A Slow Day in Court

Having endured more than the odd day covering Magistrates Court myself as CDO, especially on a hot sunny day, I can fully appreciate where Mark Naylor, the now famous court reporter for the Grimsby Telegraph, is coming from:- 

Woman breaking wind cuts through sombre silence of Grimsby courtroom

The sombre silence of a Grimsby courtroom was rudely broken when a woman suddenly broke wind very loudly from the public gallery. The unexpected and highly unwelcome interruption to the dignity of the court day proved to be the dubious highlight of an otherwise dull day at Grimsby Magistrates' Court.

It is not the first time that the loud breaking of wind has abruptly shattered the order and peacefulness of judicial proceedings in Court Four. On another infamous occasion, those present in court struggled to keep straight faces as the male culprit, also sitting in the public gallery, shattered the silence with his unwelcome contribution to – or comment on – the proceedings. This time, as then, nothing was said publicly about the unexpectedly loud sound but nervous twitches and stifled grins were seemingly the order of the day.

Noisy flatulence interrupts court session in Grimsby
By This is Grimsby | Posted: January 31, 2013

The quiet dignity of a court session was abruptly disturbed when someone loudly broke wind in the public gallery.

Nobody apologised for the noisy interruption – and there were anxious looks from people nearby who feared they might get the blame. Grimsby magistrates pretended they had not heard a thing, and in a seemingly unrelated incident a few minutes later, all the lights went out for a few seconds before flickering back on again.

There was an unwelcome sequel this time, however, because the same woman returned to the courtroom in the afternoon, prompting emergency evasive action to be taken by some. One male observer, originally sitting unknowingly next to the culprit on the front row of the public gallery, was told about what had happened and hastily moved back a row to provide a bit more distance in the event of a second unexpected event.

He also took cover outside the courtroom door later on during proceedings in a wise pre-emptive bid to avoid being in the firing line in the event of an ear-splitting encore. He later suffered the indignity of being blamed by others for being the one responsible for the noise in the first place.

--oo00oo--

Internet laps up 'mind-blowing' story on woman breaking wind in Grimsby courtroom

Our report on the rude interruption to proceedings at Grimsby Magistrates' Court was read by over 100,000 people on Friday alone. News of a woman breaking wind in a Grimsby courtroom swept the internet on Friday.

The unexpected and highly unwelcome interruption to the dignity of the court day proved to be the dubious highlight of an otherwise dull day at the court. It is not the first time that the loud breaking of wind has abruptly shattered the order and peacefulness of judicial proceedings in Court Four.

Yesterday, scores of internet sites and social media users posted links to the story and offered their thoughts on 'windgate'.

(That's enough - Ed)

Court Report

Seen on Facebook:-

I keep saying that this NPS\CRC professional divide will happen and widen as time goes by, as new staff join both services, and it is! I am now hearing that CRC staff are feeling that they are being spoken down to by Prison and NOMS staff as well as Courts and some previous colleagues. Personally I wouldn't take this but then again I'm an old Probation gunslinger. I would not like to be joining either service in this era.

I think it will actually be easier for those joining now. At least they know what they're coming into. As a CRC PO who still sits in an office with NPS, I still struggle to accept all the tasks I miss from my preTR role, especially when listening to other staff still doing this work. It's difficult not to feel 'second class' sometimes, even though I know sifting was largely down to luck (or in my case, maternity leave). I for one will be glad when we do move out, I think it will actually improve morale.

Recently a Magistrate in our area admitted he did not realise that CRC staff were still the same staff from the 'old service', he thought we had all be drafted in by Interserve. They also refused to revoke an Order for good progress (which was entirely justified) because we were 'just doing it for targets'. Unfortunately we are getting a lot of resistance from the NPS court staff who are not helping the situation and are sometimes just rude to us.

I am NPS court staff and it's really hard because we don't mean to be resistant or rude and I always email the CRC OMs to tell them what's happened in my breach courts in case they need to show it to managers or something. The revoking for good progress is a really contentious issue because court services have had a directive that the applications aren't necessary (because when an Order is made, 12 months is just the maximum, but if they do their RAR and UPW in 8 months that isn't especially good progress, it's just them doing what they were ordered to do) and I can see the court services point of view. But then equally I understand that for OMs having lots of cases sat on your case load who have finished is hugely problematic and you want to get rid of them. Aside from that, CRC senior management is pushing OMs to put the applications in court, NPS court managers are telling us we have to accept them, sign them off and list them in the courts, then make the applications despite knowing the outcome will be a rejection (all applications are currently being rejected) and HMCTS managers are telling legal advisers to reject them.

I'm really sorry you feel that NPS staff are being rude and unhelpful (I hope it wasn't me) as we are also at the end of our tether, not that that's any excuse. I'm a Xxxxxxx Mags CDO and if you need any help with breaches or applications then you're more than welcome to phone me personally because nobody should be being rude to you, you're all following directions same as us and the courts. I try to remember that you are Xxxxx trust colleagues and friends and you're under lots of pressure and it isn't OMs fault that management can't get things right at all.

Thanks, I think you hit the nail right on the head, we are all just at the end of our tether!

It doesn't give people the right to be rude though, we really should all be saving that for higher management!!!

Awful to hear that people feel so low altho I'm very lucky n never have any problems with Xxxxxxxx or Xxxxxxx court staff - they're ace x

Thanks, if all applications were for orders a long way along, that would be one thing. However, a blanket ban on revocations is outrageous and needs to be challenged, if any senior management can be found willing to support their field colleagues. Not likely though.

I think in fairness, the difficulty in Xxxxxxxx and obviously I'm not sure about other areas but I'd be interested to find out, is that our breach courts (2 each week with around 25 available slots in each) currently are 50-60% applications. Almost all of those applications are to extend the 12 month period in which someone should complete UPW, which the courts are arguing doesn't need to happen, a CO doesn't die til the hours are done so why are we clogging up available slots with those apps when they were never seemed necessary pre split, and then applications for people who have simply done their requirements within the allotted time (ie they've done 100 hours UPW in 5 months) which also would never have come back to court pre split.

CRC are being told to make the applications, so it means time taken to write reports, NPS court staff like me are checking them and signing them and listing them and making the applications which takes a lot of time, and then court legal advisers have been told to refuse them because they just aren't necessary. It's causing really bad feeling because sometimes I think OMs think we aren't putting forward a good argument in court but in reality, once the legal adviser sees the information, court officers barely get to say anything from the report before they get refused. Senior management from the CRC have been to court and have spoken to managers there but as someone in the middle it's hard to figure out what was said because they're both still ploughing ahead with their own decisions leaving NPS piggy in the middle.

Partly it is an unfortunate side effect of conflicting targets and changes to practice on both sides. Also compounded by changes to court practice. Before we could adapt to the needs of the Court and Probation would adjust accordingly and all staff would be pulling together. I guess it is easier to grump at your old colleagues than get targets changed.

Myself and several CRC colleagues were transferred to the new TTG teams and now work from inside a Prison. A prison officer said he felt sorry for us as we had been demoted, asked why he thought that, apparently a NPS PO had told him that was the case and that NPS had retained the best staff. Also when we ring around re offenders that are now in Prison the number of times we are told we aren't qualified to deal with NPS offenders. The mind boggles tbh, we were one united front not long ago and had little say in where we ended up in the split yet lots seem to have forgotten when we all had each others backs. A very sad affair x

It is a very sad affair. It's also sad when our colleagues and good friends from CRC have been moved out of offices and told they cannot come in as they are not NPS. For gods sake it's all pathetic xx

If I heard any NPS staff make such outrageous comments about CRC colleagues  - as you well know - they'd get both barrels... I'm hoping the delightful prison officer was just meddling!

You would tell them in no uncertain manner I am sure, as would Xxxxxx, you are sadly in the minority it would seem these days. As for the Prison Officer he was stating what his wife had told him and was surprised and apologetic when he found out the truth. The amount of times we are spoken to in a not so pleasant manner is now becoming the norm. Several trainee PO's telling our qualified with many years under their belts that they don't know enough or aren't experienced enough to deal with their offenders. I have no idea where they are getting their superiority complex from xx

I'm truly astounded... & bloody furious. Staff - like yourself with a few yrs in - will have forgotten more than the trainees have learned - cheeky sods...do you mean his wife was NPS? She needs to be reminded mischievous gossip & meddling is wholly inappropriate from an alleged professional. Just sorry for the trouble from a few x

Yeah his wife is NPS PO, sad really. As for the trainees I still laugh when they want to revoke an SSO, er no you activate it, or tell me a licence has ended because our involvement has, er no licence has an expiry date we have no control over. But hey what do I know lol. I just laugh to myself tbh, it's the best way xx

My god it's disgraceful. Some of the best PO are with the CRC go no further than the staff at Xxxxxxx. And if I heard a trainee telling staff they don't know enough they would get my foot up their arse xxx

Sad times xx

I'm NPS and I wouldn't be too happy to hear people talk about CRC staff that way. We shouldn't be split like this in attitude, even though we're physically different now.

Guest Blog 31

Courts

There have been many past posts about the impact of TR changes upon the probation court role and the production of court reports. A colleague PO told me this week about her court team manager informing the team that their purpose was “purely to assist the court with its sentencing exercise nothing more”. This was in response to a discussion at their team meeting following staff raising concerns about criticism from the LDUs about the assessments made in reports prepared by court officers. They were told that it is up to the officer who gets allocated the case in the LDU to get the information they need, not court officers to provide this.

This team was also told that their priority is to deliver 90% of reports as oral reports with a time allocation of 90 minutes (interview, delivery in court plus completion of the CAT and RSR). A colleague PSO told me “we are now working like battery hens churning out report after report”.

The impact of this is being felt in LDU teams, both NPS and CRC and it is not without a significant financial cost to each ‘business’. NPS colleagues can no longer rely upon information from court colleagues’ assessment to complete Initial Supervision Plans and have to gather even basic information for assessments that previously would have been completed by CDOs. This results in either poor quality assessments to meet the ISP deadline, or extra pressure and time constraints on case managers to get the information for a good assessment and risk missing ISP targets. It could even mean duplication of work as OASys will need reviewing again when you do eventually get information which would have been routine in a good PSR. 

If you think this doesn’t matter, I can assure you that a colleague interviewed for an SFO investigation very recently told me the focus was upon her OASys assessment. It appears to me that we are being forced to work to new lower standards but will be measured, should something go wrong, on the previous higher standards.

The CRC team has the same issues of course but they have another dimension too. They have concerns about sentencing not being targeted to suit their business model. I understand representations have already been made to the court managers regarding proposals given in reports. A business model has been constructed to show how ORA sentences should be as the CRC now operates in the world of income minus costs, to survive. It appears that the CDOs have their part to play in the viability of the CRC.

There are too many unintended consequences of TR to measure but, my concern is that all of our jobs, CRC and NPS, are inextricably linked to the court process and it was always thus. What seems to be happening is a change in focus from a cohesive system flowing from the courts to a system of probation court staff being instructed to deliver piecemeal work disconnected from practice.

You will note I have not mentioned the client/service user/offender. That is because in this process they are now just the raw material of TR….. aren’t they?

A PO

Trouble in Court

I suspect it's not just in London that TR has created chaos in courts, with yet more to come as the Offender Rehabilitation Act comes into force. Because the issues are likely to be common throughout England and Wales, practitioners and general readers might be interested in the latest communication from Greater London Napo chair Pat Waterman and in particular the section dealing with courts:-

Following a brief discussion at the monthly meeting with Senior Management on 13th January 2015 we were invited to prepare a paper outlining our concerns. In the week preceding this meeting it was brought to our attention that an individual was being asked to write directly to a judge to explain why her report had not been submitted the requisite two days in advance of the hearing date. We took the view that this was not an appropriate request and that the issue should be dealt with through the normal management channels.

Senior Management intervened and the particular issue was resolved. But it subsequently came to our attention that the possibility and/or threat of a report author being personally summonsed to court to explain themselves was prevalent in a number of Crown Courts in the London area.

Whereas we understand the need for reports to be submitted in a timely manner, and the responsibilities of an individual officer, we are of the view that such threats are unhelpful and an unnecessary cause of stress. Poor performance can be dealt with through the normal management processes but the courts need to be made aware of the pressures our members are working under. The late submission may be as a consequence of staff shortages, inadequate facilities for interviewing or administrative error. These need to be taken into account before an individual is summonsed to account for themselves in a public arena.

We subsequently discovered that there is a wide variety in practice across the courts in London and became quite concerned about this especially as we started to discover that courts were being ranked and staff being told to improve without seemingly any regard to resource issues.

To prepare this paper an email was sent to all members asking the following questions:

• Are the resources at your court sufficient for the tasks you are now being asked to do? If not then please elaborate. Take into consideration facilities such as interview space as well as staffing.

• Are there clear role boundaries between PO tasks, PSO tasks and Administrator tasks? Describe what is required of each grade of staff at your court as we have reason to think that there are disparities in practice across London Courts. In your opinion to what extent do you think that the practices being adopted are being done for reasons of expediency?

• What Training/briefing has been provided, or have you participated in, to deliver the new provision of the Rehabilitation Activity Requirements (RAR) under the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014 which will provide for supervision of those serving sentences of less than 12 months. This is due to come into effect on 1st February.

Here are some of the responses:

Receptionist was removed last year so admin team now have to cover that duty, as well as own work. 

Reception shared with SOTU so court staff covers their reception tasks as well by virtue of the co-location.

One of our three Case Administrators is on long term sick leave so admin staff, including the borough senior CA, have been coming in on Saturdays to try to deal with the backlog of work.

One of our four PSO’s is on long term sick leave. An agreement was made with the local SPO that as a result of staff shortages oral reports could not be done

BASS referrals are simply not being done due to staff sickness.

In a busy court team in central London there are 2.5 PO vacancies of a complement of 4.5.

Lack of interview space at court due to increased demand for fast-delivery on the day reports prepared at court.

Lack of access to CPS papers is a real problem and continues to be so. Electronic working has meant CPS are more likely to access the info they need to give facts to the court in hearings, but they then cannot pass this on to us like they could paper copies. It must be requested using the formal procedure which can take some time.

Since RSR and CAS were brought in we have gone down from a 3 FDR maximum per day to 2 maximum per day.

Access to Delius and OASys records can still be an issue post-split. We are often asked to check people's compliance on current or recent orders, and need access to full Delius and OASys records to make sure we give an accurate picture.

As a PO I cover our dedicated domestic violence court, and at times cannot access PSRs prepared for the hearing - once an assessment and report is completed and locked by an NPS PO in OASys, it sometimes reverts to the control of the CRC. This then means NPS court staff cannot access the assessment and print off the report. A request for access takes time to process

Trying to get information from either the CRC or the CPS adds to the stress of court work especially when report writers are now working to tighter deadlines and under more pressure.

Our resources are utterly inadequate. Delius is constantly changing for the worse particularly in relation to CAT/RSR tasks.

Additional CAT/RSR tasks take a minimum of twenty five minutes and usually much longer. No workload account has been taken of this.

I am concerned about what weightings will be given to my work given the extra tasks and the problems we are experiencing.

The demands now being placed onto all the administrative staff are overwhelming.

Agency admin staff can often be absent which in turn piles more pressure on everyone.

Administrators in an OMU team are being asked to assist with overspill of work from the Court team. This in turn puts pressure on the OM teams

The Court office, where the administrators are based, is busy with people knocking on the office door for appointment queries etc which makes it difficult to concentrate

PSR requests that are now filtered through to the admin staff in the OMU, and then onto the designated PO to write, are being processed in the court without the correct information. This causes further work for those in OM teams. 

Greater clarity is required as to suitability for Oral report and what an Oral report actually is.

PSOs in court are expected to offer information/advice on the spot that leads to sentencing and then try to log this on DELIUS as an Oral report - now sometimes needing RSR and CAS too. Again this is an issue when short-staffed and one main reason why Oral Report completions may have fallen.

Role boundaries seem to be going all over the place. With regards to reports there is some confusion over what are PO/PSO/CA roles particularly in relation to the ever proliferating paperwork involved in report preparation. Practice varies between courts.

We are having a local one-hour briefing on ORA. There are two on offer in the week leading up to the 1st February. Those who cannot attend will be given a two page handout.

A one page handout has been provided about RAR

Our court team had a "briefing" given by the SPO. Staff were given a 96 page booklet to read, with no working time set aside to do so, but even in a glance at the briefing a number of errors were noted.

SPO stated that "there has been no guidance from the centre" and court lead ACOs and SPOs have been organising meetings on their own initiative to try to come up with processes and guidance for staff.

The briefing generated more questions than answers.

RAR is very unclear as to how it will work in practice. The main concern is the staffing implications and this is another area of uncertainty. The briefing and manual made no mention of RSR/CAS, but it appears that any one with a sentence of over 1 day needs to be allocated to CRC or NPS and potentially with reporting instructions.

We were told there will be "train the trainer" training sometime in February, and SPOCs in each borough will then train staff. SPOCs have not yet been identified. This training is obviously after the proposed start date for “Through the Gate”.

Lawyers, Court Clerks and Benches also appear to be in the dark about imminent changes and may be looking to the probation staff in court for answers which we are not equipped to give. Some seemed to think that the changes were not in fact coming into play on 1st Feb, and none have been briefed.

Serco staff working in the cells were not aware of the changes and possible impact on them at all - this is concerning as they will be pivotal in distributing licences to those released on the same day, and we will need more access to prisoners in the custody suite post-sentence to do RSR/CAS assessments or give reporting instructions, potentially late in the day.

It is unlikely that custody staff will be willing to wait in order for us to interview in the afternoon. 

There is also an issue re interviewing space where it is also used by solicitors/drug teams/mental health teams.

There is regularly a queue for interview space.

Conclusions

The responses speak for themselves and confirm what we suspected.

The splitting of the Probation Service into two separate organisations put pressure on our members in courts who were tasked with assessing risk and ensuring that cases were allocated correctly. Inadequate resources were provided for these additional tasks and this has resulted in additional work for our members. In some cases the stress involved has had an adverse effect on members’ health. Many courts report staff shortages and lack of resources to do the tasks that they are being asked.

We ask that management recognise this and, while seeking solutions to ameliorate the problem of lack of resources, pay due regard to the pressures that our members are working under. Threats are unhelpful in this situation as may be seeking to compare one court with another.

There is a need for clarity with regard to role boundaries. Too often it seems as if tasks are being completed on the basis of which staff are available rather than which staff are appropriate. Such practices cannot be allowed to continue.

As members at court are being asked to do more tasks, concerns were also raised about the facilities available to enable them to do so. It would appear that not all courts have enough space to enable members to conduct interviews safely and appropriately.

Preparation for the changes due to be implemented on 1st February have been woefully inadequate. Our members are greatly concerned and worried about being placed in invidious positions in open court. Such matters need to be addressed as a matter of urgency by Senior Management.

We are aware that some of the problems are not of the making of the Senior Management Team of the NPS in London. Nevertheless, local management must take responsibility for local implementation and for the welfare of staff.

We would be willing to meet with local management to discuss how, within the national strictures and instructions, court work practices can be developed to ensure the welfare and well being of our members.

Pat Waterman
Branch Chair
Greater London Branch NAPO

Finally, I've also become aware of this request from the Guardian through Napo HQ:-  
  
28^th January 2015 
Dear Colleague 
  
Guardian feature on Probation staff morale – Urgent request for members to take part 
  
We have been contacted by a journalist, Tamsin Rutter, who works for the Guardian Public Leaders Network -http://www.theguardian.com/public-leaders-network - and who is planning a feature about TR and the impact it is having on probation staff. 
  
She would like to talk to Napo members about the impact on staff such as morale, workloads and other personal testimonies and is happy for this to be on an anonymous basis and in confidence. 
  
If you or any members of your branch would be willing to talk to Tamsin could you let me know by Wednesday 4 February and I will either pass the contact details on to her or give the member her details so they can contact her direct (whichever is preferred). It would be useful to know if the member is in a CRC or the NPS and which area they are from, just so we can make sure she is speaking to a mixture of people. 
  
Email me on tbassett@napo.org.uk or contact Kath Falcon kfalcon@napo.org.uk – tel. 020 7362 9981.

Best wishes,

Tania Bassett

TR Week Seven A

I am in a nice simmer of fury tonight and could provide more unintended consequences ...how about the delius entry that couldn't be accessed to check the offender arriving at probation from outside area for whom a warrant was outstanding.... high risk of course...and who sat in the waiting room with vulnerable woman with her child in tow...and therefore breached his SOPO on probation premises.....or the offender who gives the court an address where he is prohibited from living at as his child resides there on CP Plan but he is not allowed there with the child and CDO for some still unfathomable reason could not access her IT...or the probation officer who has been assured by the manager no extra work will be given and then gets 2 more psrs because of staff sickness and then has a full meltdown and is signed off straight away for 4 weeks.....

******
I share everyone's ire at the idiot Grayling. But I think in the event of a tragedy the audit trail leads back to the old trusts senior management teams. They knew full well what this idea would bring and opted for the Nuremberg defence. Grayling is (I believe) ignorant, whereas our leadership know the complexity of what we do. Yet they stayed supine and only a very few gingerly raised some concerns. Imagine what would have happened if all SMG's just said 'No'. Call me an idealist if you like but there you go.

*****
There were lots of things they could have done. I still can't quite compute the shocking reality of hearing my colleague tell me over the phone that they cannot access 'the system'. They don't know who is walking through the door. This is MADNESS. It feels strange that Management have allowed this to happen so easily. They have been bullied by this discriminatory Govt without any co-ordinated effort to resist it. It's called wilful blindness and others suffer as a result.

******
Aren't the new RSR and CAS forms completely pointless & a waste of valuable time. Saying the same thing that's in the OASys already?

*****
More demoralising of the experienced CRC staff, today at our office 2 newly qualified officers got contracts with NPS, one has had 2 previous interviews and didn't get through and the other has been on the trainee course twice. We didn't even know that there was any vacancies, so much for the "most experienced staff going to NPS", they now have newly qualified staff that have never held a high risk case load. Its absolutely disgusting how CRC staff are continuing to be made to feel.

*****
Totally agree, breaches rejected by NPS staff who then refuse to discuss because you are CRC staff. Made to feel like second class Probation Officers who are no longer capable of doing their job!

*****
Refusing to discuss a rejected breach is taking even this insanity a step too far. Raise it as an issue. As an NPS court officer I would be furious If I worked with that kind of attitude around me and would not tolerate it.

******
Breaches done by CRC and rejected by NPS which then leads to further delay increases risk. Recent case were DV client was breached on grounds that he failed to attend his appointment. Enforcement action was timely. Order was returned to court but, because a home visit was not conducted, a decision was taken to withdraw the breach a few days before his Court appearance. A home visit was conducted where he lived alone in his flat. There was no response. A further appointment was offered and when he failed to attend, a fresh set of breach papers prepared and sent into court. 

By now there has been a delay of several weeks before he last attended the office. Before the next court hearing the offender stabbed his partner and charged with section 18 wounding. This could well have been an SFO case. Guess who would have been conveniently blamed, not the f**king senior managers who are implementing this pile of shit system. Not the breach officers in court, who is being instructed to carry out their work by the f**king manager. The blame was squarely put on the CRC PO. Why, because one f**king home visit was not done. 

We could have protected this victim if the breach was allowed to continue, given that his index offence was DV. Maybe his court appearance at breach court could have shaken him up and he realises that he needs to get his act together. Maybe he might not have attended court at all in which case a warrant would have been issued and the police would have been looking for him. Is anyone going to tell the victim that maybe if we prosecuted him at the first point this could have been avoided. No. The fact is that our actions failed this woman and as a consequence she was subject to a serious assault which almost cost her life. How can management sleep knowing that TR is increasing risk? They can because they don’t give a shit about you or me. They don’t give a shit about the victims. The only thing they care about is their own sense of power and covering their own backs. That’s the f**king reality of what we have to work in. 

I don’t apologies one single bit if my language is offensive and I have caused offence. I am offended by TR and offended by the way the procedures are failing victims. 

And if you asking why I'm anonymous, then fucking guess why... in case I get bullied for exposing the dangerous practices which are occurring in the name of TR. 

******
I would not have rejected your breach and have never in long service come across or used such a feeble excuse for not proceeding with a wholly appropriate course of action in timely manner with view to enforcing order of the court and protecting known victim. I agree with everything your have said, I empathise with your anger and frustration that your work has been obstructed by nonsensical decision making leading to as you rightly say, potentially avoidable harm...

******
Yesterday, from just one CRC PO in one office in England - a DV case rang me from another county. Told me he'd been arrested & charged last week with a new s.37, bailed to court, can't go home. Living in a caravan in a layby. Nowt forthcoming from our police intel because they can't talk to me without a 5 page written application from me with specific questions. I used to get emails or phone calls on the day if one of my cases was in the cells. 

And another case awol after prison release - couldn't get police intel as to whether she was in cells anywhere or involved in any new offences because I'd been unable to correctly answer a question in the 5 page application. I know nothing about her as there's no case file (yet) and no access to IT records because they're locked to NPS. I used to ring the intel unit direct, have a good chat and both sides had a mutual understanding. TR is Bloody dangerous and bloody stupid.

******
I have seen elsewhere that the police have probation on their business risk register - that is appalling! It has taken years to develop the relationship and it could be lost in the blink of an eye.

******
I work in the IOM and get some very probing questions by the Inspector at the Police station. I've been totally honest about the situation and he is not too impressed at what is going on, to the extent that he has raised it with the P&CC at a recent meeting.

The officers I work with are now shouldering a greater % of the workload, this simply due to me being allocated non IOM cases which whilst not as resource intensive, still need ISP's, still need apt, still need referrals. Welfare visits are now a thing of the past and I feel very much out of the loop, something picked up on by both my IOM colleagues and offenders. Anyone who has worked or has knowledge of the IOM cases know that if these offenders go off the rails, it's unlikely that it will be one victim that suffers but many.

Still, as long as it's not Grayling or his cronies and PbR is on the back burner, who cares about the proles?

*****
Our crc team is outrageously understaffed and overwhelmed by cases - no amount of money would justify report writing 'on the side'. How can it have become so wrong so quickly? It takes a very special fuckwit to do so much damage in such a short timescale.

*****
NAPO in Gloucestershire sent an email this week to a senior NPS manager to highlight that things in NPS are past breaking point and requesting they address the situation immediately. Not sure what they can do, apart from looking to recruit temp staff. Which will be another kick in the teeth of CRC sifted colleagues!!!

MoJ - stop spouting the bullshit. You will be left to carry the can when someone is killed as a result of this mess, whilst Grayling will be off destroying another service and maintaining that he left everything just peachy and safe. Have the courage of your convictions and whistle blow.

*****
No-one in our office will help NPS out. More because they chose CRC to get out of NPS - yes I know its strange but not all POs in CRC were shafted there but that's not to say they'll help NPS out. I also firmly believe some POs deliberately shafted to CRC so that they would have some POs with lots of experience and be a saleable asset to bidders. The whole thing stinks.

*****
Bureaucracy in prisons is undermining the whole system, Offender Supervisors are spending their days chained to their computers completing OASys and variety of reports and risk assessments. The result is prisoners are not being seen, stresses are building and violence is on the rise. Many in prison have mental health issues and many have been damaged via their contact with the state or damaged from within the home. They need to be seen, they need to talk about their problems but this is the last thing on the minds of overstretched prison staff. 

I fear for the well-being of staff and clients in what is becoming a long hot summer in the prison estate. Prison managers have no idea how the impact of a fragmented Probation Service will affect them; blindly they follow the demands imposed on them by the fools in Westminster and NOMS. They are managerial Zombies similar to our very own senior management, "forgive them for they know not what they do".

*****
The whole operating model for TR is based on ignorance, erroneous assumptions and a lack of informed and consequential thinking. This also applies to Grayling's prison policy. It is a time-bomb that is going to go off any time. A tragedy is inevitable and prisoners are already dying. How much evidence is enough?

Seems Unreasonable to Me!

I heard about this case from a passing joking reference on the radio today. 'Burgler begs Judge to send him to prison because his probation appointments were too early in the morning.' It's the sort of story that's a gift during a slow news day, or indeed the well-catalogued 'silly season'. All the main papers seem to have covered it, no doubt as a result of a stroke of luck by a 'stringer' at Coventry Crown Court.


It would appear that 'lazy' and 'shameless' Kierran Batchelor had given up on his Community Order imposed for two domestic burglaries and stopped reporting. He is said to have turned down the Judges offer of a second chance, preferring instead to go to prison 'as a way of catching up on his sleep.' A cut-and-dried case of a feckless youth sticking two fingers up to the system it would seem - but hang on a minute, this guy was working and his shift pattern was 10pm to 6am. Despite this he was given 10am probation appointments. This seems entirely unreasonable to me and in my opinion he should have been reporting late afternoon instead. 


Obviously I don't know the full details, but on the limited information gleaned from the newspaper reports, it's the supervising officer who should be being pilloried, not the client. In my humble opinion a young man has needlessly gone to prison, not as a result of any new offences, but because of piss-poor practice. In all honesty a case like this takes my breath away. I can only contemplate as to the content of the Breach Report. What on earth was the Barrister doing to earn his or her money? Why didn't the Judge use some initiative and demand to speak to the Probation Court Duty Officer? Had I been the said CDO, there is no way I would have allowed this case to proceed without intervening. I thought this is what we got paid for, to be pro-active in court. 


One cannot but feel we're all in a handcart to hell.    

Invisible Probation

It's always interesting to see what other people are blogging about and I notice that recently the Justice of the Peace blog picked up on a case going through York Magistrates Court and the fact that the Bench refused to impose reporting restrictions. I don't find that at all surprising in a shoplifting case, but I do find it astonishing that the probation service is not mentioned once in three newspaper reports by the York Press.

Actually there are a number of unusual aspects to this story as in my experience the local paper gave up routinely attending court some time ago. Obviously they turn up if they get wind of a notorious case or a tip off about a strange or unusual angle, but in this instance it appears that the middle-aged defendant deliberately approached the local press. It seems that such was her desperation and possibly vulnerable emotional state on being released from prison homeless that she poured her heart out to a local journalist 'in a cry for help.' 

"The 51-year-old, who was jailed after pleading with a policeman to arrest her for shoplifting, claimed she had no choice but to steal because it could be up to six weeks before she received any benefits after coming out. “I wouldn’t survive otherwise,” she said. “I know that admitting this to The Press means I am at risk of being arrested and jailed yet again, but I have nothing to lose. I have been to jail perhaps 25 to 35 times. I hate it there, it is absolutely vile, and it’s costing the taxpayer almost £1,000 a week to keep me there, but sometimes when it’s freezing, it’s better than on the streets."

Apparently during the course of her time in prison the woman had been in contact with a local parish priest begging for help and the congregation were in the process of assisting. This, together with the newspaper article and some competent mitigation, seems to have led the court to decide on a six week deferment. When she duly appeared for sentencing, she was given a Conditional Discharge  and sent on her way.

What I find astonishing in all this is the complete absence of any mention of the Probation Service. All courts have access to probation Court Duty Officers and having served as a CDO in recent time, I can say that I could not imagine not being involved in a case like this at some stage. I would have made it my business to start enquiries in a pro-active way and if it had not come to my attention, the usher, solicitor or reporter would all have been keen to make me aware, even before the case was called. It would be blindingly obvious to everyone that this woman had a whole host of problems and needed some help.  
  
Now I know it's unwise to report on any case without having access to all the information and it's just possible that the probation service was involved, but even if they were, sadly I'm beginning to feel they were of little use. I can almost hear someone saying 'there is nothing we can do; we're not a welfare agency; she's low risk of harm; she's not suitable for a programme; etc etc. It makes me very depressed about the direction in which we are going as here we have a woman in her 50's, homeless, probably with some mental health issues and regularly going to prison for shop thefts. How come this is not part of the remit of the modern Probation Service? She needs to be on Probation supervision and in my court I think she would have been, whatever the mealy-mouthed management guidelines had to say about it.

Full Circle

I suspect I'm probably no different to most bloggers in that from time to time I'm curious to see how easy it is to locate my own blog from a 'google' search. I have no idea how it works, but imagine my surprise when recently, despite frantic efforts, I couldn't locate it at all. However, I did come across a lot of stuff that had passed me by on other peoples blogs, including this gem from the Bolton News of Jaunuary 18th and identified by the Justice of the Peace blog.

I had to read it twice to check that it wasn't a sort of April Fool spoof, but no it seems that 

"A special helpdesk has been set up at Bolton Magistrates Court to help criminals get back on the straight and narrow." The scheme is aimed at low-level offenders who sometimes “slip through the net” and then become involved in more serious crime. Legal adviser David Lawrence, who is spearheading the initiative, said: “When defendants are dealt with for sentence, other issues might come to light that the magistrates are not able to deal with. They might have problems with alcohol, drugs, housing or debt. The idea behind it is if we can try to get people some help, they might not become involved in criminal activity.”

This is precisely how the Probation Service began over 100 years ago with the motivated middle classes in courts as Police Court Missionaries. The wheel has indeed turned a full 360 degrees and we are back where we started with volunteers doing the work of probation officers. What is remarkable about this story is that there is no mention of probation at all. It's as if we didn't exist and seems to be an initiative by Her Majesty's Court Service. I don't think there could be a better illustration of the journey this profession has been on from motivated amateur, through qualified prefessionalism, enlightened innovation, standardisation, managerialism, nationalisation, complete bureaucratisation and ultimately to dysfunctionality and irrelevance it would seem.

Up until three years ago when I was doing my stint as a Court Duty Officer, giving the sort of help and advice discussed in this article was just part and parcel of what I thought the job was about. The ushers knew where to find me and steered likely persons in my direction if I hadn't already noticed them. I know that resources are limited and PO's have been replaced with PSO's in court, but traditionally there was always a place for volunteers in the Probation Service. Unfortunately they were unceremoniously booted out by my management a few years back for reasons that have always remained unclear to me. Here we have a clear example that there's still a useful job to be done, but seemingly in spite of the Probation Service, not as part of it. What a sad state of affairs indeed.

Is This Right?

A worrying conversation overheard the other day has prompted me to bring the subject up here. A young man was complaining vociferously about having to appear in court in order to answer a charge of failing to keep a DIP appointment. He was basically saying that he didn't see why he had to keep any appointment because he didn't have a drug problem. This reminded me of similar instances that used to crop up when I was a Court Duty Officer a couple of years ago.

The Drug Intervention Programme has been running in my area for some time with people arrested on suspicion of having committed 'trigger offences' such as shoplifting being routinely tested for opiates at the police station. It is an offence to refuse the mouth swab test in the first place and if found to be positive for opiates, the person is given an appointment with a DIP worker, usually a day or two hence. This is a mandatory appointment and failure to attend is a criminal offence punishable by up to 3 months imprisonment. This is just one example of a whole host of new offences that were created by the last Labour government. 

Although the idea is laudable enough in trying to ensure that people with a drug addiction and who are committing acquisitive crimes in order to fund their habit are put into treatment as soon as possible, but there are a couple of problems with the operation of the scheme. The first is that the test is not very sophisticated and is quite likely to indicate positive for a wide range of painkillers taken legitimately for headache, 'flu or toothache. The second and more worrying in my view is when having tested positive, the police decide for what ever reason not to proceed with the original charges, but the DIP appointment is left in place.

I vividly recall listening to instances of people in just such a situation when they were surprised to find themselves in court having failed to keep the DIP appointment, but were facing no other charges. The offence is treated seriously by the courts and I've even been asked to conduct an interview for a Fast Delivery Report. But surely it cannot be right to end up in a situation where the so-called war on drugs is leading to the prosecution of some people who may not be drug  users at all or indeed even in possession of illegal drugs? As far as I know it is not yet an offence to be found under the influence of drugs.

Probation and the Car

When I joined the Probation Service in 1985 it was basically a requirement of the job to be able to drive and have a car. I think I am right in saying that without a car you would not have been appointed. I was certainly not aware of anyone who could not drive and it was generally accepted that prison visits, home visits and meeting attendances could not be undertaken without a car. This was recognised by employers in the form of the so-called Essential Car User allowance that was paid monthly and depended on engine capacity. Of course this was in addition to the amount paid per mile travelled on business. 

Probation officers who have been around awhile will remember how the car was often extremely useful in ferrying clients about in all sorts of circumstances and not infrequently with their belongings as well. This ability was invariably regarded positively by clients and in my experience often afforded the opportunity for some really in-depth conversations that would either have been more difficult or not as fruitful if attempted in the office. Over the years some of the most valuable and revelatory conversations have occurred in this way and during journeys in the car. Access to a car also meant you were able to respond to a crisis, take advantage of new information and you had a safe haven or bit of neutral space available in difficult situations.

I well remember calling on one client some years ago to conduct a PSR interview specifically for the purpose of getting a feel for his home circumstances. He had a learning disability and I knew he lived at home with his parents and brother and sister. On arriving at the house I was met by the larger-than-life mother who duly bellowed for her son, whilst serving up tea for her husband in the living room. Whilst waiting for him to appear, she proceeded to bellow at her husband who  merely responded by turning up the volume on the TV. An interview was clearly going to be impossible and I suggested we went out to the car. I remember being stunned by the sheer chaos in the young mans home and my enquiry as to if it was always like that was met with a bemused grin. It seems he coped by simply 'switching off' and absented himself for long periods. I fully understood why.

Of course management eventually got around to taking our car allowance away on economy grounds and I remember our union only managed a compensation payment of a few hundred pounds. In more recent years I've noticed that other branches have managed to increase this to several thousand pounds. In essence management increasingly seem to be of the view that a car is not now necessary, or indeed the ability to drive. I still find it astonishing to accept that, disability issues aside, a colleague using public transport can be as efficient or effective as an officer using a car, but there it is. Of course I have already outlined why I feel video links to jails are inadequate and unlikely to engender a useful working relationship and discussion of highly sensitive issues. Just ask yourself if you would discuss personal stuff in this way? 

But actually in reality it's much worse than that because current standing instructions in my Service now basically forbids the carrying of clients in a private vehicle, unless in exceptional circumstances, I assume for health and safety reasons. Another astonishing example of changes within this job over my working lifetime. From it being a routine and expected part of the role, to being forbidden. I find it so worrying that yet another tool is removed from our armoury in being able to help clients change and basically cope. 

For those possibly unimpressed I will give the following recent example from my time in court as a Court Duty Officer. It was a case of a youngish man with a significant learning disability and granted bail for a serious offence. I'd managed to get him a place at a probation hostel in the big city some 15 miles away by bus or train. But he did not have the capacity to make that journey independently and my manager confirmed that payment for a taxi was not an option. In my professional judgement the right and obvious thing to do was drive him there myself and this is what I did. As a bonus the journey time of some forty minutes gave me the opportunity to really get to know the guy and the many problems life threw at him by virtue of his disability. Isn't this exactly what the job is supposed to be all about?  

   

     

Court Duty

Lets be honest, Court Duty is not every probation officers idea of a productive use of time and in my experience most male colleagues seem to have an aversion to wearing a tie in any event. Personally, having gone through university with a beard and looking scruffy, I really enjoyed the chance to smarten up when I got my first job as a sessional PO. I've worn a tie to work ever since, but this is even less the norm nowadays. It has meant that I have always been ready to attend court in an emergency or in response to a phone call that one of my regulars was about to appear. The Magistrates Court is only a brisk five minute walk away and many a time I've been able to do a quick 'standown' verbal report on a persons progress, or lack of, thus saving much time and trouble all round. 

In the early days, all members of the team had to take it in turn to standby for Magistrates Court duty one day a week if the dedicated officer was not available for any reason. This happened fairly frequently as he was not a well man and of course the disruption to your carefully planned day was considerable. As it happens our office used to be located immediately beneath the County Court and in the days when we also wore the dual hat of Divorce Court Welfare Officers, the Judge would often tell someone to ring down and 'send a probation officer up'. Guess who that normally was given that apart from the Senior, I was normally the only male wearing a tie. Incidentally, this was only just after the time that it was compulsory for female colleagues to wear a hat in court and the 'office hat' was still very much present, hung up in the general office. 

Eventually this ad-hoc method of staffing the court gave way to a dedicated team and it wasn't for another 17 years before I found myself back on a regular basis in court. In essence the ability to be a good Court Duty Officer in my view is being able to think ahead, anticipate what is likely to happen and be prepared for it. Having good contacts with the solicitors helps enormously, but as anyone knows who is involved with magistrates courts, the most important person without a shadow of doubt is the usher. As many a solicitor has found out to their cost, you irritate or annoy the usher at your peril. They are the key person who keeps business flowing. They decide the batting order and are incredibly knowledgeable about everything from where a missing solicitor might be, to roughly how long each case will take. Our court has some of the best in the business and I feel so sorry for them that sadly it's one destined for closure.

Of course good information is only part of the job of a CDO. The other key part is being able to address the Bench completely authoritatively, invariably at a moments notice. Often from the minimum of notes you have to try and help convince them of the virtue of a particular course of action, whether it be for a standown, a fast delivery report or adjournment for a full PSR. You also have to be following proceedings closely in order to have the confidence to butt in at an appropriate moment either with information, a request for clarification or a helpful suggestion. Obviously this only really comes with a degree of experience and it can be a little scary when it's the District Judge sitting rather than a lay bench. I learnt the hard way that it really isn't a good idea to try and dissuade such a person from a particular course of action when they had made up their mind, but he smiled as he politely put me right.  

I didn't think I'd enjoy my time as a full time CDO as it felt like being put out to grass after my period off with stress, but by the time management decided the job was for PSO's only, I genuinely didn't want to go. I enjoyed the opportunity to be able to step in on difficult cases, like defendants that I could see had a learning disability, emotional problem or mental health issue and ensure that the court were aware and followed suggestions for appropriate disposals or assessment. I saved quite a few people from inappropriate custody or other disposals with an FDR done typically in an hour. I gave hours and hours of advice and counselling to defendants often in quite a state, either in the cells or the tiniest of interview rooms and it reminded me why I chose this line of work in the first place. In short it turned out that court duty is in fact still an important opportunity to practice some good old-fashioned probation work, if the interest and skill is there.  

   

   

A Slow News Day

Whilst still in bed and coming round this morning, I caught the tail end of an item on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme about mothers who are imprisoned and what happens to the children in such cases. I heard someone from the charity PACT, the Prison Advice and Care Trust saying that 'of course the Probation Service used to check up on things like that, but not since the creation of NOMS'. I'm not at all sure what this means because every agency, whether public or voluntary, has a duty of care towards children and probation Court Duty Officers will still routinely ask about children (and pets) when a person receives custody or is remanded for any reason.

However, circumstances sometimes prevent a post-custody interview at court before the person is shipped off to the nearest Local Prison's reception. It is true to say that there never has been a statutory system for investigating if a person who receives custody has any children for whom they are responsible. People are asked at various stages in the process, for instance on reception, but action is only taken by informing Social Services if they disclose information. As reported in the Guardian, PACT have prepared a report calling for 'A simple statutory system to track the whereabouts and welfare of such children.' I'm not at all sure how any statutory system of checking would work, or that it would be simple. I think it would be considerably bureaucratic and expensive for very little possible return beyond the ad-hoc system that operates at the present.

It strikes me as a potential nightmare along the lines of the Criminal Records Bureau and you will recall that the government eventually had to concede the futility of getting everyone to register, no matter what contact they had with children. Any comprehensive system would have to include all prisoners, not just females as some men will no doubt have child care responsibilities. Only the Police, Social Services and NSPCC have investigatory powers in relation to children and in the present spending climate piling yet another duty upon any of these agencies seems most unlikely. I think this has all the hallmarks of a slow news day story.     

Chief Gives Game Away

I don't normally listen to Sunday on Radio 4 but I was alerted to it by a friend. I'm very glad I caught up with the piece on women and prison because I heard the Assistant Chief Executive of Cheshire Probation Trust say a couple of remarkable things. She was singing the praises of an exciting new initiative whereby her Service is providing a 'bespoke tailor-made package of community support measures' as part of a community sentence and specifically aimed at women at risk of receiving custody. In response to a cracking question from the interviewer along the lines of 'isn't that what you do in probation anyway?' she replied that most clients were male and it's a 'sort of one size fits all' approach. 

So there we have it. A Chief actually admitting that the modern probation service is no longer a client-centred service, because we ditched that sort of stuff some time ago, but now we can go public announcing a brand new initiative that's all about 'a bespoke tailor-made service'. Like the interviewer, I thought that's what probation was all about anyway. I don't wish to denigrate in any way the idea of highlighting how custody can be particularly harmful and unnecessary for women, as it most certainly can be. But having been led to believe that my practice was old-fashioned and what I needed to do was embrace change, and now to be told the latest thing is a bespoke service, I find a tad irritating to say the least. 

It was also interesting to hear John Thornhill, Chairman of the Magistrates Association, commenting that 'magistrates often don't get sufficient information prior to sentencing'. I find this alarming, but sadly not that surprising, even though common sense says there should have been a PSR in each case where custody was a possibility. So what's going wrong here? Now it may not be common knowledge, but each Probation Trust has a target to reduce the number of full Standard Delivery Reports on cost saving grounds. All Court Duty staff are instructed to try and get as many FDR's as possible and even when a full SDR is requested, there are huge pressures on PO's to convert them into FDR's. All this is monitored closely - not I hasten to add the quality of any report, just reasons why the PO felt a full report was necessary.

The reason why the Service has had to reduce the number of full reports is because since the introduction of OASys the time it takes to prepare a report has increased by at least two hours. Of course it might well be that Mr Thornhill is making reference to a reduction in the quality of PSR's due to them being OASys generated and I have commented on this at some length previously. 



         

To Breach or not to Breach?

As always I like to try and put things into an historical context. In the days when a Probation Order was not a punishment but an alternative to a sentence and the defendant had to give consent, breaching was not that common at all. But then you have to appreciate that at that time each probation officer pretty well had complete discretion in deciding the frequency of reporting and home visits were much more common than nowadays. A Probation Order was viewed as an opportunity for an individual to prove that they could sort their life out with the assistance, support and guidance of a probation officer and in the process avoid offending. In practice what this meant was that clients who had a settled home, found employment and were emotionally stable did not need to report often and in fact quite a few were returned to court for early discharge. We had to prosecute our own breaches and it was rare for the client not to plead guilty and typically were not legally represented. Possibly surprising to many nowadays, breach was seen by all as a positive process. A gentle reminder that invariably resulted in either NFA (no further action) or a £10 fine.  

Looking back now, whilst the flexibility in reporting requirements in the 70's and 80's allowed time for the chronic cases, (many of whom would visit the office almost daily) and the high risk cases, it helped sow the seeds of our downfall when politicians started getting involved and criminal justice policy became just another political football. I think up to that time there was cross-party agreement that criminal justice policy was best left to the professionals. It seems incredible now, but the Home Office in those days was quite liberal and funded some excellent research and experimental practice. But things began to change and the punitive and prescriptive treatment of probation began. For some reason the policy makers chose to ignore the ethos and philosophy that hitherto had underpinned our work and thus we were set on the path of probation as punishment and National Standards replaced 'guidance' and best practice manuals. 

Of course within this context the whole issue of breaching became much more common and the natural outcome of reducing the probation officers degree of discretion. On top of this there was the cultural shift within the service away from the old philosophy of 'advise, assist and befriend' to one of punish, monitor and enforce. The service began to positively discourage taking on 'welfare' cases at all and unqualified Probation Services Officers took over supervision of all but the most high risk cases. Of course we still had many chaotic clients on the books, typically addicted to one or other mind-altering substances, but under a punitive punishment regime, failing to report inevitably led to widespread breaching. But here the probation service found itself in a double bind - although breaching demonstrated to our political masters that Court Orders were being rigorously enforced, it also demonstrated that we were somehow failing, not a satisfactory position to be in politically or publicly . 

This realisation, together with an exponential rise in the prison population and a strong 'nudge' from government in the form of a financial inducement, led to the focus shifting a few years ago to that of compliance - the flip side of breaching of course. If a huge amount of effort was put into getting clients to turn up on time, it would be viewed positively all round. So, as a result, we have gone down some very imaginative and creative routes in order to increase compliance rates, (such as text reminders) or at least the appearance of an improvement. I guess readers will know what that's code for. A bit of 'creative' accounting; some adjustment of recording; possibly a bit of flexibility or understanding of a clients current difficult situation; some sympathy even, anything other than just banging-in another breach and hoping to get rid of a difficult case. As a CDO I was particularly encouraged to see some officers, rather than breaching, were daring to take some orders back to court with a suggestion for revocation and re-sentencing when it was becoming clear that the original order was probably too onerous or was proving impractical for one reason or another.  

I think the tide has turned to some degree and the alacrity with which we embraced breaching  in recent years is now subsiding a little. In my view this can only be to the good, firstly because we should be trying to make difficult situations better for clients, not worse and secondly in my experience we are not that good at breaching. I remember how depressed I got when as a CDO I was presented with some very 'iffy' breaches to prosecute. Clients would routinely plead not guilty and although I'm no lawyer, even I could see a trial would be very unwise. I had no compunction in either unilaterally withdrawing breaches or excising whole chunks from prosecution statements in order to encourage a guilty plea and before defence solicitors were given the opportunity of making the Service look very foolish. I don't recall any comeback from management.  As for my breaching policy, I bend over backwards not to - the paperwork is something I can do without - but inevitably with high risk cases some have to go back to court if my usual powers of persuasion fall on deaf ears.  

Probation Recommends Custody!

Yes really - I wouldn't have thought it possible, but I saw it in a PSR recently. It said "he would benefit from a structured environment". Happily the Magistrates thought differently and gave him Unpaid Work instead. It absolutely made my heart sink when I read such a pejorative report - I remember thinking 'surely there must be something positive to say about this person - there must be some cause for hope rather than a complete counsel of despair and a literal institutional washing our hands of him?' As far as I'm concerned that's not what probation is about - surely reports should normally err on the side of recommending alternatives to custody, not the other way round FFS! Probation is about trying to make matters better, not worse. How on earth have things got to this point?

The issue of custody and the attitude of probation officers to incarceration is long and somewhat convoluted. No doubt it began with the legacy of our religious roots, developing later into the radicalism of the 70's. Before I was appointed I was told that radical elements within NAPO, the probation officers union, were seriously thinking about making it impossible for members to suggest custody at all and they wanted members withdrawn from prisons. As a result, before my interview, I was given some heavy advice that if I wanted the job I had to say I was prepared to acknowledge that custody was inevitable in certain circumstances. This has always seemed understandable to me and I have been happy to proceed on that basis ever since. Certain serious offences require deprivation of liberty both for public protection and punishment purposes. But recommending custody is a completely different scenario in my book, and normally completely alien to my social work background*. It is almost always hugely damaging to the individual concerned; is by no means helpful to rehabilitation and will do nothing to reduce the likelihood of re-offending. I believe the evidence is conclusive in this regard, whatever politicians may say.

I think there is growing evidence that current probation practice is now suggesting custody by default. We are producing officers that seem to view offending and offenders in only two dimensional terms, that of risk of harm and public protection, rather than looking at the full person, in the round as it were. They seem much more willing to 'up tariff' people and to 'second guess' court decisions, rather than make strongly-argued cases for realistic alternatives to custody. Concordance rates have always been a factor, but in the past the aim was to try and get courts to come down tariff. However, in the current punitive environment, I suspect there is now a trend for officers to go up tariff, especially as it is now possible to load Community Orders with a plethora of conditions. This in turn is leading to higher breach rates and therefore ultimately short terms of imprisonment.

My sojourn in court as a CDO confirmed this suspicion, especially as it fell to me to have to prosecute the breaches. Time after time in reviewing the file it was obvious that the original order had been far too onerous and successful completion was most unlikely. In the breach reports, supervising officers appeared to lose heart quickly, often arguing for revocation and sometimes whole-heartedly suggesting custody, no doubt as a way of getting some respite from a difficult case. Of course the Criminal Justice Act 2003 tied courts hands in largely removing discretion in dealing with breaches by making it mandatory to make the order even more onerous if it was allowed to continue. No wonder prison numbers are steadily climbing if this scenario is widespread. Sad to say, but it must be a reflection of recent training and what new officers feel their managers and society generally expect from its new 'law enforcement' probation service. 

* I have broken this self-imposed rule once, in very specific circumstances. (to be described at a later date).