employment culture sucked; targets and QA and monitoring existed in insurance too, worse so. What I lament in probation is that we measure the wrong things and place too much emphasis on whether X or Y was done, rather than the meaning behind those things, and the constant "referring out" worries me greatly.

As for [above] your comment has sickened me. I can think of a hundred different reasons why "buying bedding" and "accompanying someone to a medical appointment" should be done by the PO and not a third party. Using these opportunities to see the person in the "real world", how they operate, teaching and practicing new skills, gaining confidence - you think sitting in the office allows that? Not to mention all the millions of reasons I mentioned in my original post about taking someone to a free theatre event. If you really think "buying bedding" is all about the bedding, then I really fear for your service users and what they can possibly gain from you sitting in your office with the pontificating and derisory attitude you have displayed on this blog.

******

I recall a drive to recruit and work with volunteers back awhile, pre TR. It created more work in trying to organise it than it achieved positive outcomes. If the organising of volunteers is outsourced and monetised it will be one of two things: highly bureaucratic with lots of vetting, training, etc, or cheap and very dodgy.

*****
Many many moons ago... I started my probation journey as a volunteer. It was an in-house project with a Probation Area, overseen by a senior manager. After three months' intensive training & clearance I was allocated to work with an inner city team where any of the POs in the team could submit suggestions for work they would like me to undertake with their cases. The volunteer manager would oversee the suggested tasks & select what they felt was possible/appropriate. The most common work involved taking family members to see cases incarcerated in prisons beyond the reach of a day return on public transport. Any direct work with a case was supervised by or very specifically laid out by the PO, with very clear instructions.

I had direct access to & supervision by the senior manager running the project & if there were any concerns about a situation I was removed from the task & thoroughly de-briefed. The project ended after two years when the senior manager took another role & no-one else applied for the secondment. I suspect it was also an expensive project. I don't know how many other volunteers were involved. It was certainly as intense as my training placements and prepared me well for my career. I dread to imagine what the 2021 version will be like.

******
High risk is where it's always been at really. In the 70 and 90s the focus was sharpened to resources follow risk. The old softly softly bus fares and befriending fund dried up fast to pay for managerialism expenses and business MBAs for middle managers. It saw the offender services decline and the training aided by the new direction of Labour paving a way for PFI hostels, bringing in outsiders and coming from new partnerships. We all lost the plot perhaps, being too relaxed.

The work was different then and so was the nature of employees. Today staff are grotesquely disfigured from care and nurture to value only numbers a grossly new metric to qualify throughput and quantities. Quality takes time, money and patience. Three things they do not understand. To get back to anything half way near, will require a cultural shift. The latest cohorts were not trained or selected for the traits needed to reform reflect or value experience of other. We are stuck with a monstrous machine of technocrats craving and striving for new data streams and by cramming numbers not the three things required.

I understand the ongoing mud slinging of which this is part will not bring the changes anytime soon. We all realise the Grayling destruction will take another generation before the rebuilding. This in my view remains impossible while politics control the dogma of Tory business ideologies. Just as long as the Tories remain in government I hope.

*****
Service users have been judged and sentenced so why would advise, assist and befriend be such a difficult concept to grasp? One of the best bits of advice (after degree, 2 years CQSW and a pass or fail 1 year probationary period) was to really get to know the client, and their families. Earn their trust based on professional boundaries and compliance will follow. It seems that over the years the importance of compliance was lost to enforcement.

*****

In my mind, it's not that officers now "can't" or don't want to or don't understand the concept of advise, assist, befriend. It's that the service has tried to reduce every outcome to a measurable metric. Take point above, about "really getting to know the person and their families." This is measured by "how many times did you do a home visit", have you done an OASYS in 15 days, did you do the web (in London), have you seen the person once a week, did you use CRISSA. I've no doubt that officers in the 1980s "got away with doing little" as they do now by entering blank entries or pulling through OASYS. But the question "how did you actually get to know the person", or to what extent did meaningful engagement with their families actually make a difference, or did it? The current metrics don't improve practice for anyone, but in my view completely overwhelm motivated officers to do their jobs.

--oo00oo--

I'll end this compilation with a private communication:- 

There’s a meme going about: “Helping one person might not change the whole world, but it could change the world for one person.”

Maybe we should stick that on our letterheads where “Advise, Assist Befriend” used to be. Same stuff, basically. And chuck in the ripple effect to this argument for a Probation Service that has at its heart the welfare and progress of its clients and we are onto something. Every client that does less harm, thrives, is a human victory, plus reduction of victimisation and a saving to the public purse.

The debate here about whether the “old school” Probation Service and its ethos had an effect will never be answered by recourse to the spreadsheets. It is too complex a mash of (lack of} social provision, media, politics, legislation to find a definitive answer. Not to disparage academia: the profession was built on a rich blend of theory and practice. When that is reduced to bureaucracy, and monetisation, baby and bathwater are well and truly thrown out.

But for now, I would like to invite stories. Hard to share those stories that warm the hearts of Probation professionals given the privacy confidentially and respect that we extend to our cases. Let’s give it a go, carefully. Your starter for 10: Names and details changed to protect the less than innocent:

Approached in the street by Joe, a long gone but then “prolific” and notorious client: I had worked with him a good few years back: He came with a pile of conditions and expectations from the court. Early on, while we mooched about in seemingly aimless conversations, the thing that engaged him, was core, emerged, so we went with that. It was nothing much to do with any assessment or whatever, it was just a thing he wanted and needed which was a positive: being able to read, scared and embarrassed by his inabilities. Getting there took patience and skill, and jettisoning the rigid and paltry “plan” for a genuine interest in and support of an individual requires confidence and professional autonomy. 

His pre-cons printout was like the telephone directory: both width and quality, but when I met him in the street I hadn’t seen him for a few years. He was applying for a professional qualification, what must he declare by way of criminal convictions? We went back to the office and checked. All were “spent”. Hard to credit. We high fived. He got a bit tearful. Now a family man with a small business. There’s a whole lot of cases which don’t get there of course. But some that do. They don’t come back, of course, so we lose sight of the joy, and the benefit of that.

Advise, Assist and Befriend?

What does advise, assist and befriend in a probation context even mean? I once asked a probation officer from that era and they told me they would take service users to the cinema. Are you honestly saying probation officers should undertake 21 months of training and be paid £30-35k to go to the cinema?

*****
I would say that 21 months training is far too little. I would also say that if you have to ask what advise, assist and befriend even means, then you're arguing against something you have no understanding of. I would also say that basing your argument around something said once by a singular probation officer is plain nonsensical.

******
I doubt that [above] finds the 'concept' of advise, assist, and befriend too difficult to grasp. I suspect the words are well understood. But if it's so glaringly obvious what it provided then that can't be provided by a good practitioner now, why is [above] still waiting for the example that's been requested. I agree that the 1980/90s remit of the Probation Service allowed more freedom to work imaginatively (and I certainly trusted my employer more and felt less badgered), but it also allowed some staff to do little or nothing... to the extent, I recall, that gave rise to the term 'positive inaction' (doing nothing at all in the management of a sentence, including trying to deliver the sentence or enforce non-compliance, in case it negatively impacted on the service user). 

What I hear in many posts on this site is the voices of those who weren't doing much then, and who are now outraged that expectations had to change as a result and have steadfastly refused to try and adapt since. I'm not happy with lots of things in Probation and I try and work with and around them in the best interest of the individuals on my caseload. If I felt the whole situation was so utterly doomed and futile I'd have left 15 or 20 years ago. And yes, it was me yesterday that posted the first of the comments reprinted above... and I suspect I'm at the opposite end of the career spectrum from [above]. People can't still be scratching their heads about why the previous model of Probation wasn't really sustainable. Can they?

--oo00oo--

Lets revisit Guest Blog 26 from Monday, 23 February 2015 to help answer the question:-

Advise, Assist and Befriend

I've seen a lot of changes in probation over the years. When I started working in probation most of my colleagues tended to have 20+ year service records, while managers had been in post for like forever. The success of qualification as a Probation Officer was a real achievement, particularly when working alongside such long serving staff, some with previous careers in professions including mining, finance, teaching and the military. In those days you had to be qualified for at least two years to supervise a dangerous offender or lifer, you wouldn't be allocated a Parole Report unless you had already proved your worth in both report writing and through-care, and you needed an arms length of quality service to become a manager and a lifetime of service to become a senior manager or Chief Officer. Nowadays the new recruits can be allocated a caseload of high risk offenders on the first day and management is an escape route for those that have the least understanding of probation work. Pay increases were on an annual basis and I'm sure pay bands used to be a lot higher too.

There were always unique characters in probation offices, such as the good-natured colleague that supervised all the lifers and was always visiting prisons, the colleague that was an expert on mental health and seemed in need of the service too, the rebellious Union colleagues that management revered, you know the ones that were eventually seconded off to the local prison (the elephants graveyard for burnt out probation officers), the colleague that would bring in token presents for the most isolated clients at Xmas and allegedly on occasion would invite the most needy to dinner at Xmas and Easter (to which management turned a blind eye), the colleagues that awoke the office with Reggae tunes first thing every morning (if you were in early enough to hear), the colleague that seemed to have mastered the art of avoiding all unnecessary meetings in place of fag and coffee breaks, the colleague that was always trying to bend and reinterpret legislation and sentencing guidelines (sometimes summoned to appear before Crown Court Judges to explain their proposals), the colleague that wrote Pre Sentence Reports so lengthy that the rest of us went into hiding at gate keeping time, and the colleague whose Pre Sentence Reports were so short they could fit on two sides of A4. What united us all was the value of being probation officers and the desire to help our clients to change and improve their lives

I think I joined up when Probation had just about clawed back its status as a worthwhile profession after Michael Howard had tried to kill it off, but since qualification it's been downhill all the way. Unfortunately much of our good work seems to have been eroded and this has escalated under recent governments and the introduction of TR. Pay freezes and 1% pay rises are now an expectation, sickness and stress levels have risen even for the most experienced staff, probation management (particularly those recently retired CEO's) sold us down the river and told us to say "thank you", and we've lost a disproportionate amount of experienced staff to CRC's to be replaced by probation (PQF) trainees fresh out of university, some of which don't really seem to know what probation work actually is, or don't really care. Sad but true.

I joined probation a few years after leaving university too. I had the experience of youth work and being employed with various non-statutory rehabilitation agencies, and before that manual labour was my thing and long before that I was a delinquent and subsequently a prisoner, that's the experience I brought. On the last point (now that I have your attention), probation believed in me and in turn I've believed in every client I've supervised. I've once known a client return to probation as an employee, and I've counted amongst my probation officer friends over the years a few former football hooligans, two reformed prostitutes, numerous recovered drug addicts and alcoholics (some in relapse if the Xmas party is anything to go by) and a few convicted of the more minor indiscretions.

So I'm not at risk of being accused of glorifying offending or bringing probation into disrepute. I add that over the years my undesirable bunch of probation officer friends has also included a range of identities and top notch exemplary characters from the lowest classes to the borderline upper class, and even two 'new money' lottery winners still actually coming to work. I've also been lucky enough to work with some of the best probation managers, and thankfully my current manager is 'old skool' and and falls into this category.

What binds us together in probation is the contribution we make to society in supporting probation clients. We hold a basic set of values believing every person can change, given adequate support, motivation and opportunity, and this can shines through for many no matter whether they qualified with DipSW or DipPS. Ever since the Probation of Offenders Act 1907 provided the statutory foundation for the probation service we've been 'advising, assisting and befriending' those under our supervision. A few weeks ago when prepping for a parole hearing I came across documentation from what was then the Probation and Aftercare Service and I thought to myself, "even though it's hard to see amidst the MoJ limescale and gloss, we still are that service".

Despite all the changes, the IT failures, the TR omnishambles and the combined impact of the ideas of Michael Howard, Chris Grayling and all the other probation-haters, we will always be probation officers doing probation work. I won't pretend that probation officers are not overworked or are sometimes too preoccupied with assessing risk, MAPPA and "protecting the public". And we know when we attend hearings with barristers and psychologists that we're evidently not lettered enough to earn anything more than £27 per hour in providing our opinions. However, for whom the Courts think fit to be placed under our supervision every colleague I know takes their duty seriously in helping probation clients to improve their quality of life, which is what probation work has been about for over 100 years.

The reason for this now rambling post was to respond to the comments on this blog from probation clients, the ones that have unfortunately had a negative experience of probation. I occasionally comment here as 'Probation Officer' and I used to Tweet as 'SaveProbation', so this is an addition to my previous two-pence worth. A while back I fell out with my probation bosses over too many outspoken views and so moved on to pastures new, but I returned a while later because of my love for probation work, albeit less active in the campaign against TR (which has now been lost). The disclosure about my own background and that of some of my colleagues is to highlight that probation officers come from all walks of life as do the clients we work with.

I cringe at the implementation of too many conduct policies, vetting procedures and the now forced adherence to the Civil Service Code, which I think has become partly responsible for some of the rigid probation practices that undermine 'best practice'. This is unfortunate as our gift is that we're real people with real experiences and we use this in our work. Saying that, we do need forms of appropriate regulation and this is not an excuse for the discontent towards probation supervision, but if recruitment does not allow for variation and diversity then we may as well buy a bunch of robot probation officers like they have in the USA (probably coming to a CRC near you soon). Sometimes we don't have the time to bend over backwards for clients, we can't provide flats in Mayfair or jobs with the Bank of England, and yes sometimes we do have to refuse a release from prison or return clients to custody. We can't please all of the people all of the time.

I understand the frustrations of both supervising and of being supervised, and I have in the past come across probation officers that wrongly believed that probation clients should not be anxious or angry about having to come to probation and should even welcome their supervision. I've witnessed probation clients wrongly breached for arriving 10 minutes late and even learned of clients recalled to prison for trying to 'chat up' their probation officer or expressing a few profanities during supervision. I remember when 'supervision' wrongly began to take a back seat to CBT programmes and the activities on offer from outside organisations became increasingly more important, and when Community Service worryingly became a way to generate an income and create photo opportunities for local politicians and Police and Crime Commissioners.

What I'm saying is that we all know that there has been problems in probation for some time, made worse by TR, but I've also seen all of the good work. Some say they took away probation's social work roots and others say they turned probation into an enforcement agency, but they did not. Every probation office I enter has the same old mix of varied staff all trying to work towards the greater good. The age and experience of new entrants to probation officer training seems to be ever decreasing with the latest recruits fresh out of university, but I still don't think the ethos of probation work can ever be removed because by the time the 'nodding dogs' have escaped to management roles the rest would have already begun evolving into "poxy social work types" (as I was recently referred to).

The government is constantly banging on about reoffending rates but what's usually omitted is the fantastic news that the majority of people on probation do not reoffend. I know my own work has aided these figures and this is a summary just from today for those wanting an insight into probation work. After dropping the kids off at school I arrived at work, fighting the traffic to arrive at my usual time. I checked my emails and picked up a file and on to visit a local'ish prison. The visit was to discuss release plans for a man soon to be released after serving a very long sentence. He has no home to go to and no family to support him, but I've got him a place in a probation hostel and he's happy with that. We finished with a bit of a chat about Morgan Freeman's parole speech in the Shawshank Redemption, one of his favourite movies.

Two hours later I was back at my desk going through emails ranging from concerns about a young offender to gripes about what may be lurking in the office fridge. I tend to pick up the phone to respond to emails it's faster and I don't need to evidence everything I do with an email. As I was on my way to join colleagues for a team lunch I bumped into a client on his way in to see me unplanned. He wanted to use the phone to call the Benefits Agency so I put my coat back inside and sat with him while he made the call. He's not very articulate (and "where's my effing money" never works) so I explained the situation to the person on the other end of the line to get the ball rolling. 40 minutes later and after listening to his reflection on his recent melt down over Xmas, job done and I managed to grab a sandwich to eat at my desk.

Over the next few hours there was the usual steady stream of emails, telephone calls and clients in my direction. At the same time I was working on a Pre-Sentence Report due in Court in a few days time. The person in question is suitable for a community sentence and that's what I'm recommending. I try to keep people out of prison wherever possible, and I try to emphasise rehabilitation over punishment. My to-do list also includes a Parole Report, a recall review report, a few risk assessments and supervision plans, and I'm usually running a bit behind in updating the contact logs with details of every phone call and email and every visit from a probation client.

It had already turned dark outside and was nearing the end of the day. The last client through the door is young and headstrong so I always try to spend a bit more time with him. He's really started to do well since being released from prison and we have a chat about his future plans to keep him focused. He failed his driving test in the past week so we talked about that too and I gave him a few tips for his retest. In return he let me hear his lyrics in his latest Youtube video, which thankfully only lasted a few minutes.

The last part of my day is usually spent updating the contact logs, and then finishing outstanding prices of work. I managed to complete a recall review report ready to be countersigned and sent to the recall unit. The client in question has outstanding offences so I'm recommending that he's not released from prison just yet. His solicitor had been constantly phoning me about this decision and doesn't seem to understand legal processes so I'm no longer taking their calls until my report had been submitted.

Just as I was having a chat with colleagues and about to switch off the computer an email came through with confirmation that a prisoner due to be released will not be detained by the immigration section. I rang his parents with the good news and my working day ended on a positive note. It was a long day but a good day, as are most days in probation. There were no crisis situations, I wasn't called a "cunt", nobody turned up homeless, and there wasn't a fire drill so it was all good.

It's probably a good point to get back to the point of the article, which is to remind probation clients that we are here to help and we are darn good at it. I'm not interested in claiming to protect the public, provide a service to victims or to enforce 'proper' punishments. My job as a Probation Officer, not an Offender Manager which is an awful term, is to advise, assist, befriend, help, support, motivate and rehabilitate. Anybody can be an 'Offender Manager' (whatever that is) and in my book impersonating a Probation Officer should become a criminal offence.

The Government meddling and the introduction of TR will not change my ethos and nor will the business plans of the new owners of private probation companies. As the news of the cost cutting strategies of the new private probation companies begin to emerge it is quickly becoming apparent that they may have bitten off more than they can chew. The Offender Rehabilitation Act is built on too much controversy, TTG to be delivered by privateers and charities is already a looming failure, and only an idiot would introduce a Post Sentence Supervision strategy that is abbreviated and referred to as PSS.

Probation work cannot be properly costed because if it were we'd be getting a lot more than £27 per hour. Nor can our work be time restricted or dictated by government whims, that's if rehabilitation is to remain an achievable outcome. When probation services are in tatters, when a new Justice Secretary is in post and when all those probation Chief Officers and management types that aided and abetting the sale of probation are forced to lower their heads in shame, we will continue to say "We told you so" and we'll carry on with advising, assisting and befriending.

Probation Officer (10-20 years to retire!)

--oo00oo--

£27 quid an hour!!!!!!!! Bloody hell that's an absolute fortune for most people who will never earn close to that in their working lives, including most of the people you supervise. For that £27 an hour it is not unreasonable to expect that the person earning that do their job absolutely brilliantly at all time: no cutting corners, no failing to uphold the law, always treating the client as a human being, not misrepresenting things in reports etc. So my question is, is why have I now had four probation officers who have all failed to earn their £27 an hour by not doing their job properly??

******
£27/hour gross is about £1000/week (@ 37 hour week) That's £50K p.a. - certainly NOT what most probation staff are paid. I think there's been some confusion or over-excitement. Still not in the realms of Jack "I need to earn a living" Straw, expecting £5,000 a day over & above his gilt-edged MP's pension, exit bonus (a tidy sum) & any other personal &/or financial benefits he's managed to accrue whilst being paid by the taxpayer; not to mention assisting the UberWeasel in taking us to an illegal war. It is nevertheless useful to remember that the minimum wage is £6.50/hour, whilst I would guess most probation staff are paid somewhere between £10 & £20 per hour.

*******
You can't drill holes in concrete with a plastic spoon, regardless of how much you're being paid! It's a sad fact, but some people are so entrenched within their own belief that they are always 'right' they really do miss out on a lot in life. My real regret in life is that I burned that many bridges in my life before I realised I actually did have some level of ability, I now wake up every day in the knowledge that what ever success the day brings, I can never actually realise my full potential. It hurts too that that is because I didn't take opportunities and assistance when it was available. It's my own fault, and my cross alone to bear. 

I have a great deal of respect for todays guest blogger, because they obviously did not make the same errors. I've had many probation officers over the last few decades, and one or two I didn't really like, but that didn't exclude me from getting the help I asked for. To my mind getting four on the trot that have all failed in their duty suggests the real problem doesn't lay with probation, four on the trot does not only suggest piss poor luck, but defies all the laws probability. It's a sad thing to look back on a life of missed opportunity and unfulfilled potential.
Maybe by meeting the world halfway you wont make the same mistakes I have, and who knows, if you grab all on offer you may end up with a job that pays £127 an hour. 'Getafix'

*****
Bear in mind £27 per hour is an agency rate and before tax. These amounts differ between areas. The average PO salary ranges from about £28k - £35k per year.

******
Sorry to come back so soon, but I think the real riches and rewards contained in todays guest blog go far beyond monetary remuneration. I hope todays discussions focus on the real value contained in todays post, and not the hourly rate of pay. 'Getafix'

******
You are, in my view, absolutely right 'Getafix - there are more valuable things in life than cash payments. Sadly not everyone agrees, and most are those allegedly 'leading the country' or 'representing' their constituents. 

******
Comment overheard today in CRC. "Our job should be reducing reoffending rates, not dealing with all the regions f***ing social problems". Methinks reality is dawning.

******
Maybe, just about right now, they are realising that re-offending, or indeed offending, is down to 'f***ing social problems'.

*****
As another many many years in, I too have worked through many types of change and up to this point have always been able to find a way through whilst carrying on without really changing the core. However, this is the biggest and worst mess of them all. The abusive way the so called management are prepared to behave whilst deluding themselves, their sycophants and those 'above' them that they are actually achieving anything is slick / slimy management speak and the ability to present the Emperors New Clothes seems to be their only skill. They achieve nothing. Their job is to resource and manage the worker to produce. They do neither. They produce nothing. They do not protect the public, reduce crime or victims. Yet they have the gall to sit around in meetings, oh so important, best frocks and suits and think they can come up with processes, solutions, when they could not, had no interest in or did not, do the job of protecting the public by reducing crime, they now seem able to persuade those who know no better that they actually know what they are talking about.

Consult they say. Utter rubbish they wouldn't and don't know how to consult. No wonder it's a mess, cobbled together, ridiculously lengthy and ineffective. They don't even have the decency to proof read the stuff. Amendment after amendment  Now, having given themselves plenty of time to get their dishonest self affirming, haven't I done well, stuff to send up the line. What manager tells their manager they are actually hopeless at their job? They forgot all about the 'bottom up' appraisal process conveniently and quickly didn't they! Now they reckon we have had enough time to have been able to work through their mire and let's pretend the months since June just didn't happen.

*****
Good blog and yes, familiar! My respect and admiration goes to 'Getafix, who always causes me to check I'm still doing the job well and have a strong allegiance to those I work for and with! I consider myself lucky to have a job I love and a reasonable income, although no pay rises anymore as I've been in a while, however a colleague pointed out, no pay rise is actually a reduction in my pension. So for anyone who begrudges us payment, it's not all its cracked up to be especially as I now have to work until I'm 67! I've never been scared of hard work and will keep going, although I will do so with the same attitude expressed by today's guest blogger!

*****
I have tried to close my ears and eyes to all the bull shit speak that people seem to think they need to spew to sound as though they have something to say: "driving the..." "mobilisation..." "reconfiguration..." I try to remember why I chose to do this work, but I notice that, increasingly, those who come before the courts, are utterly irrelevant to the new and unnecessarily complex systems and processes dumped on us. CG has set out to destroy the CJS - and the notion of 'justice seen to be done' - by replacing it with a production line set at such a pace we will all be too busy with our faces stuck in yet another shitty IT tool that doesn't work to notice exactly who is passing through the doors of the court. Once an error has occurred, it tends to be compounded as it travels along what is now an increasingly bureaucratic journey. The excellent reviews coming out of Hanson & White and others, all now counts for nothing, because all that matters now is the market, the volume, and process. I mourn the simplicity and efficiency of what has been destroyed.

*****
Everything that has ever come out of any serious case review has been completely ignored and abolished. Lets remember this when the Serious Case Reviews start pouring out in the future - and when they do lets bombard the MOJ and the media with the reasons for the failings, reminding them how we repeated said what would happen. The more pipes you put into a system, the greater the risk of leaks - that's the only thing I remember being said by a previous ACO - the very one who as a CEO was known for the JFDI quote.

*****

As the guest blogger I'm grateful to read those familiarising with my experiences. Despite all the changes forced upon us we are a 'probation family' united by our work (long may it last). Totally agree with anon 00:13, I also consider myself lucky to have a job.

Just to respond to Anon 9:10 and 9:33, £27 (gross) per hour was a big city agency rate. I referred to this rate to show our maximum monetary worth, which is not as much as you think when all the relevant reductions have been made, and then compare it to all the other "professionals" in the room. I think it's reduced now and about £24 (gross) on average. Permanent Qualified probation officers (which I am) are not paid hourly and earn between £28,000 to £35,000 a year. Whatever the pay rate we all work much more than the 37 hours per week we're paid for.

It's a decent income and I'd love to earn more, but I doubt anyone joins probation primarily for the money, which means we have a lot of staff that love their job. Probation should though do more to promote serving probation officers as justice consultants of sorts (just my opinion), if it had then maybe we'd have had more of a say in NOMS and TR.

'Getafix', thanks for your comments and it's never too late.

Cutting Edge!

Blog comments 31st January 2021:-

"An echo chamber for retired POs and out-of-their-depth long-serving OMs desperate to vent some bile as the next round of capability procedures begin at work."

".... some comments espouse probation practice from the 70s and 80s so maybe they'd consider 20 years ago to be current!"

Oral evidence to Justice Committee 19th January 2021:- 

Justin Russell: From a probation point of view, we interviewed some people on probation about their experience of supervision during lockdown. They were generally positive about it. People who are in a stable position and have a stable home life welcomed being supervised by phone, and that was quite popular with some people.

People who were more vulnerable and had mental health problems and more chaotic and complex lives missed the face-to-face contact with their probation officer. It was very difficult for a probation officer without that face-to-face contact or without being able to do home visits to see how that person was getting on, whether they were looking after themselves or whether there were things that needed to be helped. There is a real issue about the more vulnerable part of the probation caseload and how they are supported during this pandemic.

There has been an understandable focus on the highest-risk cases being the priority for face-to-face contact, and I understand that, but they also need to support people who are vulnerable. I understand the probation service is in discussions with a major volunteering charity about providing volunteers who can support the more vulnerable people on probation, mentor and befriend them. That is a welcome initiative, and we need more things like that.

--oo00oo--

Postscript 

While I'm here I'd just like unveil the [allegedly] unredacted version of Mr Russell's words:

"Now they've finally met their ambitious target of removing most of the experienced, qualified, expensive staff using TR, I understand the probation service is in discussions with a major volunteering charity about providing volunteers who can support the more vulnerable people on probation, mentor and befriend them. That is a welcome initiative, and we need more things like that - by which I mean professional cleansing, getting rid of irksome troublemakers, replacing them with volunteers & saving public money so we can give more of it to those lovely privateers."

(Ed - Posted 17:30 on yesterday's blog post)

Moral Bankruptcy

Despite or because of the parallels, I'm still following US politics as welcome diversion from domestic matters post-Brexit, but am becoming increasingly astonished at how dysfunctional their supposedly democratic system of government actually is. Maybe it's always been like this and I've just never noticed. As much as Trump was an obscenity, isn't there something very alarming seeing nice-guy Biden issuing daily decrees with the stroke of a pen and at an increasing rate?  

Having 50-odd ways of holding elections strikes me as bonkers, as does a system that produces a Congress and balance of power that seems to bear little connection to the popular vote and delivers a completely constipated legislative structure. For good measure add-in a politicised Supreme Court and dare I suggest that the much-lauded checks and balances inherent in a written constitution begin to look decidedly problematic? This article from The Atlantic 'What's So Great About a Written Constitution?' confirms disillusionment has been growing:- 

Finally, single, written constitutions often stifle much-needed constitutional maintenance. The lack of formal constitutional change in the U.S. over the past few decades has produced a strong form of constitutional disillusionment, both with the written Constitution and with the Supreme Court. The main problem is that formal amendment procedures are so exceedingly difficult, but a 5–4 Supreme Court decision can produce significant constitutional change. Further, a focus on elusive constitutional moments—in which there must be intense and widespread constitutional discussion and debate among the citizenry—as opposed to constitutional maintenance, has obscured the need for regular constitutional change to take place.

In the U.K.’s unwritten system, however, virtually nothing is too sacred to be amended: The prescribed length of time between general elections has fluctuated; reform of the U.K.’s top court has taken place; historical government positions have been altered or eliminated; the role of the monarchy has changed significantly; and even major constitutional principles, such as parliamentary sovereignty, have shifted throughout the years as political and economic developments arose. Most of these have been responses to societal change, and did not require tidal-wave constitutional moments.

Although the longevity of America’s written Constitution remains impressive, many of its structures and operations have always been highly questionable. But recent events seem to have only exposed and exacerbated its flaws: A popularly elected leader should not be able to receive 3 million votes fewer than the challenger but still win the electoral contest; a system of checks and balances should ensure effective and responsible government, not sow political dysfunction; and generations of Americans should not have to live their life without a practical and reasonable opportunity to amend their Constitution. None of those outcomes advances “We the People.”

The U.K.’s unwritten constitution remains far from perfect; mistakes happen, much-needed reforms often stall, and reliance on politics can prove extremely frustrating. But when it comes to educating the citizenry, facilitating a focus on popular sovereignty, and providing a means of regularly updating the constitution, unwritten constitutions can go head to head with written documents any day.

--oo00oo--

Leaving aside constitutional matters, the state of the Republican Party in a post-Trump era continues to cause alarm and astonishment in equal measure as they indulge in the self-delusional belief that election success resides in remaining loyal to a disgraced sociopathic and narcissistic control freak. Despite being victims of an attempted coup, most have decided to indulge in what can only be described as moral bankruptcy and refuse to convict Trump of insurrection. 

Despite this they will clearly continue to carry the day in some States, but seem blissfully unaware that inexorable demographic changes will ensure other Georgia-style results, turbo-charged by increasingly bonkers conspiracy theorists within their ranks. To most of sound mind, if the GOP does not reform quickly, they are doomed. Again from The Atlantic, an article 'This Republican Party Is Not Worth Saving' from September 2020:-  

I was a Republican for most of my adult life. I came of political age in 1980, and although I grew up in a working-class Democratic stronghold in Massachusetts, I found a home in Ronald Reagan’s GOP. Back then, the Republicans were a confident “party of ideas” (a compliment bestowed on them by one of their foes, Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York), optimistic boosters of the American dream at home, and fierce opponents of the Soviet Union overseas. While the Democrats were the party of recrimination and retreat, the Republicans were the party of the future.

I understand the attachment to that GOP, even among those who have sworn to defeat Donald Trump, but the time for sentimentality is over. That party is long gone. Today the Republicans are the party of “American carnage” and Russian collusion, of scams, plots, and weapons-grade contempt for the rule of law. The only decent, sensible, and conservative position is to vote against this Republican Party at every level, and bring the sad final days of a once-great political institution to an end. Then build the party back up again—from scratch.

I’m not advocating for voting against the GOP merely to punish Republicans for Trump’s existence in their party. Rather, conservatives must finally accept that at this point Trump and the Republican Party are indistinguishable. Trump and his circle have gutted the old GOP and stuffed its empty husk with the Trump family’s paranoia and corruption.

Indeed, the transformation of the GOP into a cult of personality is so complete that the Republicans didn’t even bother presenting a platform at their own convention. Like a group of ciphers at a meeting of SPECTRE, they nodded at whatever Number One told them to do, each of them fearing an extended pinkie finger pressing the button that would electrocute them into political oblivion.

Some Republicans, even while they grant that Trump is a sociopath and an idiot—and how unsettling that so many of them will stipulate to that—are willing to continue voting for Republican candidates because the GOP is nominally pro-life or because the administration’s judicial appointments show that the people around the president are doing what conservatives should want done.

But Trump’s few conservative achievements are meaningless when compared with his war on American democracy, a rampage that few Republicans have lifted a finger to stop. Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr have turned the constitutional order and the rule of law into a joke. If you’re Roger Stone or Michael Flynn, the White House will arrange pardons, commutations, or even the outright betrayal of the Justice Department’s own lawyers. Felony convictions are for the little people. The Constitution is just busywork for chumps.

---////---

America needs two healthy political parties. So if the Republicans suffer a full-spectrum defeat in 2020, what comes next? At the least, a shattering loss should result in a wholesale purge of the Republican National Committee. Even donors who like what they got from Trump will not pour money into a losing proposition.

In the long term, sensible conservatives—who believe in limited government and the prudent, constitutional stewardship of national power and resources—might feel safe to run for national office as Republicans again. Those at the local level who were bullied into silence by their state organizations might be able to come out of hiding and challenge the people who led them to disaster.

Reconstructing the GOP—or any center-right party that might one day replace it—will take a long time, and the process will be painful. The remaining opportunists in the GOP will try to avert any kind of reform by making a last-ditch lunge to the right to fill the vacuum left by Trump’s culture warring and race-baiting. In the short term, the party might become smaller and more extreme, even as it loses seats. So be it. The hardening of the GOP into a toxic conglomeration of hucksters, quislings, racists, theocrats, and cultists is already happening. The party gladly accepted support from white supremacists and the Russian secret services, and now welcomes QAnon kooks into its caucus. Conservatives must learn that the only way out of “the wilderness” is first to vanquish those who led them there.

No person should ever get a second chance to destroy the Constitution. Trump has brought the United States to the brink of civil catastrophe, and the Republican Party has protected him from the consequences of all his immoral and illegal actions more ably than even Fred Trump did. Conservatives need to put the current Republican Party out of its—and our—misery.

The In's and Out's of Prison

We haven't said much about prisons for some time, but I do recall the MoJ has an alarming track record of highlighting any new additions to the estate as being job creation schemes. Clearly this tendency hasn't been lost on the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies who have been casting their expert eye over where prisons have been built over recent time, and it's of more than academic interest to me as it pretty much charts my own probation journey.  

Coal today, gone tomorrow: How jobs were replaced with prison places

Foreword

In early March 2020, we held an event on the spatial history of British prisons. The event explored how decisions about the siting and development of new prisons were connected to underlying social, economic and political changes over the course of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. 

We planned to publish the main insights that emerged from that event shortly afterwards. Then the COVID-19 crisis intervened, disrupting the best-laid plans, and casting a long shadow over the lives of far too many. Nearly one year on from that event, I am delighted that we are now able to publish this important briefing. 

It is commonplace that prisons are created and maintained to hold those sentenced by the courts, and those remanded while awaiting trial. The geographical location of any given prison, whether it is newly-built, or adapted from existing buildings, is something far less frequently reflected upon. These are the questions explored by Phil Mike Jones, Emily Gray and Stephen Farrall in this briefing. 

Taking in a sweep of time from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day, the authors identify some striking patterns. In the years following the Second World War, for instance, a number of prisons were opened on former military bases and in former country houses. Such redevelopments are rare today. 

Since the 1960s, a number of prisons have been built on former industrial sites, with most of them located in the former industrial heartlands of England and Scotland. In particular, the authors find a strong concentration of new prison capacity in former coal-mining areas, associated with the traumatic economic restructuring and deindustrialisation of the 1980s. 

“Regions where industrial employment was concentrated may expect to see economic restructuring”, the authors write, “but if economic recovery is weak, the prison complex may come to replace the industrial complex”. 

The claim that new prisons offer an economic bonanza to hard-pressed areas is a dubious claim at best. What this briefing points to is the interreleationship between governmental economic policies, and the decision to site prisons in the industrial wastelands left in their wake. 

Richard Garside Director

Introduction 

The reverberations of industrial closures and high levels of unemployment in the UK after 1979 have been charted by numerous scholars. Shipyards, steel and coal-mining industries and parts of the British automotive industry were heavily affected by deindustrialisation (measured as the relative decline of manufacturing or the decline of manufacturing employment). 

While this development began in many advanced economies during the 1960s, it accelerated rapidly in the UK following the pursuit of monetarist economic policies instigated by Margaret Thatcher’s administrations. These conditions hit the UK manufacturing sector particularly hard in the 1980s. High interest rates and an over-valued currency rendered UK manufacturing exports uncompetitive domestically and internationally. By 1995 nearly 90 per cent of the coal-mining workforce had been lost, and the impact of this unprecedented destruction of jobs was geographically concentrated. 

In areas of the English midlands, south Wales and central Scotland, mining had been the dominant source of employment for men for generations, so the consequences for these communities were especially pronounced. Indeed, Britain’s miners launched one of the longest and fiercest industrial disputes in modern times in the UK. At its peak, 142,000 miners went on strike over pit closures and pay and a violent conflict, dubbed the ‘Battle of Orgreave’ when a mass picket was charged by police, remains a controversial event some 35 years later. 

Deindustrialisation continued throughout the 1980s as the British economy shifted from manufacturing to services. Notably, such was the impact of this economic transformation that Beatty et al., (2007) found evidence that by 2004 (more than 20 years after the miners’ strike) former coal– mining areas had still not fully recovered. Substantial job losses in ‘heavy’ industries were not matched with new jobs, and many former miners registered as ‘inactive’ or ‘permanently sick’ (rather than unemployed), suggesting that official estimates of unemployment may have been significantly underestimated.

In this paper we explore what happened to those regions with regards to the location of prisons in the years since the 1980s. We look specifically at the places in those areas that were once economically dependent on coal-mining, assessing the extent to which prisons were located in them relative to non-coal-mining areas. We do this by examining the prison building programme that took place in England, Scotland, and Wales during the 1980s and in the period since. 

From the 1990s there was a substantial expansion of the prison population and the criminal justice system. Between June 1993 and June 2012 the prison population in England and Wales increased by 41,800 prisoners to over 86,000 as a result of new sentences and recalls to prison. During the Thatcher and Major administrations (1979-1997) 26 new prisons were built. Others were extended to manage the mounting pressure on inmate places as crime and punitive attitudes increased, resulting in a ‘tougher’ criminal justice system and ultimately more inmates. 

Older prisons also underwent refurbishment to improve conditions and security following disturbances, of which there were 46 in 1986, as well as a 25-day riot in HMP Strangeways in 1990. The privatisation of prisons also introduced an ‘enterprise culture’ into public services in the early-1990s. HMP Wolds was the first contracted-out prison in the UK, run by Group 4, in 1992. We assess if it is possible to detect a patterning in the location in time and space of new British prisons. Did they appear evenly spread across British counties, or did the building of such establishments mirror other trends that were taking place historically? 

We consider this hypothesis in two steps. First, we examine the number and former uses of the sites where prisons were built 1901-2017, categorising key developments. Second, we compare the number of prisons in former coalmining areas to non-mining areas (controlling for population change).

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The Centre for Social Justice have been pondering what's going on inside our jails, or rather what isn't and just published a report strongly arguing for getting prisoners online:-

DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY IN PRISONS 

Unlocking relationships, learning and skills in UK prisons

Summary:

The conditions imposed on prisoners as a result of the lockdown has exposed a pre-existing problem. Prisons in England and Wales are rooted in a pre-digital age. If this is allowed to continue, our prisons will serve not as places of reform, but as drivers of exclusion, systematically denying the prison population access to education and training, and leaving them unable to work. This report argues the time has come to modernise our system – and to redress the exclusion of prisoners from the world outside the prison walls – by installing controlled broadband facilities throughout the prison estate.

Executive summary 

Over the past ten years, UK society has become increasingly digitised. More and more, a significant proportion of our daily activities – including our personal relationships and our professional lives – are conducted online. This societal change has been accelerated rapidly due to the impact of Covid-19. 

And yet our prisons are almost entirely offline. The majority of prisons in England and Wales do not have the cabling or hardware to support broadband, with just 18 out of 117 prisons possessing in-cell cabling. Remarkably, even prison staff do not have access to the internet, such as video conferencing services. Some lower-risk prisoners in lower category prisoners may have highly restricted access via an internal system, principally for minimalist email services, but this is the exception, not the rule. Many older prisoners serving longer sentences have never held a digital device. 

The cost to the UK of prisoner reoffending is £18.1 billion per year. Employment prospects for released offenders are extremely bleak: 68 per cent were unemployed in the four weeks before custody (81 per cent for men), 47 per cent have no qualifications, and only 4 per cent of women and 11 per cent of men are in work six weeks after their release. Prisoners are often among the most digitally excluded in our society, yet nearly all jobs – from supermarket assistants to construction workers – require digital literacy of at least a basic level. 

Ever more educational courses are only available online, reducing prisoners’ opportunities to learn. The Prisoners’ Education Trust (PET) has argued that digital “remains the essential ingredient that would revolutionise prison education. Without this, the digital divide will become a chasm, as prisoner learners miss out on developing digital literacy skills.” 

Because of the lockdown, almost all prisoners in England and Wales have been confined to their cells for up to 23.5 hours per day. A prisoner who successfully sustains a family relationship is 39 per cent less likely to reoffend than one who does not, yet prisoners have been barred from seeing their relatives, with family visits completely forbidden. Video calling has been installed across the prison estate, but prisoners are entitled to just one 30-minute call per month. As such, many family relationships have completely broken down. 

One prisoner’s partner said: “My three-year-old grandson hasn’t seen his dad for 11 weeks and yesterday he said, ‘Daddy has gone now’. The impact on the children (and the parents) is heart-breaking.”

One prisoner said: “If I don’t see my family I will lose them, if I lose them what have I got left?”

 

43 per cent of prisoners have a diagnosed mental illness, and one fifth of male prisoners have attempted suicide. Yet prisoners remain isolated from family, deprived of opportunities to learn or reform, without the psychological support they need, and confined to their cells in circumstances that produce enormous mental strain. 

While there is a perception that the British public are not supportive of giving digital access to prisoners, Dr. Victoria Knight has shown they are broadly supportive provided proper security can be guaranteed and that there are verifiable outcomes in terms of recidivism. Such security can be delivered, and the evidence for reducing the rate of reoffending is there. 

The conditions imposed on prisoners as a result of the lockdown has exposed a pre-existing problem. Prisons in England and Wales are rooted in a pre-digital age. If this is allowed to continue, our prisons will serve not as places of reform, but as drivers of exclusion, systematically denying the prison population access to education and training, and leaving them unable to work. This report argues the time has come to modernise our system – and to redress the exclusion of prisoners from the world outside the prison walls – by installing controlled broadband facilities throughout the prison estate.

Introduction 

We can’t go on with prisons in a pre-internet dark age: inefficient, wasteful and leaving prisoners woefully unprepared for the real world they will face on release. I have not met one prison professional who does not think drastic change is needed.

Nick Hardwick – former Chief Inspector of Prisons 

In this report the CSJ argues that the installation of broadband technology with limited, secure access to the internet for prisoners is both overdue and necessary, and that this pressing need is intensified by the specific pressures of the lockdown prison environment. As the use of digital platforms for personal communication, sustaining relationships, professional communication and education and learning becomes the norm, it is vital that prisoners are not deprived of the digital skills and facilities that will allow them to engage in meaningful, positive activity during their sentences. Moreover, it is essential that they are not left in a digitally illiterate and/or excluded state upon their release, or they will stand very little chance of navigating the world around them. 

With the government announcing in the 2020 Spending Review the implementation of a £5 billion UK Gigabit Broadband programme with the aim of levelling up connectivity, and a government drive to provide access to remote rural areas, the anomaly of the digital “black holes” that are the nation’s prisons seems ever harder to sustain. 

In particular, this paper will argue that online digital technology should be implemented for the purposes of: 

• Improving and sustaining relationships with family 
• Improving educational and employment opportunities 
• Delivery of emotional and psychological support to address mental health, wellbeing and addiction support 
• Improvements to prisoner and staff wellbeing and relationships by means of improvements in prisoner behaviour