Sociology v Criminology?

Another day of well above average viewing figures, 3,194 yesterday and some spirited discussion of what it's like for PQiPs. So, the challenge becomes how to keep some momentum going? Maybe this, another fairly innocuous question:- 

Perhaps the degree required to be a PO should be Sociology, not Criminology?

"Certainly sociology used to be a component of the degree when I qualified, together with principles of social work, law and criminology. I honestly felt well prepared and informed, qualified in 2002, actually attended university two days per week."

*****
"I so very agree with all of the aforementioned, sociology is, or should be, a core component of probation officer training- it used to be, I also qualified in the early 90s and an old hand told me to really get to know the client, to really get to know them! That if I invested in them and got to understand their sense of social investment, or lack of it, I would find trauma. He was right, he was so very right! 

The interface between an individual and “society” is complex depending on social norms. That was why having probation officers from a broad sector of society worked, and because their framework was based on sociology. Hence why the CQSW was a starting point in PO qualification. The basic point of understanding of how an individual interacted with society. That with elements of psychology and criminology over 2 years with a 12mth  probationary period, even after a degree, led us to be deemed professional." 

--oo00oo--

Upon researching the subject, I was directed to some thoughts I penned in the early days of the blog, in fact Tuesday 18 January 2011 :-

Why Did They Do That?

Since starting this blog I've been reminded of the gulf between the right-wing tabloid press and probation and saddened although not hugely surprised by the apparent gulf between probation and the police. There appears to be a chasm of misunderstanding and an entrenched stereotypical view that basically says 'the police catch 'em and probation and the courts get 'em off'. In terms of offenders the thesis seems to go like this 'they know right from wrong; they've had their chance; they need locking up for longer; they need a harsh punishment'. This is coupled with the other part of the thesis that says the soft liberal hand-wringers 'excuse their behaviour; are easily fooled; are soft on crime; live in nice areas and don't get robbed'.

I want to try and tackle these myths. Although I might be clear about what probation does, why it does it and why it's worthwhile, clearly others disagree or are sceptical. I appreciate it is going to take some explaining because it isn't always straight forward, but I think it's worth giving it a try. If the job of a probation officer is about anything, it's about trying to understand why people do things. Why they acted in a particular way. To be honest I don't think there is anything very unusual about this as it's part and parcel of normal human nature. The difference is that as a probation officer the quest for understanding anti-social or criminal behaviour is at the heart of the job and a major component of our ethos.

It is only when you understand the reasons for certain behaviour that the first step can be made in trying to effect change. However understanding is not to be confused with excusing. I have heard it said that probation officers do not accept that offenders need take full responsibility for their actions. This is complete nonsense and the only limited exceptions that I can think of are those involving either a mental illness, learning disability or personality disorder. Normally our work very much involves getting an offender to accept responsibility for their actions and the underlying reasons that contributed towards them.

People always do things for a reason, but they may not always be conscious of why. Whether it's buying product A as opposed to product B. Choosing a career, life partner, how much to drink, what to eat, how to vote, whether to steal, to take drugs, to hit somebody are all examples of decisions. As often or not the explanation will be grounded in reasoning of some sort. It might be as a result of a careful weighing-up of the pro's and cons and it will be fairly self-evident. But on many occasions people do not make seemingly rational decisions. It could be that they acted on a whim, or prejudice, or ignorance, or impulse. Their reasoning might be affected by drugs, alcohol or emotional state. Every ones intellectual capacities are different, as are their life experiences. We've all been exposed to positive and negative role models, had good and bad experiences and all this affects the way decisions are made.

This may well all sound like teaching Granny how to suck eggs, but it lies at the very heart of what we are trying to do and why probation officers are expected to have some knowledge of sociology and psychology, amongst other things. In trying to arrive at an answer to the question 'why did they do that?' I've never found it particularly helpful to think in terms of 'good or bad' but rather try and stay focused on just trying to understand. Of course there are as many unique explanations as there are individual people and acts. This is why I have difficulty with much of the recent reliance on treatment programmes for offenders, as opposed to individual casework. It's one reason why I feel the programme approach is not being as successful as envisaged.

Probation becomes involved with somebody as a result of an action or set of behaviours. They might on the one hand be relatively minor such as theft from a shop or at the other extreme a single life changing event that involves serious injury or death. In each case there will be reasons or an explanation for the behavior, but this is not the same as a motive which is a much more narrow definition. The police are normally concerned to discover the latter, but not so involved with the former which has become one of our areas of expertise. After some years experience I can say that the process is not always either obvious or straight forward, but a good starting point is to ask of course.

In my small town there is a notorious nightclub that over the years has generated quite a bit of work for the police, NHS, local solicitors and probation. Each time I have been involved in writing a PSR for a common assault, ABH, or GBH I have asked 'why did you hit him/her? and the answer has invariably been 'because he/she looked at me/my partner funny'. It doesn't get you very far, but it does demonstrate the disinhibiting effect alcohol has when someone is already a little paranoid through long-term cannabis use or just feeling insecure or jealous in a relationship. None of this is an excuse though for denying responsibility for the behaviour, but it can help everyone, including the court and offender, to try and understand why it happened as a prelude to change.

Is Training Good Enough?

There may be silence from Napo, but interestingly there were 4,309 hits to this blog yesterday as news broke in relation to the damning report on the Damian Bendall case, confirming it to be the 'go to' place in times of stress and drama. Before that, we had been discussing various aspects of training, an issue which of course features heavily in the case. I found these contributions to be of particular note:-   

I don’t agree with pushing these long service PSOs through shortened PO training just to get completions. There should be one route for probation officer training. Degree based university study with on the job placement training. Those with and without existing degrees should be eligible and relevant work experience should be part of the eligibility criteria. It’s not difficult to see why we have PSO, PQiPS and POs that can’t do the job and short cuts to qualification doesn’t help anybody. Qualified in name only in turn impacts on the rest of us who are too busy already.

******
I know there is concern about the qualification now after some managers including at senior level have, since reunification, gained the PO qualification by a different route without doing the day job of a PO ie directly managing their own case load, completing OASys, delivering interventions etc. So in effect a way of qualifying as a PO seems to have been created just for some managers who did not have the qualification but this was different from the qualifying route the rest of us have to follow. Several SPOs who had previously worked as PSOs and continued in their manager role whilst doing it were successful. Little information seems available on this but there seem to be several different routes now to gaining the PO qualification, including some sort of fast track.

******
Proper practice! SFO after SFO attributable to the lofty PO grade. The attitudes displayed here are the reason that Probation will not survive and no one takes it seriously. Many talk about Probation culture and mourn it but this culture appears to be built on self satisfaction and a belief that the PO is somehow better than the rest of humanity whilst bewailing the fact that others have more to give and its the case with most PSO's that they have more life experience as opposed to I have attended Uni thus I am superior.

******
That’s not the point really. The moaning stems from a desire to maintain standards. The current probation service is driven by process and systems, whilst the targets support this shift. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that processes and systems, no matter how well the targets are met, have any impact on offending behaviour. In a sense this highlights a problem at the heart of the organisation. Targets have become an end in themselves largely because they simplify what is in effect a complex area of work. As this continues the type of staff and managers required to meet the demands has shifted. 

I completed the CQSW, and have to agree with an earlier comment that it was garbage. What wasn’t however was my practice teacher and the high standard of education I was afforded. Both of these introduced me to new ideas and different ways of viewing the world. They were both demanding and made me appreciate the complexity of human life. And with that the complexity of criminal behaviours. I woke up to how society targets the disenfranchised and policed the poor. The depth of this education matched the demands of the work when I started my first job in 1987. Complex behaviour requires the ability to process complex ideas and formulate hypotheses that you test and adjust as you move forward.

Shortly before I retired I read a number of PSRs. Gone was the human messiness of life. Authors tried to simplify something so hard to grasp with pat phrases and jargon that lacked both evidence and rigour. To a one they were shallow and relied on puerile vacuity as though that could explain anything. The job I left championed process over practice. There are many reasons why this happened. But one is undoubtedly that it removes the need to address complex human behaviours. Behaviours that are difficult to judge, understand and almost impossible to change without using a high level of intelligence to understand what it was that lead to an offence occurring. Which of course means you don’t need highly trained staff, and can get by with people who only need to understand processes, time scales and systems. Not all POs were intellectual powerhouses but some were and they were a delight to work alongside. Not all PSOs were dullards but some were. And they certainly weren’t a delight to work alongside.

******
The current training provides staff with what they require for the current service. It’s crap but then they don’t need anything else. You can’t blame for applying. If I was starting out again I would probably think it was great. But I worked with students who were bright, clever, and socially aware. That was encouraged. This isn’t the job for those people anymore. Not because people are more stupid, but because the current job doesn’t require that level of intelligence. To be honest 2 GSEs is probably enough to fulfil the role. I suspect a well trained chimp can press buttons, scroll a screen and complete an OASys on time.

******
I am currently on the second cohort of this and have mixed opinions. It’s a good progression route for those who do not have the existing degree qualification. However, the pilot was designed to capture the skills and experience of the existing PSO. Like any role the skills and experience vary greatly. I’ve found myself fortunate to have a wealth of experience and knowledge and found the process fairly straightforward. However, there are many others struggling. Some who worked in TTG teams who have never experienced case management or others just joining to then apply via the progression route. The push for POs is ongoing and unlikely to stop, however how do we back fill competent and experienced PSOs holding 50 plus caseloads? The progression route should be available but you can’t pull a cork out of one hole to fix another and expect the boat not to sink.

******

In agreement with so much that has been written about the dire state of Probation in today's blog. Probation has so many irredeemable flaws that it's difficult for me to contribute to the Blog in any way constructively. So just one small point - the online training that was made absolutely mandatory by Senior Management is almost entirely worthless. As anyone who has completed the training will know there is usually an online training pass mark of 80 per cent. This sounds fine until you realise that overworked frontline Probation Workers are often unaware of the exact nature of the 20 per cent they may have got wrong in the quiz at the end of the training - this means that the online training is virtually useless. Imagine being operated on by a surgeon who has only 80 per cent of knowledge in his or her field of expertise and who doesn't actually know for sure what s/he does or doesn't know... terrifying.

******
It's the knowledge and understanding of the person that comes from the relationship between the PO and the client that provides the most valuable tool in assessing risk.

Assessing risk, as with everything else in probation has become a process, and because it's become a process it becomes easy to delegate parts of that process to anyone capable of following that process regardless of experience or training.

As long as probation continues along the road of processing its case load rather then engaging with it, the number of SFOs will continue rise, and blame for them happening will continue to be attached to (often undeservedly) those at the lower end of the conveyor belt.

The Damage Caused

Preamble

With 2,456 hits yesterday, it's pleasing to see interest sustained. So, continuing with the academic theme, here is an extract from the latest edition of the British Journal of Community Justice. The full article is lengthy, but well-worth consulting, particularly for the references. 

A FAILED SOCIAL EXPERIMENT: DAMAGED PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY POST ‘TRANSFORMING REHABILITATION’

Sam Cooper: Probation Officer

Abstract 

Following the Government’s Transforming Rehabilitation process of privatising half of the Probation Service, research found that profession identity and resilience had been damaged in the aftermath. Five years later, just after the Government announcement that Probation is to be re-unified, this paper explores the impact of the last five years on 7 members of staff working in one of the CRC companies that originally reported the lowest resilience and the most difficult working experiences. Narrative inquiry was used to allow staff to tell their own stories, and then followed up by semi-structured interviews to fill in any gaps in data. Key themes which emerged were loss of professional discretion, resistance to financial driven decision making and diminished self-efficacy as a result of inconsistent management oversight. Recommendations are made at the end of the paper to assist new managers to ease the transition and support staff resilience.

--oo00oo--

Phillips (2010) considers the institutional values that probation staff have to work to, and taking into account the past experiences and drivers for staff joining the profession, he argues that such values cannot be imposed on staff from management down, but are internal. Mawby and Worrall (2009) echo this after interviewing probation staff who went through the creation of NOMS. Staff were very concerned about higher management being prison staff who, they perceived, had no idea what the values and working ethos of probation were, instead seeing the prison ethos as inherently punitive. Even when faced with more stringent values of control and punishment implemented by NOMS, probation professionals resisted this because they saw their professional role as more supportive than punishing (Mawby and Worrall, 2009; Clare, 2015). For some, then, the internal values and ethical drivers underpin their sense of professional identity as they seek out altruistic and service-based vocations. 

Professional identity as measured by performance and ability 

For other writers, the performance required to complete a professional role, and the level of competence and skill to do this effectively are vital to the sense of professional identity (Riddle, 2016). For instance, in software engineering students who developed self-efficacy through developing problem-solving skills had a stronger sense of professional identity and increased confidence (Dunlap, 2005).

In the early 1980s writers were researching the professional identity of probation staff and asked if there was a body of specialist knowledge specific to the role which would constitute this in the way that other professions such as teachers, lawyers or doctors had (Thomas, 1983; Lawrence, 1984). They were more concerned with a limited body of academic writing which guided and supported practice and development, rather than a perception of performance or confidence comprising part of professional identity (Lawrence, 1984).

Between 1970 and 1990 the key qualification for probation officers was the certificate of qualification in social work (CQSW) (Mawby and Worrall, 2009) and that those who qualified saw themselves as specialists in working with vulnerable people. This qualification was followed by the Diploma in Social Work (DipSW), before 1997 the introduction of the Diploma in Probation Studies finally cut ties with social services and professionals who were new to the service were no longer being trained in a social work driven ethos (Mawby and Worrall, 2009). Suddenly probation officers were having to successfully pass difficult qualifications that no longer mirrored the altruistic, social or religious motivations of the 60s and 70s (Mawby and Worrall, 2009). Older social workers still saw the offender as a victim of their circumstances and needed help and support, whereas the newer staff saw them as potentially dangerous individuals whose risk needed to be managed and controlled (Mawby and Worrall, 2009).

Mawby and Worrall (2009) not only looked at the change in academic qualifications and the drive to ensure they were academically robust, but also observed the fact that probation staff were keen to work across a range of areas to gain different knowledge from courts, to hostels to prisons in order to specialise. Staff actively sought to build on their formal qualifications with work-based skills and specialist experience to increase their competence and professional reputation (Clare, 2015).

Clare (2015) also argues that probation staff use their training and experience in order to juggle the realities of a need for social justice and punishment with the ethical treatment of the offender which adds legitimacy to their practice, which has often come under question following the TR process of privatization. Clare (2015) further suggests that this legitimacy and ethically driven practice should be used to shape the way the CRCs deliver their business because it reduces business risk when staff are highly trained and highly experienced in their role. However, it is unclear whether officers share the same business concerns, as research suggests they are more motivated by ethical practice than business profits (Phillips, 2010; Clare, 2015). Yet it is in the interest of a business to ensure relevant and reliable training meets the needs of its staff as this ensures capability and confidence (DeMonte, 2013; Thompson et al., 2017). 

With probation staff it appears that their construction of professional identity is in fact a combination of their education, training and perceived high standards of delivery of work, but also underlying ethical and moral motivations to provide a service which make their role a vocation rather than simply a job (Phillips, 2010; Clare, 2015). Understanding these drivers can help to predict that staff who have been moved from a role they consider to be akin to social service, to an employee of a large business concerned with profit may no longer feel their ethical and moral motivators are aligned to the new company’s and this could erode their sense of identity and trust.

Identity post-privatization 

As stated earlier, probation has undergone various changes to both organisational shape and ideological paradigms (Phillips, 2010), however, some writers claim that this split and the cultural effects of going from an effectively civil service role to one of business and profit driven employee, has been the biggest paradigm shift (Clare, 2015). Historically staff have fought to hold on to their professional values and identities in the face of policy change because first and foremost, they were probation officers (Phillips, 2010; Clare, 2015). However, after TR even that was removed as fully qualified probation officers are now called senior responsible officers (SRO) and partially qualified probation service officers are now called responsible officers (RO). 

Kirton and Guillaume (2015), conducted research into the impact of privatization on Probation staff and found there was a general fear that profit would come before staff and that their future was no longer secure, and they would not have the long-term career opportunities that NPS staff had. This was a stark difference from the lifelong services of staff in the past who had joined Probation looking for a vocation (Phillips, 2010). Kirton and Guillaume’s (2015) study regarding the effects of TR on NAPO members found that conditions had deteriorated and the lack of a professional voice in the process had been demoralising to staff whose educated opinion had previously been respected (Phillips, 2010). 

Robinson, Burke and Millings (2016) studied staff identity during the transition period from probation trusts to CRC and identified a number of themes which emerged in the discourse of the staff interviewed from separation and loss and status anxiety. Some staff believed the new CRCs were ‘socially invisible’ without a clear identity, and they were worried that they would be seen as ‘second class probation’ (Robinson, Burke and Millings, 2016, p.173). 

Deering and Feilzer (2017) followed Robinson, Burke and Millings’ (2016) study by considering the 3 elements of legitimacy; external legitimacy of officers work as interpreted by external agencies, internal legitimacy of practice as interpreted by offenders under supervision and self-legitimacy as internalised by staff themselves. They found that self-legitimacy and a belief that they are acting appropriately affected how professionals behaved and exercised their authority and this then increased the co-operation of offenders on supervision. However, they argue that the transition into private practice has impacted on this level of self-legitimacy but add the caveat that this had been a progressive occurrence prior to TR (Deering and Feilzer 2017). 

They conducted questionnaires followed by open questions to explore the qualitative explanations for the quantitative results from the questionnaires by asking subjects why they joined probation, had it met their expectation, what type of person they think staff should be and what their role should include and whether their values have come under challenge following the move to the private sector. 

They found that the gap in shared values and interpretation of quality had diverged between established probation officers and new managers and new staff, leading to mistrust and a fracturing of group identity, which is necessary for the maintaining of self-legitimacy. They also found that self-legitimacy was based on the belief that justice was  state-sanctioned and as such should be state administered and not something which should be done by private providers and this membership of a private company did not sit comfortably with subjects (Burnett and McNeill, 2005; Deering and Feilzer, 2017). 

Hall (2015) supported the Probation Institutes bid to become a regulatory body, where staff would register and be subject to mandatory continuous professional development. Deering and Feilzer (2017) posit that probation staff’s sense of self-legitimacy may have been severely damaged during the transition and suggest such internal narratives may be rebuilt by the Probation Institute gaining regulatory body status to add legitimacy to staff identity. They suggest this could potentially rebuild the sense of joint identity as a member of one body, irrespective of who the officer’s employer is. This was a large-scale study conducted over a period of time which is outside the scope of this current research, however, the research was conducted directly after TR. This current research will be following on from these initial findings, three years later and in light of the new knowledge that the two Probation providers are to be re-unified. 

Consequences of damage to professional identity 

Even before TR began, Phillips (2010) recognised that qualified probation officers’ professional identity had declined as more and more probation service officers have taken over work without possessing the full probation officer qualification. Mawby and Worrall (2011) similarly found dissatisfaction, with newer staff felling they had been misled by the job role as the emphasis was more on compliance and enforcement than building strong relationships. Overall, there was unrest within the staff group irrespective of grade. 

Fitzgibbon (2009) also argues that there has been a wide-scale deskilling of probation staff as professional discretion has been replaced by tick boxes, where staff record attendance and compliance and no longer had the opportunity to work with the whole picture. This led to damaging high profile further offences and high levels of scrutiny which have led to increased stress and anxiety (Fitzgibbon, 2009). Fitzgibbon (2009) goes on to state that the rate of continuous change in practice has had a detrimental impact on staff, with experienced officers suffering lowered resilience and leaving the service. 

Kirton (2015) conducted a large scale survey and found that following TR, the staffing levels in CRCs reduced on average across the UK by 1.84%, but in Derbyshire, Leicester and Nottinghamshire this was 4.76%. They also found that 40% of respondents surveyed in the CRCs would take voluntary redundancy and leave if they had the opportunity and 29.2% of staff were actively seeking other employment outside probation. The main experiences cited during this study were a sense of de-skilling, loss of career opportunities, and excessive workloads with the CRCs owned by Sodexo suffering higher than average inability to cope at 48% and fearing job loss at 74%. 

This strengthens the argument that employers, particularly Sodexo employers, need to mitigate more staff losses and attempt to retain their experienced and qualified staff members. The next wave of change was set to start in spring of 2020 when the two sides of probation return back to one service (Barton, 2019). In reality, this has turned out to be June 2021 when staff will again through a change of organisational identity, as they become civil servants.

Sam Cooper, Probation Officer

Pick of the Week 27

"Everyone knows that having an independent mind in the probation service is tantamount to being an insurgent."

I have always enjoyed going to work and took pride in doing the best job I could but now I loathe it and dread going in every day. This is all down to TR and the complete feeling of hopelessness about the situation. NPS PO.

*****
Drugs have always been a huge part of penal society, considered prevalent and endemic enough for the government to introduce mandatory drug testing in prisons in the mid 90s, at some considerable cost. There wasn't any particular issues with violence, unrest or deaths associated with drugs in prisons at that point. Instead of using mandatory drug testing as a means of collecting information that would develop strategies and inform policy, it was used totally to impose punitive sanctions.

Herbal cannabis being easy to detect was swapped for heroin, easier to mask, and exited the system far quicker. Heroin became more targeted, and subutex (an opioid blocker) became the drug of choice, crushed and snorted the same effect as heroin was achieved and totally undetectable by drug testing. Tests were developed to identify subutex, and the choice of drug moved to legal highs such as spice as tests didn't exist to identify it.

As long as drugs exist in society, they will also exist in prisons. It's NOT the drugs that's killing people in our prisons or causing the levels of unrest and violence that we see today. It's naive understanding and the bad policies that comes from that understanding that's the real killer in UK prisons.

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I have just watched 90 min of discussion on net, 'parliamentlive-tv' of the Select Committee - subject - Justice Committee, work of Parole Board, with a lot of time spent discussing IPP, and backlog of pre-release parole Board meetings. Solution - taking 100 more members on Parole Board, and prisons struggling with high cases, and Probation working on having their reports ready in time. (no suggestion of more NPS staff)!

Not much more mention of probation, mainly prison, although external PO's always played a crucial role in the parole report, with info that the prisons were unlikely to have. I recall that in the 'good old days', prison and probation worked together to assess risk, prison PO's relying on external information to help assess level of risk in the outside world, info from families, setting up accommodation (hostels, home), employment options, and licence conditions. Internal PO's would assist external PO's with info of progress and plans for release. This would have been ongoing throughout the sentence, not just pre-release.

How far has it moved since then? How much time is made available to NPS staff to visit their cases throughout the sentence and produce timely reports? Or, like PSR's, have detailed quality parole reports become a thing of the past?

*****
Maybe as in the 'good old days' there's a role to be played by reconstruction of something akin to the LRC (local review committee) where a paper parole is considered prior to an oral hearing? Those who have not been granted release by paper application, could still retain the right to an oral hearing before the parole board.

*****
A Tory Govt (& yep, that includes Blue Labour) will NEVER admit they are wrong, in the wrong or heading in the wrong direction - even when driving into oncomng traffic on a motorway. Grayling, Wright, Cameron & Osbourne fucked us over - with the willing helping hands of the civil servants now languishing in luxury as reward for their complicity.

The financial cost of the centralist NOMS/TR debacle over the last 20 years has been a scandal in its own right, let alone the social impact of pisspoor justice policies which have seen prison populations expand to new record highs, reoffending rates increase & the numbers of deaths in custody accelerate.

The killing-off of the Probation Service was a premeditated act of social engineering, an Agatha Christie-esque murder expedited initially by stealth (remove social work value, Howard; introduce enforcement, Boateng), accelerated by the imposition of Trusts, the '07 Act then Grayling brazenly finishes the job by bludgeoning the now weak & feeble Probation Service to death with a blunt instrument.

And No-one will ever be held accountable for this crime.

*****
Service users are getting such a raw deal. I am ashamed sometimes. We try to do our best in my shrinking team but we can't manage their needs and expectations. They are turned away now when they come in with a crisis or just needing support because some days there are hardly any staff and they have caseload to see and being bullied by targets. That isn't right. We always had time for people before TR. That could be a suicidal service user or maybe they fear they are going to re-offend but they get turned away by staff who are close to breaking point and have no more to give..burned out! Shameful. 

I am ashamed to be part of it now and taking action to get out. I won't end up as a robot, ticking boxes and being emotionally distant. No wonder crime is rising. Service users need a proper relationship and support to make any real positive changes..so many desperate people now facing tax credits nightmare and homelessness. Coming out of prison further brutalised. Makes me want to cry some days..what an uncaring society we have become.

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What's achieved by highlighting a lack of references to probation in a submission that is rich in ideas and full of good sense? On IPPs, the probation service gave them a red carpet, foamed about being centre-stage in risk assessments and was infatuated with flawed accredited programmes – which have been shown to not work. Probation supporters should really get off their high horse and be a bit more humble about their part in the IPP fiasco.

The same applies to recalls: probation too trigger-happy. Of course, individual probation officers sought to mitigate the risk averse reflexes of corporate probation, but these efforts were isolated in an otherwise robotic work environment. Everyone knows that having an independent mind in the probation service is tantamount to being an insurgent. Probation may at one time have been a force for good and rooted in humanitarian values, but times have changed for the worse.

*****
I don't think we disagree. Fair points well made, especially about needing to be "a bit more humble about their part in the IPP fiasco. The same applies to recalls: probation too trigger-happy." I agree that was more the role of risk-averse management eager to kiss NOMS's arse as opposed to the choice of skilled practitioners trying to work meaningfully with complex cases. Numerous examples in my experience alone of being DIRECTED to "discuss but not propose" IPP in PSRs.

I don't think I had attacked the article at all... I had simply highlighted the significant shift in terminology, the changes imposed such that the term 'probation' - and thus the concept - is eradicated. The lack of use of the term 'probation' in the article is merely symptomatic of the efficacy of the Tory's disenfranchisement of Probation, in principle & in practice.

I would also agree that "having an independent mind" used to be a pre-requisite; having relevant life experience, including previous convictions, used to be embraced. Now the Tory social engineering project is simply excluding diversity of knowledge, diversity of experience & diversity of thinking.

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I apologise for misconstruing your intentions. I think I tend to recoil when I perceive defences of probation - which obviously is not what you were about. I suppose, for me, there are two probation's - Old and New. Like the Labour Party probation was stuffed with modernisers and it's their legacy that I reject and thus I have no instinctive sympathy for the today's probation: I don't trust it anymore to do the right things.

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In 2005 I attended a briefing from NOMS and they clearly stated that IPPs were designed to get the most dangerous and difficult people on long licences IN THE COMMUNITY...breach would be dealt with by short period on recall and then back out again..unfortunately no-one told the parole board this....IPPs stuck in the system as a direct result of parole boards ignoring what many officers were proposing because they knew better...probation management were instructed to do this just as they were instructed to sell us down the river...I think that the chickens have bought their tickets and are queueing at the station as we speak.

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The objective was an indeterminate lock up for the 'dangerous', I don't think the primary focus was on community supervision. As the lawyer writes, there is an 'institutional approach' to IPP releases that are dependent on completion of accredited programmes, as these provide the pseudo-science to defensible decision-making. Terrible that risk assessments became so dependent on flawed programmes. Personal change gets reduced to going through the motions of programmes. For IPPs prisons became re-education camps.

*****
Probation officer became a non profession when C.Q.S.W social work qualification was replaced by the diploma in probation studies. It is no longer a recognised profession in England/ Wales. Scotland and N.Ireland sensibly kept the social work qualification and have been spared the travesty of TR. That and the belief that PSO's could do the same job as qualified social workers was the slippery slope. The PO training is now a joke..cheap on the job training from staff who are already stressed to hell and then have to study for bogus qualification in own time. PO numbers are set to plummet along with morale. It is a complete shambles.

*****

Top end of the food chain are now quite motivated to reduce the number and frequency of recalls, as well as move out IPP cases into the community. Trouble is, both government and probation leaders have focused obsessively on risk management and not rehabilitation. Splitting off the "high risk" NPS from the rest and simultaneously chucking it into the civil service has led to a craven risk-averse culture. We really should have - probably will have at this rate - a "Risk of Causing a Frisson of Unease at Management Level" box to tick.

I noticed the Chief Inspector commenting somewhere recently that the NPS needs to pay more attention to rehabilitation. It is just about feasible that this may yet gather some momentum, but popular opinion aka the Daily Mail isn't ever going lend much support, it needs courage and conviction in the identity and role of Probation at the top to give this any traction.

Backawhile during a consultancy/assessment exercise leading up to those "Excellent" ratings we enjoyed, the consultant in his summing up said that the greatest risk the Service had was that it did not have a clearly articulated Mission and Values: so it's mission, by default, was to jump through whatever hoops it was given. With a clearly stated identity, he argued, "Probation" could then CHOOSE what it did, by selecting only those hoops which correlated with its identity and purpose, and this would actually be a strength, not a risky strategy. I thought it was a great analysis. Sadly unheeded.

*****
Hmmm. Here's a thought - what if Probation had a gatekeeping role where they were responsible for making detailed professional assessments of cases coming their way at the point of sentence or release/potential release?

The Courts & HMPPS could ask professionals trained in undertaking such assessments for their informed opinion, perhaps in a report which offered a view as to an effective way for working with each case in question - a bit like the way in which a specialist psychiatric or psychological report (prepared by a qualified professional) indicates how & when an individual might benefit from intervention.

Its not an exact science but it allows for a professional gateway through which the circumstances of cases are thoroughly & individually assessed, where all options for progression are explored & concluding with the suggestion of an agreed, appropriate pathway of intervention.

Would such an idea work?

Guest Blog 52

TR, E3 & the death of the probation officer

A recent Twitter conversation between an anonymous Probation Officer and Sally Lewis, former Chief Probation Officer, went like this;

@PoOfficer: Well the boss has said that the number of PO's will soon decrease as they hire more PSO's in NPS. PSO's will manage all low / med risk.

@CEOLewis: I don't think Courts, etc know that PSO's are not qualified officers. PO's won't sign with their prof qualifications #BigMistake

@PoOfficer: PSO's now writing the bulk of reports on templates which restrict the amount of text. They are shockingly bad. I'm embarrassed.

I'm going to start and finish by agreeing with Sally Lewis because probation officers should be stating their credentials. Every other professional completing formal reports and assessments states their qualifications as standard. I couldn't imagine reading a letter, assessment or report from a psychologist, medical practitioner or legal representative without reference to their professional qualifications and authority. I think our omission in doing this is partly because our report and letter formats are not designed for us to state BSc, MSc, DipSW, DipPS and DipPP, but also because the culture forced upon us doesn't encourage it.

I read a lot of reports completed by colleagues as we gate-keep each others work to check for errors missed. This mostly includes reports for court sentencing, parole hearings and other formal settings, but only the parole report asks for qualifications and even then many don't state their professional qualifications. Of the others, never do I find these signed "Mr or Mrs Smith BSc, DipSW". Even our letters and emails omit any record of professional qualifications. It's as if we are not professionally qualified or fear stating it, when in fact we have probation officers who have a wealth of formal qualifications. Off the top of my head this includes those with the Certificate of Qualification in Social Work (CQSW), Diploma in Social Work (DipSW), Diploma in Probation Studies (DipPS), Diploma in Probation Practice (DipPP), etc. Most already held formal qualifications and degrees at varying levels before they began probation officer training. I once read a survey that canvassed staff qualifications in a probation trust (when we were trusts) and found the vast majority of staff at all levels held university degrees right up to PhD, but they only stated these when asked.

TR, E3 and the Diploma in Probation Deprofessionalisation

In my humble opinion the probation qualification and professionalism has been slowly eroded over the past two decades. Even our union has omitted "probation" from its title and went from calling itself the National Association of Probation Officers to adopting the acronym Napo! The Probation Institute has gone in a different direction by wanting to sell everyone working in probation, qualified and unqualified, the title of MPInst. I think this problem of hiding our qualifications started when probation began employing huge numbers of Probation Service Officers (PSO's) to do our work, who were not professionally qualified and in many places had poor access to training. 

The government also separated probation from social work in the mid 1990's which was really the beginning of the end for us. The Diploma in Probation Studies that followed was adequate, even considered to be a "gold standard" of professional education/training by some academics. It did, however, help push probation into an identity crisis about whether it was an enforcement agency or a social work agency. Unfortunately before probation could figure it out our training was morphed into the Diploma in Probation Practice under the Probation Qualifications Framework (PQF). This seemed to disproportionately attract young graduates (mostly female) with no experience and then qualified these recruits in about 15 months. 

Never have I seen so much tears and anxiety amongst probation trainees as in this period, which I think is now reflected in their varying levels of competence/incompetence upon qualification. The newest edition of our training commencing this year is the Probation Qualification in Probation (PQiP), which costs £75 just to check eligibility to apply. So far we don't know if there's any improvement on the PQF but I doubt it and there must be a reason why the word "diploma" is removed from the final award, which is the "equivalent" of an honours degree rather than an actual one. It doesn't take an idiot to parallel the erosion of our qualifications with the deprofessionalisation of probation officers, the privatisation of probation work and the governments Transforming Rehabilitation policy.

For years probation leaders have been implicit in downgrading the role of probation officers. For starters I blame the Probation Chiefs Association, the Probation Association and now the Probation Institute. These organisations are inter-related, and their actions have been self-serving to preserve their positions. Under what I call the "judas watch" of most of our former Probation Chiefs (they received a lot more than 30 pieces of silver) we've witnessed the probation service and the status of the probation officer reduced to nothing. We've become subservient to the agencies of the community and criminal justice, and even within probation our roles have been handed to unqualified PSO's, volunteers and mentors. Not content with selling 70% of probation to private companies, the current "E3" drive by the Ministry of Justice and the National Probation Service is now replacing qualified Probation Officers with unqualified Probation Service Officers.

I am a Probation Officer, DipSW, DipPS, DipPP, PQiP

In the new world of probation we are called by names most of us never use, "responsible officers", "offender managers" (and sometimes b*stards and c*nts) which can be applied to nearly anybody. This is very different to probation under social work training arrangements up until the mid 1990's when probation officers were Probation Officers and would generally include their professional qualifications as an indication of authority, expertise and competence. CEO Sally Lewis is right to question whether "courts, etc know that PSO's are not qualified officers", and to state that PO's not signing with their professional qualifications is a big mistake. Likewise the Ministry of Justice and the National Probation Service are wrong to replace qualified Probation Officers with unqualified Probation Service Officers. We should distinguish ourselves from the inexperienced, the untrained and the unprofessional, and I believe we can start doing this by signing our emails, letters and reports to state BSc, MSc, DipSW, DipPS and DipPP, etc. When we are asked our role at Court, Parole Boards and other formal settings to state our professional qualifications as standard.

If you're a qualified probation officer and agree with the above then you know what you need to do. It is our professional qualifications and experience that gives us the authority to do our jobs and sets us apart from the untrained, unqualified and inexperienced staff currently being recruited to replace qualified probation officers in the National Probation Service, Community Rehabilitation Companies and other organisations. If nobody knows what we are professionally then how will the Courts, Parole Boards and others, including offenders and their families, know the differences between qualified and unqualified. More importantly, how else will they know to request their preference for a "qualified officer" because of all that comes with it. 

I've no doubt the time will come when we'll witness a reversal of E3, TR and probation privatisation (probably not under Dodgy Dave's Conservatives). I'm not wishing bad tidings on myself or anybody, but sadly I fear there'll be no constructive change by any government to reverse probation privatisation and deprofessionalisation until too many of our probation staff have been implicated for misconduct and corruption, until too many of our prisons are rioting and on fire, and until too many of our supervised offenders are raping, maiming and killing members of the public.

Probation Officer
15 years to retire

Reflection - Again

Regular readers may have noticed that posting has been erratic of late. I could say I've been busy doing my bit for the economy and buying loads of Christmas shit - but in truth I guess I've succumbed once more to waves of negativity to do with the job. I suspect it might be seasonal - a bit of Seasonal Affect Disorder or just the approach of another year end and time to reflect? I have always been prone to reflection, not a bad trait I feel in this line of work. In fact regular reader Mike Guilfoyle has just written quite a powerful reflective piece here concerning an incident during his career.

Rooting aimlessly around the internet, I came across the transcript of a recent provocative lecture by Professor Pat Carlen to the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies on the subject of rehabilitation. This is of course a topic close to the present government's heart and indeed prime minister David Cameron gave us the benefit of his views only fairly recently. The flyer for the lecture stated:-  

"In this lecture Pat Carlen invites you to consider the proposition that rehabilitation (in theory or practice) is not the good thing we have been taught to believe it is – and that it never has been. Secondly, she invites you to re-imagine the possible relationships between criminal justice and social justice; and then suggests that working towards a reparative justice informed by a sociological jurisprudence of equality-before-the law might help counteract some of  the blatant inequalities inherent in criminal justice in grossly unequal societies."

In the preface, Prof Carlen sets the scene:-


"I want to invite you to consider the proposition that rehabilitation is not the good thing 
we have been taught to believe it is – and that it never has been. Secondly, I want to 
invite you to imagine new relationships between criminal justice and social justice. 
Because Prime Minister Cameron was wrong when, in a speech last month, he put 
renewed emphasis upon punishment and rehabilitation in the community. He was 
wrong for several reasons, but he was fundamentally wrong  because the poor, the 
young, the disabled and the indigent elderly and many others are already being 
severely punished in communities deprived of the most basic access to housing, jobs, 
and general welfare. In such a situation it seems obvious to me that all questions of 
crime and punishment have to be linked to, and most probably subsumed by, 
questions of social justice and inequality.  It is with that agenda in mind that I shall 
argue, this evening, that, instead of repeatedly punishing the poor and then kidding 
ourselves that we can combine punishment with rehabilitation, we should work
towards a reparative justice informed by a re-invigorated principle of equality-before the law."


It makes absolutely fascinating reading and I was particularly interested to see that it was mentioned on the NAPO discussion forum. I hope contributor Duende will not mind me quoting this passage which to be honest has helped to remind me why it's still worth persevering in this remarkable task before us:-

It is times like this makes us all re-assess our situation and I am beginning to share your bleak assessment, JP, of what is left in probation worth saving. However, there are people who subvert the system and although the space is small, if I was an offender I would like to see someone that understood the meaning of respect, had professional values and some nuanced understanding of my social circumstances. I think there is still good work to be done but the system is as dodgy and unjust as it has always been. Perhaps probation has always worked in this space to some extent.

Reading that suddenly took me back to vague recollections of a paper I'd spontaneously produced for my team many years previously and during a similar period of angst. I wondered if, per chance, the archives could render up a copy? Well, here is the introductory section from 'What am I doing and where am I going' dated 15/02/1990.

The Wider Context

As a Probation Officer of only five years experience my perception is that the job has changed dramatically as indeed has the social and political climate generally. I have found that in order to function happily I have to divide my thoughts between being positive with individual clients and their situations and being almost completely negative when thoughts stray to the wider context. 

The Probation Service has always been, to a certain extent, involved with applying sticking plaster to situations caused by the effects of social policy, but it is surely hard to comprehend just how malicious and punitive successive Tory governments have been over the last ten years with this regard. As a nation, we sell council housing, but don't build any. We force 16 year olds to stay at home, but when they are thrown out or leave for good reason we pay them no benefit. We allow young people to live in cardboard boxes in their hundreds. We expect them to join YTS but pay no benefit if they don't etc, etc.

It is with such a government that Probation Service management seem to think they can arrange a 'fudge' in order to escape the worst excesses that no doubt are in store for us? At a time when the service should be putting most of its effort into diverting people from custody, we find ourselves having to redress these inadequacies of social policy by, for instance, becoming a provider of accommodation. Other agencies have this statutory role, not us. At various stages we have filled other gaps in social policy provision by supplying furniture, literacy skills, transport, food etc, etc. Taken to its logical conclusion we could be providing employment in depressed areas to fill the gap in regional employment policy, or provide a mini bus service to areas of employment opportunities, thus plugging a deficiency in public transport.

This trend has not gone unnoticed by government of course and it is no surprise that the service is almost certainly to become either a fully fledged government department or a QUANGO-style national agency. Bits of it may be 'privatised'. Local accountability and initiative go out and in come National Standards. This is not just about things like recording, it is about stopping our attempts to alleviate the worst excesses of social policy and removing the social work basis to our work. There are strong suggestions of removing training from CQSW courses and substituting 'criminal justice' courses instead. The emphasis will undoubtedly be on 'punishment in the community'.  

Re-visiting this piece reminds me just how much we have lost by moving away from the broad-based degree and CQSW courses, to the distance learning criminal justice degree and in-house NVQ training of late.  

Generation Gap

Every now and then a particular post creates a bit more interest than most and my recent piece on OASys entitled 'Rubbish in - Rubbish out' is just such an example. I was particularly struck by the following comment from a relatively newly-qualified officer:-
  
"I agree with your points about the formulaic and prescriptive nature of OASys and how this can hugely impact on the quality of reports. I too feel that the system could be much improved. I remember reading an article during my training, in which it was argued that OASys far too readily reduces the individual to little more than the sum of sections 1-13. This is an idea that has really stuck with me, and one I am mindful of when proofing my reports.

However, the general tone of this entry makes me rather uncomfortable. The implication is that anyone who does not re-write their reports entirely, once 'generated', is doing a bad job and can't possibly submit a decent piece of work. Are you saying then, that all officers who have qualified in the past decade or so (and whom will have learnt to write their reports in this way) are doing a poor job?

The suggestion makes me feel a little indignant. Yes, I think we would benefit from a partial return to SIR style assessment. Yes, I think that OASys allows for incoherent and illogical reports – if the author doesn’t take the time to thoroughly proof-read and revise them. What I don’t agree with is the insinuation that, in making use of OASys to structure my PSR, I will only ever achieve a shoddy end product. Clearly some staff will have a greater capacity for report writing, larger vocabularies and more distinctive style; a poor report cannot be blamed on OASys alone. As for failing any creative writing test – when did a degree in language and literature become a prerequisite for the job?

I put a lot of time and effort into ensuring that my reports are as good as they can be, given the obvious time constraints. It’s fairly disheartening to hear that more experienced colleagues have such little regard for the work of more recently qualified officers."

For me this really does sum up the problem. Newer officers have only ever known a probation world utterly dictated by proscribed practice through OASys and National Standards. Older colleagues have the benefit, or disbenefit depending on the view taken, of having known the sun-lit uplands of pretty much unfettered professional discretion and judgement. It should not be that surprising that the two worlds sit uneasily alongside each other and I have previously described how trying to adjust drove me to several periods of extended sick leave due to stress.

Remember too that at the same time us older colleagues had to adjust to a change in ethos of the Service, away from its social work roots, to that of a Law Enforcement Agency. Training and recruitment moved from degree and CQSW courses at academic institutions, to NVQ and degree in-house training and distance learning. So what I'm trying to say in this blog should be seen in this context. I have also been hugely indignant and disheartened, both for myself and newer colleagues. 

In my view the author of the above has every right to feel indignant, but hopefully with the situation rather than the commentator. It has never been my intention to cause offence, but there is a generational issue in relation to OASys. Indeed Jonathan Ledger the NAPO General Secretary recently highlighted this during his evidence to the Justice Affairs Committee. Basically he said that opinion was divided on OASys depending on when people joined the Service. But I think there is reason to believe that newer colleagues are becoming increasingly disillusioned with current practice and are asking searching questions of older colleagues as to how things used to be done.

This trend is likely to increase, especially with the recent abandonment of the incredibly proscribed National Standards. As with older colleagues who have had to adjust to structural change, newer colleagues are finding this development unsettling as they are encouraged to use a greater degree of discretion and judgement - a situation they feel justifiably unprepared for.  

So, where does this leave OASys, particularly in relation to it being a rational and effective method of 'writing' court reports? It's barmy of course and as the author of the piece above confirms, the finished result is down to how much editing, tweaking, revision and proofing of the 'generated' text is thought to be necessary. I have previously said that by the way OASys is structured, the end result is likely to be focused on problems and issues, rather than strengths and positives and therefore not really likely to give a 'balanced' picture. I don't think that the proscribed format allows for a three-dimensional view of the offender or a passionate and well-argued case for a particular course of action. This has to be added later.

But why should it be like this? You wouldn't write an essay like this, would you? This is an unbelievably time-consuming, bureaucratic and clunky method of achieving something that then needs a whole lot more work on. In all honesty, wouldn't it be a brilliant idea to start with a blank sheet of paper, four basic headings and just write the damned thing? You know, like an essay? 

Send for the Army

Well it didn't take long for the new government to consider how the soft old probation service might benefit from a bit of military discipline did it? The funny thing is we've been here before. Remember 'boot camps'? (the 'short, sharp shock') - I think that was Willie Whitelaw - the whole thing was a huge success with the young inmates in Young Offender Institutions where it was trialled and I can confirm that they absolutely lapped up the military-style discipline. Boy did they turn out a hell of a lot fitter on release, the trouble being not much work had been undertaken on the attitude side of things. The whole idea withered away quite quickly on two grounds, firstly they were not supposed to enjoy it and secondly, turning out super fit, testosterone-fuelled thugs wasn't felt to be such a good idea after all.

You see it was yet another example of the politicians and Home Office people thinking they knew better than the professionals involved. They probably didn't realise that many of our young clients would love to join the army, if only their offending career hadn't already precluded it in most cases. I'm probably that much of an old-fashioned probation officer to admit that, in the absence of a fully effective Youth Service, National Service would indeed be hugely beneficial for some of our clientele today. I know I was absolutely fascinated by the tv series 'Bad Lads Army' some years ago and the life-changing effect it had on many of the participants, some of whom did indeed join up as a direct result. I am aware that in fairly recent times the military have been so desperate for recruits that they used to do a 'sweep' of YOI's now and then to see if there were any suitable candidates. I suspect they don't anymore. Nothing has given me greater pleasure on occasion than to speak directly with recruiting officers and to be able to give support to young offenders applications for the armed services.

Do we remember how, with the ending of the Cold War, Michael Howard I think it was suggested that as part of the 'peace dividend' demobbed soldiers might make good probation officers? Like a lot of politicians, he probably came up with the idea to win a good headline in the Daily Mail. The plan went nowhere, apart that is in his decision to remove the CQSW requirement that had been mandatory for all new probation officers. Again, the funny thing about this episode was that up to that point virtually all probation officers, including myself, turned to the vocation later in life and from a huge variety of backgrounds, including the military. That wealth of life experience, together with excellent social work training, ensured that for many years the service was a confident, innovating, flexible and immensely rewarding place to be.

So that brings us to the here and now and once more there is a call for military action - but this time not just to 'beef up' community service, but as a cost-saving measure as the government feel ex-squaddies will be happy to work for less pay than current CS supervisors. As widely expected, the government intend to privatise this aspect of the probation service and have already lined up three companies to bid for the work. Louise Casey must be very pleased with herself indeed.