Prison and Drugs

The new justice minister David Gauke is due to make a major speech today regarding the crisis in our prisons and with particular reference to drugs. It won't tackle any of the underlying issues of course, but it's fascinating to see how the Prison Governors Association cite Chris Grayling's infamous Offender Rehabilitation Act as being routinely 'abused' by Organised Crime Gangs using recalled prisoners as drug 'mules'. Another example of the law of unintended consequences in relation to drug policy to go alongside that of Mandatory Drug Testing. Here's Alan Travis of the Guardian:-      

Prisoners linked to gangs face being moved to tougher jails

Plan will recategorise prisoners into higher-security prisons if they have high criminality risk

More than 6,000 prisoners believed to have links to organised crime gangs face being moved to tougher jails under proposals to be unveiled by the justice secretary, David Gauke. The plans to recategorise prisoners into higher-security prisons based on their continuing risk of criminality in jail, rather than their original sentence, are to be outlined in Gauke’s first speech on tackling the prisons crisis in England and Wales.

The government is spending £14m on tackling organised criminal gangs in prisons, including on creating a serious organised crime unit within the Prison Service. Prison governors have said organised crime gangs have gained a substantial foothold in jails and in some instances have greater authority and control than staff.

Mitch Albutt, national officer of the Prison Governors Association (PGA), recently described how organised crime gangs had built a lucrative trade in psychoactive drugs inside jails based on coercion, beatings and violence that could turn substances worth £200 on the street into £2,000 profits in prison.

“This pervasive environment of threats and violence exposes individuals’ vulnerabilities, resulting in increased levels of self-harm, suicide and requests for segregation or transfer,” Albutt wrote in the latest PGA newsletter. Gauke will announce an initiative to crack down on these serious organised criminal gangs that operate outside and increasingly inside prisons. The prison service estimates that more than 6,500 of the 86,000-strong prison population have links to organised crime gangs.

“We are taking action to bolster our defences at the prison gate and going after the organised criminal gangs,” Gauke will say. “I want them to know that as a result of the action we are taking, they have no place to hide. Through our covert and intelligence-led operations, we will track them down.”

The justice secretary will disclose that criminal gangs not only use drones to fly illicit drugs into prisons but can direct them to specific cell windows and have even resorted to coating children’s paintings in psychoactive substances.

He will say: “The criminal networks and supply chains have got larger and more complex. And new technologies have empowered gangs to be more sophisticated and brazen about the way drugs are smuggled in. From the conventional to the cunning, by design or by device, through fear or intimidation, these criminal gangs will stop at nothing to maintain their access to such a lucrative market. We will remove their influence from our prisons so that they can become places of hope not despair, of aspiration not assaults, because my approach is a practical one, based on what works and what’s right.”

The current system of categorising prisoners by their sentence length determines whether they serve the majority of their time inside a range of security regimes, from a category-A high-security prison to a category-D open jail. A decision to give a higher security rating to prisoners based on their activities inside jail represents a major change in prison rules.

The new prisons minister, Rory Stewart, recently called for an effort to clean up filthy jails and tackle drugs, saying his priorities were “windows, searches and walls”. The PGA has said the level of budget cuts faced by the prison service without any reduction in the prison population has had an impact on stability, decency and safety inside jails.

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Here is the PGA newsletter article referred to above:-

We all know the depressing state most of our Prisons are in, despite the enormous effort and hard work our members and staff deliver every day. One awful aspect of this are the levels of violence which have reached epidemic proportions, however there is a potential solution should the holders of the purse strings choose to fund it. 

It is clear that those in our care cannot engage in a rehabilitative journey if their environment is unsafe. Drugs pervade every aspect of Prison life effecting those around it with particular notoriety to New Psychoactive Substances (NPS) also now referred to as PS. This one particular label causes chaos in our Establishments and can turn a healthy individual into a medical emergency or a trusted orderly into a frenzied ultra-violent assaulter. 

I believe that due to many compounding issues the Organised Crime Gangs (OCG) have gained a substantial foothold in our Prisons and in some instances have greater authority and control than staff. 

The Offender Rehabilitation Act (ORA) was introduced resulting in short term prisoners being released on licence. Evidence details the abuse of ORA by OCGs, they coerce individuals to commit minor breaches of their licence conditions resulting in them returning to custody for 7 or 14 days. However the OCGs will have these individuals “plugged” (illicit items concealed in a bodily orifice), then dropped off at a Police station to hand themselves in and thus the illicit items end up in our prisons. In fact I have heard colleagues describe this as a very lucrative business model. To give an idea of how lucrative intelligence at one Establishments indicated that NPS with a street value of £200 would return a profit of £2000. With the control of the supply of drugs comes the violence, beatings are ordered and rival mules “spooned”, an item (usually a spoon) is inserted into the anus to retrieve any secreted package. This pervasive environment of threats and violence exposes individual’s vulnerabilities resulting in increased levels of self-harm, suicide and requests for segregation or transfer, (which is evidenced in HMPPS data). All of these factors divert valuable limited resources away from the delivery of a structured engaging regime resulting in general frustration and increased levels of anxiety and incidents. This ultimately effects the resilience of our staff causing issues with attendance and retention. Thus we descend further into the inescapable grip of the maelstrom. 

Although we deal with the symptoms of drugs in our prisons we need to bring greater focus and energise our ability to deal with the causes. If we are able to choke off the supply routes then the OCGs will eventually abandon a money losing business model. 

In 2015 the Prisons Minister Andrew Selous and Justice Secretary Chris Grayling were so impressed with the Body Scanner technology that one was promised to every Prison, with the Centre for Social Justice quoting it as a game changer. I recently visited HMP Belmarsh to view this equipment and hear firsthand from the team that use it. To say that I was mightily impressed is an understatement, the team enthused its abilities and showed me evidence of how it detected illicit items secreted externally and internally on prisoners. They also used it if a prisoner was suspected of receiving an item during visits or in fact any intelligence led requirement. 

It is most effective if used (as part of an overarching strategy) and with a small group of well-trained dedicated staff and if it has the potential to mitigate all of the above then why would you not devote your resources to achieve this endeavour. The hard outcomes that this approach can deliver are: 

• Reduction in medical emergencies and the associated staffing resource and cumulative stress. 
• Reduction in violence and the associated staffing implications and cumulative stress. 
• Reduction in incidents of selfharm and suicide and the related staffing resource and cumulative stress. 
• Reduction in external hospital escorts where prisoners state they have swallowed something and the associated staffing requirement and risk of escape. 
• Reduction in the need to respond to incidents and the associated staffing. 
• Managing fewer incidents allows managers to spend more time in their function delivering outcomes. 
• Reduction in the disruption to the delivery of an effective regime. 
• Reduction in stress levels for all staff which should help with wellbeing / resilience and improve attendance and retention. 

HMPPS have submitted a bid for specific money to enable more body scanners (currently there are only two), to be put into our Establishments and the PGA fully support this bid. National Officers have been pursuing this issue at every opportunity and have lobbied the new Secretary of State (David Gauke), the Prison Minister (Rory Stewart) HMPPS and the media. We sincerely hope the holders of the purse strings commit to deal with the causes rather than the symptoms of a prison service in crisis. 

Finances are very limited but there may be opportunities at local level to secure funding or collaborate with partners to fund such technology. If you would like more information or have any questions about this article then please contact National Officer Mitch Albutt. 

Learning From New Zealand

Last week Frances Crook of the Howard League was writing in the Guardian and cited a change in policy towards imprisonment by New Zealand that would do well to be heeded nearer home:-  

Prison reform is long overdue. Let's invest in communities instead

The number of people sent to prison in England and Wales has more than doubled at a terrible cost to taxpayers and society

The proposal by New Zealand’s minister of justice, Andrew Little, to reject tough-on-crime politics has been hailed by some as the boldest political move since the death penalty was abolished there in 1961. It’s another country turning away from an excessive use of prison, with Little pointing out that 30 years of locking people up for longer has only led to incidences of violent crime increasing.

A change of approach is beginning to work in the US, where many states have admitted that their high use of incarceration is too expensive – in monetary and human terms – to continue. Between 2008 and 2016, 35 of the 50 states reduced their imprisonment rates and saw their crime numbers fall.

Closer to home, Scotland is planning to invest more in community sentence programmes and drastically reduce the use of custody. Justice secretary Michael Matheson plans to phase out most prison terms of less than 12 months, which he says does little to rehabilitate offenders or reduce the likelihood of reoffending. It’s a call supported by Scotland’s chief inspector of prisons and an enhancement of the commitment against imposing prison sentences of three months or less, that’s been in place since 2010.

But amid the changes afoot across the globe and north of the border, there’s no sign yet of similar movement in England and Wales.

The number of men, women and children in prison when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister was as low as 40,000. Today England and Wales has 84,235 prisoners, some of whom are locked in filthy, vermin-infested cells with nothing to do but watch daytime TV. Under the Ministry of Justice’s own standards, the prison estate should not hold more than 75,858 people. A recent analysis by The Observer found a staggering 68% of prisons are providing unsatisfactory standards in at least one respect, with two in five deemed to be unsafe.

The reoffending rate for prisoners has remained consistent, proving our high use of custody is feeding crime rather than reducing it.Sentence inflation is now out of control: our report (pdf) highlights the Ministry of Justice’s own figures, which show that “longer sentences and increased recall account for up to 85% of the increase in the prison population since 1993”. The shambles in the privatised community sentence sector has also meant the courts have no confidence in using them, resulting in a fall in non-custodial sentencing.

In 2015, Michael Gove provided a glimmer of hope when he was the minister of justice by outlining his vision of a tough but fair penal system, which gives offenders a second chance and turns them into productive members of society. David Cameron also said a “great transformation” of prisons would be one of the goals of his second term as prime minister. Neither had the time to do anything about it, and indeed Gove back-pedalled a year later, saying he could reform prisons without cutting prisoner numbers.

The subsequent three justice secretaries in 18 months have been limited to firefighting as prisons deteriorate. Two major issues that require urgent attention are the disastrous part-privatisation of probation and the detrimental impact of cuts to legal aid. As the Observer has reported, the vast majority of private probation companies set up to tackle reoffending have failed to meet their targets. And after cuts to legal aid for prisoners were introduced in December 2013, suicide, self-injury and violence rose to record high levels in prison and calls to our legal advice line soared by 62%. The cuts were successfully challenged in the courts by us and the Prisoners’ Advice Service, with legal aid reinstated last week for three key areas of prison law.

It doesn’t help that the shambles at the heart of government on Brexit is stymying progress on all issues. A major prison reform bill, for instance, was announced in the Queen’s Speech in May 2016 but was put on hold four months later and then dropped.

It’s disappointing the new team at the Ministry of Justice, headed since January 2018 by David Gauke, has so far indicated that it will concentrate on cleaning up jails and will not even consider system change. A coat of paint and bigger dustbins will not reduce reoffending or make prison safer. The country needs a brave, radical policy shift, similar to what is happening in New Zealand and Scotland.

Long prison sentences remove any hope of redemption. The prison system we have today blights lives, costs the taxpayers a fortune, fails staff, and creates even more victims. It is only by investing in the community that we’ll succeed in reducing crime.

Frances Crook is the chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform.

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Here is that article from New Zealand:-

Andrew Little: 'Longer sentences, more prisoners - it doesn't work and it has to stop'

Minister of Justice Andrew Little has laid out a vision for criminal justice reform which sees sentencing law relaxed and a rejection of "tough on crime"-style politics. His comments during an interview with the NZ Herald have been likened by one leading academic as the boldest political move in criminal justice since former Minister of Justice Ralph Hanan, who saw the death penalty abolished in 1961.

Little said "so-called law-and-order" policies have been a 30-year failure and locking up more people with longer sentences hasn't made New Zealand safer. "New Zealand needs to completely change the way criminal justice works," he said. "It is a big challenge we are facing. It's not an issue that's been a short time in the making.

He said the rapid rise in prison numbers "follows 30 years of public policy-making, public discourse, that says we need tougher sentences, need more sentencing, need people serving longer sentences and I think, frankly, criminalising more behaviour.

"One of the major challenges is to turn around public attitudes - to say that what we have been doing for the last 30 years in criminal justice reform actually isn't working. Our violent criminal offending is going up."

The comments follow an open letter from 32 leading academics in criminal justice calling on the Government to reject the building of a mega prison in Waikato designed to hold up to 3000 inmates. Those academics today welcomed the comments and one leading researcher equated the import of Little's intent with the abolition of the death penalty by Minister of Justice Ralph Hanan in 1961.

The proposed upgrade of Waikeria Prison is due to be decided next months by Cabinet and poses a huge challenge when it came in promising to reduce prison numbers by 30 per cent in 15 years. The promised reduction comes at a time when the Department of Corrections is bursting at the seams with 10,695 prisoners and room only for another 300.

Little said: "We just had this rapid increase in the last few years that cannot be explained by anything other than penal policy that frankly has got out of control." He said he wanted a "national conversation" which sought out the best ideas but also led to a better informed nation that understood "tough-on-crime" policies were leaving a legacy of failure.

He planned to hold a criminal justice summit - similar to the "jobs summit" held by former Prime Minister Sir John Key - which would seek out a range of views and inform the public. He laid out a vision of a therapeutic approach to issues which drove criminal offending. "We know the majority of those in prisons have issues other than they are nasty people. They have health issues and other problems and if we actually spent a bit of time on those things we can stop their offending. That's where the attention has got to go."

He said other possible changes being considered were to the Parole Act 2002 and the Bail Amendment Act 2013 - considered two of the main drivers behind the prison population boom. Changes to bail laws rapidly inflated the prison population by locking more people up to await trial, while the parole changes 15 years ago kept people inside longer.

'Case for a change'

"We have to look at it and in my view, there is a case for change. The case was that by doing these things we will get more criminals off our streets and we will all feel safer, we will all be safer. If we thought by doing those things it was going to reduce criminal offending and make us all safer - actually, that's not happening." He described the changes - which were made at the time in response to public upset over specific incidents - as changes "no one will really notice and it might have an effect".

"Our big challenge is to draw to all New Zealanders attention what has actually been happening and to win a social licence to say we have to do things differently." Little said there would again be "isolated examples" which would prompt some to say "we need to revert back to the more draconian measures" which could have a political impact. That requires leadership to say no system is perfect. You just have to batten down the hatches and carry on."

Little said the Government faced three large issues - the question of Waikeria, criminal justice reform and the promised new 1800 police officers. He said there was a risk with more police they would "arrest more people which puts more pressure on prisons". He said the three issues needed to be consistent with reducing the prison population.
'Waste of money, waste of lives'

Dropping the numbers of prisoners would symbolise a criminal justice system that was "more humane and more effective" because it targeted the causes of criminal offending "for those for whom those causes can actually be fixed. What a waste of taxpayer money, what a waste of human lives, when we know many of those people with a bit of effort and a bit of help addressing those underlying problems could actually be helped."

Little also said he believed prisoners should again have the right to vote, although qualified the comment at this stage to those serving three years or less. ​"They are prisoners who at some point will come back into society and they will have as legitimate a right or stake in what the politicians of the day do, and they should not be deprived on that right."

Instead, it was time to stop treating prisoners as less than human, to give them a vote and a role in our society. And, in an extraordinary statement for a Minister of Justice, he said the imbalance of Maori in prison - 52 per cent of the 10,695 prison population - revealed systemic problems in the criminal justice system, "There is a built in systemic bias or prejudice and we've got to understand that. We've got to something about it."​

Little said regardless of the decision about the expansion of Waikeria Prison, the current facility needed replacing. He said the existing prison was "not humane" and incredibly old-fashioned. "Antediluvian," he said.

"The bits that are occupied by prisoners are, frankly, frightful. The whole environment is not one where you are going to feel, 'this is a time and a place where I can get to grips with myself and turn my life around'. He said the training room at Waikeria was "literally a concrete box. "It's not an environment where you can learn. There's nothing therapeutic about it at all."

'Greater humanity'

University of Canterbury criminologist Dr Jarrod Gilbert likened Little's rejection of "knee jerk" policymaking with National Party minister Hanan's success in ridding New Zealand of the death penalty and embarking on a programme of reform. The Labour Party had suspended the death penalty and National had pledged to reintroduce it but Hanan - as Minister of Justice - convinced his colleagues to abolish it.

Gilbert said Hanan then led an agenda that "put New Zealand at the forefront of attempts to curb crime" and a radical programme that showed "greater humanity". "The death penalty decision was important because it reflected the fact he wasn't scared to do what was right in the face of opposition."

Gilbert said Little would need to convince a "highly sceptical public" he was on the right track. "None of the solutions are easy but we're at a tipping point where a bold approach in necessary. After years of policy not based on best evidence but the loudest voices, it's time we took a more sober look."

University of Auckland's Professor of Indigenous Studies Tracey McIntosh said she was "heartened" by Little's comments. "We're seeing a very significant shift that could have some significant outcomes. I have always thought New Zealand could be a global leader in decarceration."

Victoria University criminologist Elizabeth Stanley welcomed the opportunity for a criminal justice summit. She said there had never been an opportunity for a proper conversation about penal reform. "We haven't sat down and worked these things out and to try and think of alternatives."

Pick of the Week 45

I decided last week that, in order to prioritise my own health, I must stop straining to do a decent job for my community and my clients, and just do the basic minimum, which is of course to tick boxes and pound a keyboard entering repetitively, stuff into crumbly IT systems. Clock off when my hours are worked. No thinking. Keep client contact to absolute minimum. Then it hit me : what is in effect "working to rule" is what I am being instructed to do by HMPPS.

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I agree. The work to rule is not doable without departing from every valuable aspect of the job. Proper resistance will require sacrifice and risk and uncertainty. And not many are prepared to go down that road.

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Unless UK government (read taxpayer) is prepared to underwrite the liabilities (more than just their debt) of outsourcing giants, then the outsourcing game related to important public services is busted. I don't think the government can stitch together a rescue package as it would be political suicide. I think the banks are shy, the numbers don't add up, add in some economic and political uncertainty and hey presto, the magic outsourcing tree is not an attractive investment. Or do those that are still standing pick over the pieces and ask for a premium? The provision of important public services increasingly looks like market competition in extracting profit from the UK taxpayer, rather than anything remotely about delivering quality public services.

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Probation will never fit into the civil service, the unyielding bureaucracy is stifling! The existing systems just don't get us and as we are just a tiny part of a massive organisation, no one cares! I'm an NPS PO and can sincerely say we are completely broken and not fit for purpose.

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Don't see many colleagues feeling superior in my NPS office except for those usual suspects that have always been that way! A lot of us wish we had got sifted to CRC now because at least we might have got a chance to get out with a bit of a pay out! Of course it wouldn't be like that big fiddle the senior managers sorted for themselves, but in my area we are still hearing tales of managers getting much bigger severance packages than lower grades!

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Of course they did - they were responsible for the sifting, for deciding who got what, who was eligible for the enhanced payout, for scheduling who could transfer where. How many ex-Trust staff were paid out under the enhanced scheme, then re-employed by either the CRC or NPS, while admin, PSO & PO staff were directed to the CRCs then cast adrift with a much-reduced pay-off - despite the MoJ handing over the fully costed EVR funds to the CRC, i.e. the £multi-million bung from the Modernisation Fund which the CRCs pocketed. They were only ever interested in themselves. Jim's blog-piece today refers to a highly relevant & oft-repeated mantra: "if you were crap with clients, you got promoted."

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TR will probably be seen as the straw that broke the probation camels back, but despite the gold award thats much mentioned, I think it was already broken prior to privatisation and the split. I think it's right to say bringing everything into to the fold of the NPS is not the answer. NPS and CRC are two halves of the same problem. The past 20 years has seen so many changes, tweeks, and reforms to the probation services (probably more reforms then the welfare system), it's long lost its ethos. That in part is a consequence of being part of the civil service and being shaped by political ideology and dogma, rather then pragmatic and logical solutions to the problems your clients present you with. 

The focus of the service has been changed to a model of process and outcome, directed by political policy, and shifted away from a localised and community based support network. In short its an agency of state, directed by the state, and subject to whatever the political mood happens to be. It should in fact be a service rooted on academia and evidence based development. The only solution I can see for probation now, is not to focus on how to bring the two parts back together, but for someone to reinvent the wheel.

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The establishment by Grayling of a central government controlled public sector Probation Service was a very odd aspect of TR and was a compromise position with NOMS who feared a backlash when private providers inevitably cocked up with a high risk, high profile case. It was also suspected by some political insiders to be the price of Labours support with the exception of Jezza and Johnny Mc who supported Napo - remember that many Labour MPs voted with the coalition for TR. Sadiq Khan Opposed TR publicly. 

The seriousness lameness of the NPS as a service was demonstrated by Sonia Crozier recently when things happen in the NPS you can just apologise on the beeb and still draw your salary each month, safe in the various layers of bureaucracy that enables third rate civil servants to carry on as no one really expects them to be better than useless. In the CRCs boards of directors are far more ruthless as MTCnovo directors and CEOs have found out, though the pay outs are better.

It is likely that the government will start making it possible for CRCs to start paying their staff more than NPS staff irrespective of performance because in the Tory deluded vision of the world the public sector cannot be seen as preferable to the innovative and effective private sector, otherwise they would place themselves in a self imploding ideological loop and disappear up their own bottoms, leaving behind nothing but a whiff of sulphur and a bionic badge.

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Sonia Crozier's performance at the Justice Committee and in tv interview with Suzanne Reid (repeated tonight I think) was appalling on both occasions; very lacklustre at Justice Committee and like a terrified rabbit caught in glare of car headlights with Suzanne Reid. Bizarre to apologise for shortcomings of VL set-up when the main area of identified concern (the concept of "eligible" victims who are only ones offered opportunity to opt into VL contact) is not the creation or choice of Probation Service, but whatever MoJ/Noms/ CJS bods that devised that system. I thought the only issues Dame Glenys Stacey picked up on were poor style of letter writing and a gap in annual contact over a year or possibly two until resumed again. I understand the Inspector considered that the VLOs had gone over and above to try and get victim views prior to the OH.

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Not much has changed from the 2014 implementation of Chris Grayling’s rehabilitation revolution to Sonia Crozier’s 2018 appalling probation apology on ITV. Since being forced into the NPS I’ve learnt 3 things during these 4 years of hell at work;

1. That the NPS and CRC’s are as bad as each other, two sides of the same dirty coin.
2. That being a third-rate ‘civil servant’ basically means taking it in the rear by the Ministry of Justice, and saying thank you when it hurts.
3. Probation doesn’t do any of what it says on the tin. If you are willing to lie about this to staff and clients alike, and if you are crap with clients, you get promoted.

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Clearly we can’t go back as too much needs to be undone without causing another crash. The answer is devolve all responsibility of probation services to PCCs. The PCC is answerable to Parliament and their communities. They appoint a chief and the chief appoints the senior team. Local delivery of probation fit for their community. If your PCC hangs their political colours to a Tory mast. the community gets the service they voted for. No need for HMPPS, they can drop the silent ‘P’ and look after the prison estate which can be the civil servant club.

How to find the lost soul of NPS and CRC staff...... well go back to an obscure date in mid November 2013. Remember comrades, the arbitrary date set by MoJ. The musical chairs music stopped on that date. Whatever chair you sat on decided if you exit stage left or stage right. Nothing to do with the cream went to NPS and the rest went the other way. What ever cases you held determined the sift. Regardless of your previous experience and expertise, whether you were on long term sick or maternity leave, you had to fight for your spot... a few fights along the way, but you either got shafted royally or just plain-shafted dependant on your view point.

Now our Dame Glynis is a master of poking the stick at the CRCs, rightly so, we deserve it. But she is using an inspection model that is in direct contradiction to the CRC contracts. She criticises for not having rehabilitation measures in UPW, but HMPSS tell CRCs that it is a punitive sanction only and that’s what they must deliver. Chief cook and bottle washer Ian Mulholand of Interserve tells staff on his phone-in on 23 Jan, "we get paid for delivering the requirement as a punishment, no more than 2 acceptable absences in the life of the requirement. Return to court quickly with breach. That is what Interserve is paid for and that is what we will deliver, no if’s buts....."

The UPW requirement in all its guises has bedevilled Probation since 1972. No one really held Boards or Trusts to account for that failure, but now they beat us to death with that stick. 40 odd years of entrenched belief that it was not the front of house sentence it has now been elevated to. UPW the public and politicians get... programme and interventions don’t sell. Getafix was right when he said we are a monitoring and enforcement agency. That comment I suspect was levelled at both NPS and CRC. Good PO’s and PSOs went to the CRC. Both sides have bad ones as well so dial down the carping, let’s not engage in a pissing contest here. TR was bad for all. We are not civil servants nor privatised tick box merchants, we are practitioners of probation. Find the soul, it will take time but it’s there. Believe me, this madness will end and we need to be ready......

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Concerning UPW, I agree that things are changing from Management. Spreadsheet after spreadsheet regarding absences, example 200 hours UPW, full time worker with occasional childcare, illness etc. Panic, more than 2 acceptable absences? What! Professional judgement... No Way! Not allowed! BREACH or take back to Court to extend quick. Panic stations! Ridiculous state of affairs, got to agree that UPW is to be seen as the punitive community alternative to prison just around the corner. Agree that the public and media would accept this.

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Probation under PCC’s would be just as bad. Terrible idea, PCC’s are a mixed bag we’d move from being aligned to prisons to being aligned to the police, frying pan to fire. HMIP is suspect too, employs ex-CRC chief officers and sessional work for the Tories. And don’t think managers didn’t fix the sifting in some places.

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My point being they will never allow us to be stand alone. The PCC would appoint some form of probation board and separate out that responsibility from police. We work with police anyway but maintaining that separation of responsibility. We will never return to an advise, befriend and assist service. What we do is far too politicised now, and we need to be savvy. Get back to local delivery and local accountability.

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On another note - LDU heads in the NPS are now throwing around the term ‘Responsible Officer’ like bags of sweets. You can tell they are desperate for staff to use the term RO as opposed to PO/OM and/or practitioner! Another MoJ directive they all dance to!

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I always thought we should have gone on strike over the lack of investment in services which would rehabilitate those we work with rather than our own pay. There. It’s out now. That reluctance to ever invest properly time-wise or money wise or reputation-wise in promoting the chances and opportunities of those coming out of prison or those at risk of going there. Many were consistently excluded from the mainstream or vilified because of their background from toddlerhood. We should have struck over that continuing institutional failure to try to redress some of the imbalance in society as they have appeared before us, the shape of our ‘clientel’. Our skills with people would have been employed in persuading our service users to chance life as “winners”, to chance the changes required.

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Solidarity is a great thing. Just a shame it's in short supply amongst the probation workforce - who moan and groan and fail to unite. I gather some 750 NPS members allowed their membership to lapse as a consequence of check-off and CRC has membership declined by some 20%. No wonder pay erodes - there is no negotiating muscle.

There will be a strike – but only in la-la land. There may be a vote for a work-to rule, that trusty road to nowhere, that has never achieved anything in the public services. You have to go back to the car industry in the 1970's to find work-to-rules having any impact through the withdrawal of overtime and slowing-down production lines. It's a bitter pill to swallow, but there is nothing to be done. The employers know the probation workforce is docile and lacks any solidarity.

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How do you know they didn’t? Let’s focus on the here and now and support those who are negotiating. Napo will no doubt be balloting members to ratify pay offers soon. NPS will be left behind because let’s face it this government is never going to allow third rate civil servants to blow raspberries at the private sector. The more people who are in a union and active then the stronger our voice is to argue for a similar deal to colleagues in the CRCs. Lawrence is a bit naive to expect otherwise really. The fact is that no one anticipated how bad TR would be.

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Working to rule is industrial action that falls short of strike action, but it still requires a ballot. Working to rule however does require those involved in such action to know just what those rules are. The difficulty of working to rule in probation is that there is no universal model to identify with. All CRCs work differently, and all differ from NPS practices.

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Just back from a day at the coalface, I will catch the debate in a mo. Last hour or so of my working day in an interminable telephone call with SSCL which can be summarised as
"I am not getting paid this month?" 
"No"
"Why?"
"Machine says no"
"Can I speak to your manager?"
"No"
"Can I have her name?"
"No" followed by a chirpy email from on high inviting me to contribute to their "Great and Good" initiative, (eg suggestions box) as they want to know how best to harness and use the experience, commitment, perspective of staff blah blah. I had to sit on my hands to stop myself sending the expletive laden response that it was provoking.

*****
No pay rise and not getting paid. Chuffing 'ell that is... Nope, can't find the words to successfully express what I want to say. I am sure you will sort the latter, I know I have had to previously, but the former might drag on a while longer I guess. Of course both have consequences potentially, bills unable to be met and, to put it bluntly, getting poorer. On a cheerier note, it could be worse. Yours in humour and sympathy.

*****
I am surprised that there aren’t more comments regarding the ‘great and good ideas ‘ initiative. To publish this crass and ill thought out claptrap at the same time as stating that there is no money for your longest serving loyal employees shows how desperate the supposed leadership is. They ask how we can improve things with the courts, the public and all and sundry but have no concept of how disgraceful their conduct is towards what they used to say was their greatest asset, their staff. I have a whole host of ideas as to how we can improve service. Most of them consist of a wholesale change at the top.

*****
I've listened to the whole debate. Hats off to Ellie Reeves for getting this debate, hats off to the participants, especially Jenny Chapman's persistent and pointed remarks, which showed a depth of understanding lacking in many around her. Rory Stewart seems to be about half way through reading up his probation brief. He did that thing that ministers do of reciting his learning-to-date with trenchant authority but less underlying understanding. Plus a smattering of Tory-isms "back to basics", "innovation", tragically also trotting out a few Graylingisms "stubborn reoffending rates" "important role of charities". Oh, and TTG apparently crucial. He even remembered to appreciate the #hardworkingprobationstaff. 

Unbelievably depressing to hear him put up the "bedding in" defence and resolve to get the CRCs working properly as his solution. Revolving door of a conversation, Labour also seem to have fallen into an ideological mantra of private bad, public good, so solution is to take back the CRCs. The CRCs cannot go back, as where they came from doesn't exist any more. The situation in the CRCs is absolutely dire, but the situation in the NPS is pretty rubbish too. 

One point where there does seem to be some universal agreement: the third sector has been pushed out by the CRCs, to everyone's regret. Ministers on all sides pondering the difficulties of "scaling up" successful local third sector initiatives. Utterly misses the point! Seize the opportunities where they are, don't drown them with bureaucracy and centralised control. Preferably enable a strong unified probation service to work in partnership with local organisations at the scale they are operating in. First impressions, I will watch it again, especially Rory Stewart, first time I have heard him on topic.

*****
After a day down't'pit with nowt to eat, you've done well to sit through the debate as well - and you make good points. There are too many lies to wade through and unravel in this TR bollox including the "stubbornly high reoffending rates", the "thousands of unsupervised, unseen prisoners" on the loose, the ignored & unloved voluntary sector...

I was a volunteer in the 1980's 'embedded within' a probation team to provide support for prisoners' families; and I also worked for NACRO for a while (NB: they weren't in bed with Sodexo at that time). I then became a Probation Services Assistant working with a caseload of Money Payment Supervision Orders & non-statutory cases i.e. those who had either finished their Orders/Licences or were released without Licence but wanted assistance, e.g. housing. 

So, before the 20th century was over, I ticked every box that 21st century Grayling wanted ticked, yet still the spiteful wretched creature - and those who aided & abetted his twisted gut ideology - insisted on destroying a profession, many careers, and inflicted untold misery upon many more human lives.

*****
And you also illustrate the point Jenny Chapman was making: the profession needs to contain the opportunity for staff to start at the "low" end, and develop skills, confidence and maturity, some ending up at the "high" end. My caseload is now so densely high risk, and nearly all RSO's, that I occasionally catch myself thinking of those that raped adults as the "good guys". Draining.

*****
The lack of any progress with pay reform is a farce especially when the senior civil servant authorised to sort it seemingly agrees that the current pay scales could give rise to discrimination. The Tribunal may soon be losing patience with no change (Mr C Heskett v Secretary of State for Justice)? I can't understand why the Probation unions aren't pursuing an equal pay claim? But perhaps they are part of the problem?

*****
What the hell is a”NPS responsible officers”. Can these people not say PROBATION OFFICER!? PCC’s would be no different from private companies running probation.They're all about ‘revenue streams’ and all the separate parts will be hived off, buildings abandoned and we’ll have little back rooms in police stations where we’re slowly morphed into police cultures.

*****
I have some misgivings re PCCs as well, though they may not be quite as clueless as the MoJ. I think the idea is that MoJ and PCCs run the whole lot together. Imagine the chaos. Still, perhaps the PCC and the MoJ would entertain each other. That would take a bit of pressure off the workers, leave them in peace to get on with the task in hand. But where do the CRCs come into this? Will it mean not just one or two masters, but three? Re the back room in police station, this would be a possible scenario were it not for the attack on police funding which has seen a number of police stations closing down. Perhaps the operations will take place in the local shopping malls instead.

*****
I recently went to a training event. All the PSO's introduced themselves as Responsible Officers, all the PO's introduced themselves as Probation Officers.

*****
My understanding is that the term 'responsible officers' was introduced in an effort to eliminate the distinction between POs and PSOs in order to allow the gradual disappearance of the professional status of POs. This would, in turn, make it possible for CRCs to do the job on the cheap without having to contend with the arguments around 'PSOs can't do this. PSOs can't do that'. If we are all ROs, gradually, everyone will become a PSO and the wage bills decrease leaving more for the profiteers.

*****
All court orders since the introduction of the 2003 CJA referred to the “superving officer” and did not say PO or PSO. The 2014 Act refers to the “Responsible Officer”. Whoever manages the case (and in this day and age that can change very quickly) is the defacto RO. Whatever chair you occupy, be it PO/PSO, case manager or senior case manager is irrelevant in the eyes of the law.

Re PCC’s; I have in previous posts, advocated they are the best on offer of a pretty bad bunch, but I am from Liverpool and we are (except for Southport which is on the periphery of Merseyside), a Tory free zone and will be for generations to come. We would be happy to declare UDI if we could.....

*****
This issue about partnership working versus one agency being swallowed up by another: to have an impact in a partnership situation probation would need to be conscious of its own identity and promote this in such practical ways and with such distinctive outcomes that its value would be recognised and respected by its partners. But if probation staff have allowed themselves to be bullied and pushed about for years then that strong sense of identity and practice will not come to the fore and they will be swallowed up. In my experience Police officers have been known to be happy to work constructively with probation staff and because of interaction with probation, some have come to recognise the person behind the offence, the value of rehabilitation and the skill required in working together with your service user to that end. But for this to happen probation staff have to be sure about their own value and so do their managers.

*****
Partnership working is vital to probation and to rehabilitation as a whole. But I think the partnerships should be between agencies that have an equal status and their own particular identity. For example the creation of NOMS saw a probation service heavily influenced and shaped by a prison service approach to rehabilitation. I don't want to say that different agencies shouldn't adapt or adopt best practices from partner agencies, but that all agencies should not be independent in its own ideology and working practices. With that said, I'm unsure about devolving criminal justice issues to local PCCs. I think firstly that such a request is not founded in improving justice services, but more focused on downloading local funding.

Secondly, I worry about where it might lead. Some PCCs are involved in really progressive attitudes and approaches on drug use, yet other regions are imposing huge fines on the homeless for sleeping in doorways. Devolving justice matters to PCCs will surely create an Americanised model where the 'sheriff' of the region has the freedom to decide what way the law should be applied and what punishment any infringement should attract. Devolving justice services would create far too many regional differences.

*****
I've worked (and still do) with and alongside the Police for over 10 years. They are most definitely NOT the people/organisation we want running Probation! If not for the fact I'm on my phone and don't have my specs' I'd spell out in great detail as to why. However, nest feathering, nepotism, institutional racist and sexism and a inability to heed advice from those below them are only a few of the many, many, many reasons as to why I think this.

*****
I completely agree and I too have worked very closely with the police who at the drop off a hat want people recalled even when there's insufficient evidence to do so - they have a completely different ethos than Probation.

*****
Sorry but there are a lot of excellent Police Officer’s out there who are experts when it comes to crime. Really doesn’t sit right with me these kind of remarks. There are arguments as to why Police should not run Probation but let’s drop the claims of superiority. Clients wouldn’t share anything if they felt the Police could access the lot. The only country that has the Police run Probation is the USA and Probation is a pure enforcement service out there. Yes there are some police who are not very good but that is true of many jobs out there including probation.

*****
PCC’s and police culture taking over probation a huge mistake, probably worse than the years of servitude to prisons and NOMS. I once met a decent police officer in 1997 before I joined probation. Working in probation I’ve met a total of one decent police officer. Apart from these two, not saying all the rest are c*nts, racist, corrupt, arrogant know-it-all’s, but most are. I encourage PROBATION OFFICERS to amend letter formats and introduce themselves at meetings, parole hearings, to state this. We worked hard for this title, not Offender Manager, Responsible Officer, or Case Manager.

If our Jim had big balls he’d start a [campaign] for everyone to put their Probation Officer title and qualification in email signatures. Test this blogs influence and see how the MoJ likes that.

*****
Does anyone know what Probation stands for anymore? Seriously what is it? You better spell it out soon or your fossils will be the subject of a niche and limited history club. Who are your leaders? Collectively where are they leading you? Is Probation just a sign above the door? What does it mean? That others are imagining Probation here or there, making claim to it, seems to suggest you are truly adrift. Come on, shake yourselves out of your slumber, time is not your friend.

*****
The Police service operate on a top down command and control basis. Constable does exactly what the sergeant says, the sergeant does exactly what the inspector says and so on up the chain of command. There is no opportunity for rational discussion, challenge to a particular stance or even point out blatant sexism, homophobia, racism or other unsavoury traits. Anyone who "splits" on a fellow policeman had better beware - it just isn't done. Given this scenario it is impossible to see how any Probation staff could work within a police environment as the two are totally incompatible. The police say their job is to catch criminals and send them to prison, whereas Probation's job is to "mollycoddle" clients and do everything they can to keep them out of prison. Not the basis for any sort of marriage.

*****
Anyone who has ever had an OASys report done on them knows full well that as a tool for calculating risk it's a load of absolute cobblers. It's not helped by the fact that probation officers fail every single day to accurately record information about the client in their records as they are legally obligated to under the Data Protection Act 1998. They fail to check that the information 3rd parties give them is accurate as they are legally obligated to which skews what OASys spews out even further. A result is only as good as the information put into the assessment notwithstanding the effectiveness of the actual tool in the first place.

And as for actual risk, well considering every human on the planet is capable of murder in the right set of circumstances, it's actually impossible to predict the risk of anyone committing a crime. Some people you think will, won't and others who have but never been caught will continue to do so and those who have never committed an arrest worthy crime suddenly will. It all depends on what happens to that person on any given day and none of know when we get up in the morning what the day will bring.

*****
I was voluntarily involved in the genesis of OASys (I know!! but I thought a single assessment tool was a good idea in principle) & whilst it was a fascinating exercise to begin with I was variously horrified, dismayed & angered by the arrogance of the lead psychologist who had a very clear Home Office agenda within rigid parameters. I had a similar experience when being introduced to Thornton's RM2000 in that the lead clinician would not entertain any discussion of exceptions. In both cases my frustrations were subordinate to the tsunami of nausea generated by the fawning & fanboy/fangirl responses of colleagues; & management in particular.

Context - a single assessment tool being a good idea in principle as opposed to each probation area having their own homegrown version, which was problematic &/or confusing when cases were being transferred. Points made [above] are valid & were among the issues & concerns dismissed or ignored when they were raised with lead clinicians.

*****
“Risk management” justifies “enforcement” and is the biggest lie probation officers delude themselves in to believing! For the new breed PO’s (those that don’t know or don’t care what probation really is because it ceased having any meaningful purpose some years ago) “risk management” and “public protection” makes them feel purposeful and important.

*****
I have frequently asked the service users I worked with if they thought they were dangerous, what kind of dangers they posed, to whom, and what tends to trigger the behaviours which pose risks to others. Within a good working relationship those kinds of conversations beat 1000 oasys’es. I ask the same questions of myself. Driving is where I’m risky.

The Trouble With Algorithms

With so much of our attention taken up with the on-going effects of the TR omnishambles, there's hardly any scope for discussion of practice issues, but I spotted this on Facebook recently by David Raho:-

Do the various organisations now involved in delivering Probation services bring with them ingrained prejudices from their original jurisdictions? Are the systems algorithms that we use in assessment neutral or loaded (eg culture, race, religion etc) against particular groups? Do we perpetuate the inequalities in the system by tapping into our own deeply held values and beliefs or do we constantly challenge and revise them?

When I first joined Probation in the 1980s I was given what I have always considered to be good advice. This was to distrust all tools such as those used to produce risk of offending scoring particularly those said to work in other jurisdictions and also to be deeply suspicious of everything that was ever produced as an instruction/directive by the employers (then the Home Office and local authority) as it was invariably nonsense. I was also advised to constantly challenge my own values and beliefs and my personal motivation for doing Probation work and if I wasn’t fairly certain why I wanted to do it or happy about doing it for those I was doing it for, then it was best to go and do something else for those I wanted to work with or for. I was also told that the best training for Probation for graduates was 6 months on a building site. I have always found that advice useful and only come a-cropper when I have not followed it or lingered in roles or teams I should have left far sooner than I did.

As for predictions of criminal behaviour. This is a very imprecise science but it has always been the case that past behaviour is a fairly good predictor of future behaviour so unpicking the reasons for offending and working through these in some form of systematic or purposeful way in supervision may be useful in reducing it in many cases ie not just a standard tick box check in.

Comments:-

Read The Black Swan by Taleb. He says that risk tools (in his case financial risks) are based on mass data and so regress to the mean. Sudden shocks are unpredictable as rare events do not arise from the predictable norms. Now Risk Tools are exactly analogous with this. They are based on mass data. They CANNOT predict who will do it. All they can do is give an idea of the TYPE of person who MIGHT.

But any tool will drown you in false positives. So if you have an assessment tool with 99% accuracy, 100,000 people and 100 murderers, what will happen is that it will say 1 murderer is safe; identify 99 correctly as killers; Identify 99,000 non killers; and misidentify 1000 killers. 

Every 1% error in accuracy reduces your killspot by 1 and adds 1000 false positives. So it matters not a fig how many 'factors' you use. None will get you to 100% and any less buries you in false noise. The proof of this is, do you use OAsys to inform your day to day work on risk? No me neither! Do you take much account of OASys once completed? Also no me neither. What we do is we use our informed instinct and gut to decide who to worry about...and then another person does something. 

RSR proves the pointlessness of the whole Risk Fetish process. You 'score' 6.8% and you are so scary dangerous that you must be in the NPS. At that point close on 19/20 are NOT going to do anything serious even if we do NOTHING AT ALL. Yet they all need close monitoring. The whole thing is Voodoo Probation.  Note that 6.8 is an 93.2% false positive rate. Ponder that for a moment.

*****
Risk is a constant dynamic. Only regular contact can measure it. However static measures should be the reality check, no matter what. The right balance.

*****
If you are way out of whack with the static factors you need a solid argument as to why. The static factors as such tell you very little.

--oo00oo--

Here's the American article that prompted the discussion:-

Computerized Criminal Behavior Predictions Are No More Effective Than Untrained Humans: Report

Without effective scrutiny, algorithm-based software could hurt those who are already the most vulnerable.

The effectiveness of the criminal justice system has been debated since its creation. There is great difficulty in developing a uniform system when criminal defendants’ circumstances are variable. Thanks to recent coverage of police shooting, sexual assault cases and self-defense trials over the last few years, the criminal justice system has become interwoven with our daily news of politics, government and pop culture. It doesn’t take long to see the system operates in favor of those with power and influence while being disadvantageous for those with a history of systemic vulnerability. It is inescapable, and it is becoming increasingly apparent that the system is flawed.

We had hoped that in the age of technology, we could eradicate bias by putting computer programs in place of our old systems. With algorithm-based systems, we can make faster, less variable predictions about the likelihood of people ending up in the criminal justice system again, or recidivism. But it’s become increasingly apparent that automating the process made things worse because now we have taken old bias and embedded it by teaching it to computers. We hoped machines could provide the fair treatment humans have failed to give criminal defenders and past offenders—but they haven’t. And it turns out, machines may not be any more effective than humans at predicting recidivism.

“People hear words like ‘big data’ and ‘machine learning’ and often assume that these methods are both accurate and unbiased simply because of the amount of data used to build them,” said Julia Dressel, whose senior undergraduate honors thesis in computer science at Dartmouth College is gaining national attention.

Earlier this year, Dressel released a report in conjunction with computer science professor Hany Farid at Dartmouth College titled “The accuracy, fairness, and limits of predicting recidivism” in the Journal of Science Advances. The two evaluated the risk assessment software COMPAS—Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions—and the results were shocking. Participants only had seven details about offenders, compared to 137 given to COMPAS, and were accurate 67 percent of the time.

The conclusion is that untrained experts are making criminal predictions with considerably less information than COMPAS.

“We have shown that a commercial software that is widely used to predict recidivism is no more accurate than the predictions of people with no criminal justice expertise who responded to an online survey. We have also shown that the COMPAS prediction algorithm is equivalent to a very simple classifier,” says Dressel.

Predicting criminal behavior is serious business. It’s critical that we use this and similar research to evaluate ways to improve the programs we are using to make determinations on people’s futures. Without effective scrutiny, algorithm-based software could hurt those who are already the most vulnerable.

Dressel’s research isn’t the first time COMPAS has been under scrutiny. In 2016, ProPublica presented an in-depth analysis of the software that found high levels of racial bias. Findings included heightened and false predictions on black recidivism, a false reduced risk for white recidivism and black defendants misclassified as having a higher risk for violent offenses.

“Algorithmic tools sound impressive, so people are quick to assume that a tool’s predictions are inherently superior to human predictions. It’s dangerous if judges assume COMPAS produces accurate predictions, when in reality its accuracy is around 65 percent. Therefore, it’s important to expose when software like COMPAS isn’t performing as we expect. We cannot take any algorithm’s accuracy for granted, especially when the algorithm is being used to make decisions that can have serious consequences in someone’s life,” Dressel continued.

Along with being equally as effective in predictions, participants were equally as biased, particularly in the area of race.

“Our research suggests that the two most predictive criteria of recidivism are age and total number of previous convictions. On a national scale, black people are more likely to have prior crimes on their record than white people are (black people in America are incarcerated in state prisons at a rate that is 5.1 times that of white Americans, for example). Within the dataset used in our study, white defendants had an average of 2.59 prior crimes, whereas black defendants had an average of 4.95 prior crimes. The racial bias that appears in both the algorithmic and human predictions is a result of this discrepancy,” Dressel explained.

False predictions about criminal defendants and recidivism affects people’s lives. The predictions made by COMPAS and similar software are used to determine bail totals, prison sentences and eligibility for parole. Unfortunately, more often than not individuals of color, black men in particular, are the ones whose lives are destroyed by these mistakes.

Over the last 30 years, the Sentencing Project has been at the forefront of the discussion around criminal justice reform. Their research efforts help spread awareness of the way race affects experience within the criminal justice system, the long-term isolation of felons and suggestions for improving sentencing.

“More than 60 percent of the people in prison today are people of color. Black men are nearly six times as likely to be incarcerated as white men, and Hispanic men are 2.3 times as likely. For black men in their 30s, 1 in every 10 is in prison or jail on any given day,” says Kara Gotsch, the director of strategic initiatives at the Sentencing Project.

Given our nation's history, this information is troubling, yet not surprising. The real conflict comes in when we consider the struggles associated with life after prison and its continuous stigma.

“People with criminal records face significant collateral consequences of their conviction, including barriers to voting, employment, housing, and financial public assistance. These barriers complicate the reintegration process after incarceration and likely increase the odds a person will recidivate,” Gotsch explained.

The biases people of color are exposed to when interacting with the criminal justice system are paired with the everyday experiences of personal and systemic racism. Think of it this way—a black man with a college degree has fewer employment opportunities than a white man with a high school diploma. If you add a criminal record, finding gainful employment can be nearly impossible. Our criminal justice system takes the usual oppression and multiplies it, leaving additional barriers to self-sufficiency for black and brown people.

According to research conducted at the Sentencing Project, the problems with our criminal justice system go much deeper than furthering racism. Incarceration is often used as a substitution for issues of addiction and mental illness that would be better treated with personalized treatment programs than with removal from society.

“Public education about the United States’ exceptionalism in its use of incarceration is critical to demonstrate that there is another way to address public safety concerns. The U.S. relies on incarceration and severe punishments to address circumstances that really result from our broken social safety net, like inadequate access to medical and mental health treatment, including drug treatment. Incarceration will not solve these problems, but community investment in services can,” says Gotsch.

If we want to do more to assist individuals who are at risk for committing crimes instead of hiding them away, we must spend more time evaluating how we interact with criminal defendants. Dressel’s honors project shedding light on both the flaws of algorithm-based punishments and ever-present human implicit bias is a step in the right direction.

Since the studies publication, Northpointe, Inc. (now Equivant), which owns the COMPAS software, wrote an “Official Response” on its website that alleges Dressel’s research “actually adds to a growing number of independent studies that have confirmed that COMPAS achieves good predictability and matches the increasingly accepted AUC standard.” However, they make no mention of the racial bias and say they will review the materials from the study for accuracy.

Our criminal justice system needs fixing, and following technological shortcuts isn’t the answer. We need to do more as a nation to make sure we aren’t derailing someone’s life for things we could have fixed through early intervention.

The takeaway? According to Dressel, it’s being aware that algorithms are imperfect and that reducing bias will require intentional effort—but there is hope. “Algorithms can have racially biased predictions even if race isn’t a feature of the algorithm. It could be possible to develop algorithms void of racial bias. However, in this field, as research continues it’s important that we assess the algorithms for bias at every step of the way to ensure the tools are performing as we expect,” she concluded.

If companies won’t take responsibility for making racial bias permanent, it’s up to us as a community to bring attention to racial disparities. Both the Sentencing Project and Dressel’s research are a step in the right direction.

Rochaun Meadows-Fernandez

A. Rochaun is a writer, speaker, and activist with a passion for learning, located in Wyoming. Due to natural talent, her career has gained noteworthy momentum in a very short amount of time. While capable of writing on a wide variety of subjects, she specializes in Black health, parenting, and diversity education. You can read her content in the Washington Post (Print and Web), New York Mag, Athena Insight, and many more. Her work is also republished in the Chicago Tribune and other long-standing, reputable media outlets. She is an honor graduate of Texas Woman’s University and member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority as well as Omicron Delta Kappa.

--oo00oo--

A couple of comments:-

Mostly, this article makes some good points. The so-called experts are often wrong in predicting future crimes. These experts frequently have their own biases and prejudices, and that could interfere with the accuracy of their predictions. Even with algorithmic systems that run on computerized calculations, the algorithms that are used in making such programs are often influenced by the biases and prejudices of those designing the programs. Nobody can always predict what influences may occur in people's lives that might turn them around.

However, increased mental "health care", which this article made a few statements promoting, can still be oppressive. Psychiatry has its own biases. Its drugs often have suppressive and debilitating effects. Psychiatry has often incarcerated people. Psychiatric "diagnoses" are often influenced by the biases of the psychiatrists doing the "diagnosing". While the criminal justice system in this country is far from perfect, defendants get better due process there than most people who are dragged before psychiatrists. Dissident psychiatrist Thomas Szasz mentioned the last point in his book "Psychiatric Justice"(www dot szasz dot com).

*****
Good intentions but totally misses the key flaw.

Basing incarceration, whether initial or continuation of it, on any form of prediction, whether by humans or algorithms, is a form of preventive detention and should be recognized as such. The key problem here is the high pathological and completely dysfunctional attitude that once the judicial system has someone in its clutches it should not release them until and if it is convinced that they will not reoffend.

Incarceration has only two valid purposes: punitive, as a disincentive to reoffend and rehabilitative – to give the incarcerated the abilities and resources to deal with the problems that led them to offend in the first place. Preventive detention when recognized as such, has always been treated as the severe cultural and political pathology it is. Disguising it under a façade of computer algorithms or "predictions" by humans should make no difference in how it is treated.

A miserable accuracy rate of 65% means that something is only doing 15% better than pure chance and that almost 1/3 of those incarcerated on the basis of such a prediction should not have been. This should be considered totally unacceptable in any society that has any pretensions whatsoever of being a democracy.

The real irony here is that many people were driven to creating crimes in the first place by constant and unrelenting abuse by the application of algorithms instead of being judged by their personal performance and history. The use of algorithms to save the short-term costs of judgments based on individual records and characteristics is always at the expense of far greater long-term costs due to inevitable higher inaccuracies. [ADDED: It's always done because those doing it get the minor short term savings while it is society that pays the vastly higher long term costs. The USA pathological version of capitalism is deeply inherently highly predisposed to such rank abuses.]

The victims of algorithmic based judgments almost inevitably become aware of exactly what is going on and that awareness has highly corrosive effects on their judgment and activity. You can control your behavior but have almost no control over many of the characteristics used in algorithms. So the highly pathological message that victims of algorithmic based judgments get is that what they do is almost irrelevant.

Trouble At Approved Premises

The following came in over night and left as comments on yesterday's blog. It's not signed or dated and if from a document, it may not be complete or the sections might not be in the right order. However, as submitted, it clearly sheds some light on the vexed issue of night waking-cover of Approved Premises (Probation Hostels in old money) and therefore in view of its importance, I've decided to publish it here for discussion and comment.

PRIVATISATION OF DOUBLE WAKING NIGHTS COVER (DWNC) IN PROBATION APPROVED PREMISES

Sodexo and OCS are FM contractors, but as part of their FM contracts to provide cleaning and catering in APs, they are also going to run DWNC in APs. UNISON has campaigned against this dangerous privatisation since it was first proposed three years ago. We believe that the MOJ breached EU procurement legislation in allowing residential services into a facilities management contract, but MOJ Ministers refused to answer our questions on the legal process. This issue has not gone away and we continue to campaign on this.

The NPS realised in January that neither Sodexo, nor OCS, was ready to take over the DWNC contract on the original ‘go live’ date of 22 January. As a result the start date was put back to 1 March, mainly to allow the 1-2-1 meetings to take place between the company and the NPS staff due to transfer to the private companies. The NPS has confirmed that the contract is going to start on 1 March even though Sodexo and OCS are not able to staff up all the APs on this date!!

The NPS is going to cover for them. This is obviously how privatisation works these days. UNISON has written to the Secretary of State for Justice and to Sonia Crozier to ask that the contracts are deferred again, on health and safety grounds. Our pleas have been ignored. NPS cannot say it was not warned.

ADVICE TO NPS STAFF TRANSFERRING TO SODEXO OR OCS

Sodexo and OCS have confirmed that they will recognise UNISON for the purposes of collective bargaining for TUPE transferees going forward. So UNISON will continue to look after your interests and represent you after you have transferred to Sodexo, or OCS. All of your contractual terms and conditions transfer unchanged to Sodexo, or OCS. Your pension remains unchanged. If you are in the Local Government Pension Scheme, this will continue.

There is no requirement for you to sign any new contract with Sodexo, or OCS. Do not sign any document you are given by Sodexo, or OCS, without first taking advice from UNISON. Your hours of work are protected. You cannot be required to work more hours than you do at present. You can agree to work additional hours/overtime, but this is your choice. If your contract states that you only work at one AP, you cannot be required to work at any other AP (unless you agree).

Sodexo and OCS cannot change any of your terms and conditions without your agreement, or the agreement of UNISON on your behalf. If you have any questions on what Sodexo or OCS ask you to do after the transfer, please speak to your local UNISON representative in the first instance.

REQUIREMENTS FOR PRIVATE RESIDENTIAL ASSISTANTS

UNISON asked for the start date for the privatised DWNC contracts to be deferred again post 1 March. This is because there is little evidence that the contractual requirements around the recruitment, shadow shifts and vetting of the privatised Residential Assistants, (who will work alongside a single NPS member of staff on every night shift), are anywhere close to being put in place in time for 1 March.  On the face of it, the Justice Secretary and HMPPS don’t care and are going ahead regardless. This is a major safe-guarding risk for AP staff, AP residents and communities, and we have warned both Ministers and Sonia Crozier about the dangers of going ahead unprepared. As we know, this is a government which cannot admit it has got things wrong.

The MOJ contract for the private DWNC requires that the following are put in place before any private residential assistant can work a shift alongside an NPS employee:

• All private Residential Assistants must be SIA licensed. 
• All personnel will have to display their SIA licence in a card holder on a lanyard at all times whilst on duty.
• The private Residential Assistant must be recruited only for work in APs (i.e. they cannot have been recruited for general security work for Sodexo/OCS anywhere else). 
• The private Residential Assistant must be interviewed for the job in the actual AP in which he/she is due to work. 
• The NPS AP manager in every AP has the right to attend each interview for private residential assistants, and will have the right to veto any appointment by Sodexo/OCS.
• As part of the appointment process the private Residential Assistant must provide an enhanced CRB check, proof of right to work in the UK, a verified employment history and satisfactory references.
• This will include a Security Guard Licence and Public Space Surveillance (operation of CCTV). 
• If at any time Key Holding is required, this SIA licence will also be required. 

All new private Residential Assistants will be required to work a minimum of three probationary ‘shadow’ shifts, alongside an experienced member of Sodexo/OCS staff, before undertaking his/her own shift. This means that for three night shifts, two Sodexo staff will have to work alongside the NPS DWNC member of staff to deliver the ‘shadow shifts’.

It is not acceptable for the NPS DWNC employee, or the AP Manager, to supervise the trainee private residential assistant on these ‘shadow shifts’, this must be done by an ‘experienced’ member of Sodexo or OCS staff. These training shifts will be at the expense of Sodexo/OCS.

NPS reserves the right to request the replacement of any private Residential Assistant should they fail to meet the standard required in the contract and the terms agreed as part of the interview process between the parties.

Approved Premises Managers will be responsible for arranging a site-specific building induction with each private Residential Assistant new to that AP which will include health and safety, use of panic alarms and action to alarm activations, fire and emergency evacuation procedure and other aspects of the local business.

It will be clear to most AP members that the above conditions are unlikely to be delivered in most APs in what is left of February. All of the above requirements are necessary for public protection and for the health and safety of AP residents and staff.

UNISON will not be prepared to accept any departure from these safety provisions. If you believe that any of these provisions is being flouted, please contact your UNISON representative immediately.

UNISON has written to each Divisional Head of Public Protection to ask about what plans are being put in place in each AP to deliver all of the above requirements prior to any private Residential Assistants being employed, and to seek the necessary reassurances regarding the health, safety and welfare of our AP members. At least one Head of Public Protection has written back to admit that the safeguards will not be in place on 1 March in his Division. This is on the record.

KEEP A LOG OF THINGS THAT GO WRONG as UNISON is putting a national appeal together, which we are entitled to do under the National Negotiating Council Job Evaluation Scheme.

However, there is a REAL DANGER that the NPS will ask Sodexo and OCS to back fill the vacant NPS Residential Worker posts!!!!!!!!, as there is the facility in the small print of the DWNC contract to ask the private companies to provide cover during the day. The thin end of the wedge if ever there was one! If you find Sodexo or OCS staff filling in on day shifts, please let UNISON know.

In all probability, HMPPS really wants to privatise the entire AP function and could be tempted to exploit its recruitment crisis in APs to bring this in through the back door. UNISON will fight this all the way. HMPPS to account on any problems that arise because the health, safety and wellbeing of our members, residents and communities is at risk and UNISON is not prepared to stand by and allow this. More information on where to send your logs will be sent out soon.

NPS STRUGGLES TO RECRUIT RESIDENTIAL WORKERS

UNISON has discovered that the NPS is struggling to recruit its own AP Residential Workers in at least two Divisions: South West and London. There are at least 20 AP residential worker vacancies in each Division. This is hardly surprising as NPS cut the salary for AP Residential Workers from a Band 3 to a Band 2 as part of its E3 cost cutting measures. Once applicants find out just how demanding a role the Residential Worker job is, they are less keen to join.

UNISON appealed against the down-banding in 2016, but NPS forced it through, not thinking ahead to the problems that this would lead to in recruitment. UNISON is therefore calling on NPS to review the salary of NPS Residential Workers again in 2018, and we will be asking for AP members’ assistance in this. UNISON asks all AP members to start keeping a written log of any problems and deficiencies which you witness from 1 March in the running of the privatised DWNC contracts. We will ask you to submit these logs to us on a monthly basis. It is really important that we hold the private companies to account!!!!!!

JOIN UNISON NOW. CALL FREE ON 0800 171 2193 OR VISIT JOIN UNISON.ORG

Next time you're supervising somebody's release from HMP and back into the community, perhaps after they have served a long sentence for what was a particularly nasty offence. There are recorded concerns and evidence of potential harm and you feel it would benefit all if there was a period of enhanced supervision during that early period of release......Well sorry to inform you but the AP system has turned to shit and soon will have a staffing model directly imported and inspired by such luminaries as G4S and their running of Brook House.

CRCs 'Bailed Out'

Here's that Huffington Post article that's been mentioned a few times on here and it effectively confirms that the failing CRCs were indeed given a 'bung' last year. It's quite astonishing really - we all know our government routinely wastes money whilst insisting they are either saving it or spending it wisely - but here's an instance where they actually gave it away:-  

Ministers Handed Probation Companies £342m 'Bailout' - But Demanded No Extra Staff

Ministers gave private probation companies a £342m “bailout” and made no demand they hire extra staff, HuffPost UK can reveal. The extra cash was given to Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) last year amid soaring levels of reoffending as part of a shake-up of the 21 outsourced contracts. The money was aimed at “improving services” and can be slashed if firms fail to deliver, the Ministry of Justice has said.

But Labour and the probation union Napo said, with no money aimed at boosting manpower, the “bailout” money is “rewarding failure” and is simply “keeping CRCs afloat”. The cash boost for CRCs comes after Interserve Justice and MTCnovo threatened to pull out of Government contracts in March last year, citing unsustainable finances. Dame Glenys Stacey, the Chief Inspector of Probation has repeatedly warned CRCs are reducing staff “to below an acceptable level.”

In her annual report in December, Stacey said that at some CRCs “staff numbers have been pared down in repeated redundancy exercises, with those remaining carrying out exceptional caseloads.” 

A series of Parliamentary Questions by Shadow Justice Secretary Richard Burgon has revealed the Government failed to demand extra staff as part of its CRC contract shake-up to “improve services”. Prisons Minister Rory Stewart admitted: “The changes we made to CRC contracts did not require the provision of additional services or staff.” The MoJ said CRCs “are falling short of our vision for a high-quality system” but said their contracts already require them to maintain staff at a “sufficient” level.

In a separate PQ, however, the MoJ admitted none of the contracts specify maintaining staff at any “particular level”.  Ministers have come under pressure to improve probation services, with the 21 CRCs mired in criticism since they took over from publicly-run probation trusts in 2015. The number of offenders on probation charged with murder, manslaughter, rape and other serious violent or sexual crimes has risen by more than 25% since the service was privatised.

A joint report of the prisons and probation inspectorates in June also gave a damning verdict on the CRCs’ Through the Gate (TTG) programme. It found 10% of long-term prisoners leave jail homeless and just two out of the 98 prisoners surveyed as part of the report were found accommodation before they were released - 10% of that number were back in jail within 12 weeks. The National Audit Office also found in November that CRCs are failing to meet even one-third of performance targets.

Ian Lawrence, general secretary of Napo, said: 

“It’s clear that the bailout for the CRCs is not about extra resourcing for staff but is all about keeping them afloat and persuading them not to hand the keys back to the Ministry of Justice. Napo members also report that the National Probation Service are ordering managers to purchase as many services as possible from CRC providers, throwing more taxpayers’ cash at these failing companies.”

Richard Burgon added: 

“After the collapse of Carillion, this is yet another example of how privatisation is part of a rigged system that may work for a small number of corporate shareholders but does not serve the general public very well. Vast sums of extra public money should not be being handed over to private probation companies when they are failing to meet basic performance targets. It’s an even greater scandal that the government has not taken even minimum steps to ensure that any additional funds go into improving staffing levels that could help keep the public safer. 

This case also lifts the lid on the complete lack of public accountability under privatisation. Despite relentless bad news coming out about the performance of private probation companies over the past year almost nothing has been done by the government to intervene to address this. It’s a complete dereliction of duty that the government has not once called on a private probation company to improve staffing levels and that probation contracts do not specify a bare minimum for staffing levels. The Tory government’s record has been one of rewarding failure in the probation service.”

The Government said it will hold CRCs to account for poor service delivery. A proportion of the CRCs’ income from Government is subject to achieving reductions in reoffending, it said.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “Contracts already require CRCs to have the necessary levels of staff, and we robustly hold these companies to account for the delivery of their contractual obligations. But as we have been clear, probation services are falling short of our vision for a high-quality system that reforms offenders and commands the confidence of courts. That is why we have changed CRC contracts to address the challenges CRCs are facing as a result of their financial situation, due to the reduction in the volumes of offenders referred to them.”