Comment: The ‘rehab revolution’ won’t happen without reform
Centralised box-ticking management will not survive government funding cuts. We need a new localised probation service focused on support in the community.
By Frances Crook
In 2004, the last government merged the prison and probation services into one gigantic super-agency: the National Offender Management Service (NOMS).The changes exacted by NOMS led to major changes and a large-scale restructuring in the way criminal justice is administered, fragmented and demoralised staff, whose purpose has been altered beyond all recognition.
The original commitment in the 1907 Probation Act to ‘advise, assist and befriend’ was removed under the last government in favour of a managerial model characterised by closer monitoring and enforcement. Napo, the probation union described the move to agency status as a hostile prison ‘takeover.’
Unrepresented at the highest management structure of NOMS, neglected and misrepresented, the probation service has for years plodded along in the shadows, only to be thrust into the limelight when the spotlight fell on individual tragedies amid media frenzies.
The creation of NOMS brought with it the mantra of ‘managerialism.’ Staff at all levels experienced a loss of autonomy. Workloads in terms of those subject to probation supervision rose by 39% in the 10 years up to 2009. Just 24% of practitioners’ time was spent on face-to-face work with the remaining time spent keeping records, in meetings and in front of computers. In the past three years alone the number of frontline staff has dropped by 17%.
With workloads and expectations increasing exponentially, professionals are overloaded and people are left in prison needlessly, hampering their chances of a smooth and crime-free resettlement in the community.
The Howard League legal team, which works with children and young people in custody, represented a 22-year-old young man with a learning disability, a history of childhood sexual abuse and self-harm, formerly in care, who attempted suicide serving an IPP sentence. He has served over three times his tariff period. At his parole hearing his probation officer couldn’t provide the parole board with a release and risk management plan. When she was asked questions by the parole panel she did not know the answers. She had not been to see the applicant to prepare her report and was not familiar with the facts of his case. This put the young man at risk, and the rest of us too.
The probation service will be unable to accept the proposed spending cuts without drastic reform. Jobs will be lost, workloads will increase, high-risk work will attract what few resources are available.
The Howard League’s submission to the justice affairs select committee’s inquiry on the role of the probation service is timely and radical. It calls for a shift away from offender management and a shift towards a localised “resolution service” that the public can both see and understand.
If government intends to cut the cost of an expensive prison system, probation must be the weapon at the front and centre of the new system. It must change its focus, working not on the mundane box-ticking of bureaucrats but engaging with individuals in the community as many dedicated probation officials would really wish to. Just as our police officers must be free to spend more time on the beat so probation officers must be freed up to spend more time in the community.
At the moment, the police are called in to manage local, nuisance behaviour. This wastes police time, and creates disenchanted citizens when the police cannot, or will not deal with their problems. The resolution service could go out into the community acting as a dispute resolution and support service for all within society; anti-social behaviour matters could be channelled to appropriate local services instead of towards overcrowded prisons.
The Howard League for Penal Reform believes that a modern resolution service would be in a better position to engage with all members of the public. For example, an instance of minor neighbourly dispute that currently involves the police and the civil courts could better be handled by a proliferation of the future resolution service, working in conjunction with local authorities. They would work to refer individuals to any relevant local services and help engage the individuals in conflict resolution.
It is only with a re-energised resolution service, whose goal is to support and not to detain individuals at risk of offending that the government’s rehabilitation revolution can become a reality.
Frances Crook is the director of the Howard League for Penal Reform.
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