Somewhere in the answer
from the Parole Board ordering my release there is a slightly woeful
passage pointing out that my Probation Officer will have their work
cut out. It seems that am "challenging". Not that this is
related to risk, the Board pointed out, but still – hard work to
deal with.
You won't be surprised
when I revealed that I am no great friend of the Probation Service.
Each week I have to take half a day to trek to my nearest office and
spill my gits to my State appointed keepers. It is not a situation I
enjoy. And the purpose of this? It is politics, PR. For there is not
a shred of evidence that supervising Lifers in the community has
reduced our reoffending rate one iota. Zilch.
So when I am asked to
sign a petition opposing the Government's proposals to privatise the
heart of the Probation service, I had a cynical chuckle. There was
even a moment when I was in discussion with one of the private
companies intending to bid for Probation contracts. Welcome to the
Dark Side.....
But I am, I hope, more
reflective than that. Just because the Probation Service is the
political tool used to molify an aggressively anti-prisoner public
doesn't necessarily mean that the Probation Service is utterly
useless. Dealing with Lifers is a miniscule portion of its workload
and it would be cowardly of me to condemn the whole edifice due to my
views of their relationship with me and my peers.
The Government proposes
to put up for auction the majority of probation work, that is with
criminals who are not assessed as being "high risk".
Amongst others, G4S is interested in these contracts.
My – improbable,
maybe – objection to this is that the Probation Service has met
every target set by Government to reduce reoffending. Indeed, it is a
fact that the reoffending rate for those under supervision is the
lowest level ever.
I hold no brief for
Government and its bureaucracies. As a general proposition, I think
Government can screw anything up. And yet the Probation Service is
not merely performing well, it is possibly one of the best performing
public services.
In planning to break up
this service and sell it, the Government is acting out of pure
ideology. There is no evidence whatever that the private sector can
do as well, let alone better. Indeed, the discussions I was in with
the private sector revealed that they hadn't any clue how to even
begin to do the job of probation.
In their ideological
frenzy, the Government has blown its cover. If it had the slightest
interest in reducing reoffending and protecting the public, it would
allow all qualified parties to bed for future contracts. But, and
this is the tipping point for me, the Government is barring Probation
Trusts from even bidding for the work. The only people with any
expertise in this work are being specifically forbidden from being
involved in it.
I love change, I revel
in innovation. These are qualities that the private sector excel.
But the are attitudes, not areas of specific expertise in themselves.
Allowing the private sector to bring some of its methodologies and
attitudes into the efforts to reduce reoffending may well be a good
idea. Yet the way the Government is about to destroy the body into
which the private sector can inject its expertise.
Reducing crime is an
interesting and often hypnotic political mantra. After all, who could
disagree with that aim? And yet there is the temptation for policy
makers to forget that every point on their charts, every number on
their tables of data actually represents genuine and individual
suffering. Crime is not an aggregate for politicians to toy with and
manipulate, it is the collective pain of individual victims.
And the danger is,
thanks to Chris Grayling, that when the laments of these victims to
cut crime are wailed into the air in the hope of some genuine
understanding and purposeful response, the people who respond will
not be the successful dedicated specialists who have been labouring
at this effort for a lifetime. Instead, the door will be opened by an
underpaid, undertrained private sector worker who will be as
concerned with cutting costs as cutting crime.
Writing this has been
the product of a personal struggle. I hope that my lifetimes
experience as a vocal critic of the Probation Service can only add
some depth of meaning where my fumbling wordplay has failed. Save the
Probation Service – and keep cutting crime.
I think when people in suits start referring to things like 'innovation' and 'enterprise', and other buzz concepts, that's the time to stop listening and check that your wallet is still in your jacket pocket. It's a distraction from the real game, which is profit.
ReplyDeleteIf we are going to start introducing a purely privately-owned economic structure within prisons and probation, or even just significant private sector involvement, then won't that very likely create or encourage an incentive for more prisons and more probation?
Whereas the aim of a rational society - surely - must be less prisons and less probation, it seems to me that private companies will want more. In the private sector, 'better performance' does not always translate into better product or a better service. Quite the contrary. Private sector performance is measured by profit. 'Profit' is a measurement of the level of return to shareholders and investors, whose interests private sector executives are legally-obligated to protect and advance.
The problem with introducing a private sector type of 'enterprise' into what should be public services is that all kinds of perverse incentives start to percolate through the system, until the system itself is so poisoned and corrupted it can no longer serve its proper purpose.
Not that this bothers either Tory or Labour politicians, who are all base materialists and have no intention of upholding the public interest.
Some might think it naive to suggest that the public interest should be paramount, but it seems to me that until about 20 years ago, there was at least the pretence of this, and if it was so then, it can be so now.
Good article which summarises the frustrations felt by many probation staff. If there was a coherent logic for these proposals it would be easier to accept.
ReplyDeleteApart from the private sector only being in it for the money, not least as the first duty of a listed company is to make profits for shareholders, there is also the heightened risk of corrupt practices. The "Kids for cash" scandal unfolded in 2008 over judicial kickbacks Two judges, President Judge Mark Ciavarella and Senior Judge Michael Conahan, were accused of accepting money from Robert Mericle, builder of two private, for-profit juvenile facilities, in return for contracting with the facilities and imposing harsh sentences on juveniles brought before their courts to increase the number of inmates in the detention centers. The miscreants are now in jail! (source: Wikipedia)
ReplyDeleteHear hear, Ben! A brilliant return to form. I'm really chuffed.
ReplyDeleteA disaster waiting to happen. Failing Grayling is a fool to attempt to roll out such a flawed scheme onto the Probation Service.
ReplyDeleteI liked your last line which is very true - "Save the Probation Service – and keep cutting crime."
Sign the Save Probation Petiton to stop him now!
Here is another petition with regards to what's happening in probation, the general public need to become more informed:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.change.org/petitions/chris-grayling-allow-the-probation-service-the-chance-to-bid-for-contracts?share_id=tvhmivsxLY&utm_campaign=share_button_chat&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=share_petition