Probation and Privatisation

Philip Bean

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351134491
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Criminologia

Privatisation was introduced into the probation service on the 1st June 2014 whereby work with medium and low risk offenders went to a number of private and voluntary bodies, work with high risk offenders remained with the State. The National Probation Service (NPS) covered State work whilst the 35 existing Probation Trusts were replaced by 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs). Staff were allocated to either side of the divide but all remained as probation officers. The effect was that the existing probation service lost control of all but 30, 000 of the most high risk cases, with the other 220, 000 low to medium risk offenders being farmed out to private firms. Privatisation was justified as the only available way of achieving important policy objectives of extending post release supervision to offenders on short sentences, a group who are the most prolific offenders with high reconviction rates yet who receive no statutory support.

This book describes the process by which the probation service became privatised, assessing its impact on the probation service itself, and on the criminal justice system generally. It considers both the justifications for privatisation, as well as the criticisms of it, and asks to what extent the probation servicecan survive such changes, and what future it has as a service dedicated to the welfare of offenders. It demonstrates how the privatisation of probation can be seen as a trend away from traditional public service in criminal justice towards an emphasis on efficiency and cost effectiveness.

This book is essential reading for criminology students engaged with criminal justice, social policy, probation, punishment and working with offenders. It will also be key reading for practitioners and policy makers in jurisdictions where there is an interest in extending their own privatisation practice.

1

Introduction

Privatisation and neo liberalism

In 1958, a distinguished British criminologist described the Probation Service as “the most significant contribution made by this country (the UK) to penalogical theory and practice of the 20th Century.” He also thought it would most likely endure.¹ Yet some 50 years later, stripped of many of its earlier duties, divided between public and private sectors, with morale at an all-time low, and in part merged with a larger more powerful Prison Service, there appears little to support those earlier claims. To many observers the once admired Probation Service is now nothing more than a hollowed out relic of its former past.

The impact on this service and beyond has been extensive, creating change without parallel in modern criminal justice systems. Simply on the basis of the numbers of offenders under its control the loss has been immense. On the 1st June 2014, when it was privatised, the Probation Service lost all but 30,000 of the most high risk cases, with the other 220,000 low to medium risk offenders allocated to private companies. Two of those companies, Interserve and Sodexo took over more than half what was once the remit of the Probation Service.

Does it matter that the service has changed so much? At one level probably not; it was always a small service in terms of the numbers of its staff, compared with that of the Prison Service or the Police. The number of offenders on probation was also small, compared to those dealt with by the Police – although it dealt with three times more offenders than were in prison. Yet the Probation Service from its inception always appeared to have a weighty influence on the criminal justice system. In its modern form the 1948 Criminal Justice Act provided it with additional basic legal requirements and firmly established it as a criminal justice agency. From that it developed into a flourishing service, which around the late 1960s and early 1970s, in what could be called its Golden Age,² it was feted by governments, approved by all and sundry, and seemed unstoppable in its meteoric rise. At one point it was referred to as “the jewel in the penal system.” Yet if not quite the jewel, or even the centre of the penal system, it certainly had unprecedented acclaim.

Introduction to the privatisation debate

The main reason given by the Coalition Government for privatising the Probation Service, according to the House of Commons Justice Committee’s Report was to “extend support to short sentenced prisoners,” and doing so by “facilitating innovation through the involvement of the private and voluntary sector providers in rehabilitative provisions.” As part of this aim the government wanted “to introduce services for the most prolific offenders thereby rectifying a long standing anomaly … whereby those who tend to be the most prolific offenders receive no statutory support.”³ That long standing anomaly was the high reconviction rate of those sentenced to 12 months imprisonment or less, and the lack of provision and services for this group on release. The question was how best to achieve this and do so by providing better value for the taxpayer? The government’s solution, according to Andrew Selous, Parliamentary Secretary of State for Justice, was to bring in the best of the public voluntary sector and the private sector to work with offenders to reduce offending rates.⁴ It would do so by being more efficient, more effective, and more economical. It was recognised that this approach carried a risk, in that it may not work, but the government’s response was there was a greater risk in leaving things as they are. The risk in doing nothing would mean continuing with high rates of reoffending, leaving short sentenced offenders without support on release.

The path chosen by the government, therefore, was to address a long standing problem. It did not need to go down the privatisation route, it could have chosen a different path. There were alternatives. Nonetheless, it chose to go a certain way, and in so doing produced a solution which remains highly contentious. The plans for reforming the Probation Service were set out in a White Paper in 2013 entitled Transforming Rehabilitation⁵ and were implemented under the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014.⁶ The aspirational aims were to open up the market to a diverse range of providers, and to introduce new payment incentives to be directed towards a real reduction in offending.

There were four specific objectives. First, to split the community services between the National Probation Service (the NPS) and the private sector, the Community Rehabilitation Companies (the CRCs). The NPS was to be responsible for high risk offenders and the CRCs for the medium and low risk group. This meant the NPS remained as before within the control of the public sector. The CRCs were to be in the private and voluntary sector, and operate under contracts.

The second and third objectives were to produce a joined-up rehabilitation service across prisons and the community. This would mainly involve the CRCs. Mandatory supervision was to be imposed on all who were serving a prison sentence of 12 months or less. This would eventually involve many thousands of offenders who had hitherto received no supervision on discharge and no formal attempts at rehabilitation.

The fourth objective was to provide incentives for reducing reoffending using a system of Payment by Results (PbR). The Green Paper Breaking the cycle said “We will pioneer a world first, – a system where we only pay for results delivered by a diverse range of providers from all sectors.”⁷ PbR is complicated, involving payments based on assumptions about workloads and reoffending. This is dealt with in more detail in later chapters, at this stage I only want to point out that PbR was central to the government’s privatisation programme.

Unsurprisingly, these changes have produced massive disruption to the Probation Service generally, and proved unwanted to most Probation Officers. Objections came from various quarters, and in various forms; some about the imposition of the private sector on a public service, others more specific about the workings of the Probation Service and the likely impact on thee offenders. A brief description of the service, noting some of its key features of some of the principles and precepts about what it traditionally stood for will perhaps help explain some of the criticisms levelled against privatisation, and its reaction to those criticisms.

Some features of the Probation Service, early, and late

It is difficult, if not impossible, to define and describe the major characteristics of a service which has operated for more than 150 years: the best that can be done is highlight some of its major features. So, at its peak – around the late 1960s early 1970s – the service had an extensive range of duties. It prepared Reports for all the courts, civil as well as criminal, and at all levels. It supervised juvenile and adult offenders alike, including those on licence from Detention Centres and Borstal, on Young Prison Licence, as well as supervising licensed adult prisoners including those on parole. It was also involved in what was called “kindred social work,” a rather amorphous term meaning almost anything that came the Probation Service’s way, including “matrimonial reconciliation.” This in contrast to the immediate period before privatisation when it had fewer duties, and the post privatisation period when it had even fewer.

Even so, it was still an active service right up to the time it was privatised. To give some idea of the extent of its work these are the figures for the year 2011, i.e. three years before privatisation. Then the caseload was 243,000, and of these 160,000 offenders were on court orders, the remainder were on post release supervision. The average length of a Community Order for offenders was 14.9 months, where 55% of these orders ran their course and were completed successfully, with another 10% terminated for “good progress.” The remainder were either breached for failing to comply with the conditions of their order or the offenders were convicted of a further offence. The figures show that 32% of those on an order had seven or more previous convictions, suggesting the service was often dealing with serious offenders, although there were equally many who were less serious. The service prepared 218,000 reports for the courts.⁸

The service has traditionally supervised a whole range of offenders, many with long standing personal problems, and many with the characteristics we associate with disadvantage. For example, in 2001, 66% of the men and 55% of the women being supervised had problems of drug use, and 52% of the men and 71% of the women had no qualifications from school or work. There were 67% who were unemployed, and 48% had literacy levels of 11years or below, with 14% of the women and 7% of the men being classed as psychotic.⁹ These figures suggest the service was dealing with some of the more difficult offenders to rehabilitate.

During most of its history, and especially during that Golden Age, there were numerous characteristics which distinguished the Probation Service from other criminal justice agencies. Traditionally the service offered a vision of a penal system where crime was as a result of defects in personal relationships, created as a result of a malign influence on offender’s lives. This was in contrast to that vision which involved just deserts and deterrence. That Probation vision or “the probation ideal,” as it was often called was the centrepiece through which the probation image was kept alive.

Protecting this ideal was important. It was more than concern about resisting change but about protecting an ethos, an approach, an ideology, an aura perhaps. For a service that seldom sought publicity it had nonetheless acquired a certain mystique. It was able to paint pictures according to its own precepts and images. Its training and expertise always emphasised the plight of the offender, often pointing to defects in the offender’s background or upbringing as the basis of that plight. As such it was a strong supporter of the type of rehabilitation which was based on developing a personal relationship between the Probation Officer and the offender. The strength of that relationship would supposedly determine the outcome; a strong relationship would mean an increase in personal welfare and perhaps less criminality, the converse leading to more. Personal relationships therefore were the key. Those relationships were not only aimed at directing the offender towards a better future, but to offset the detriments and failings of the offender’s past. Rehabilitation, according to the Probation Service, was best achieved through human contact. In this it claimed to excel.

There is little doubt the Probation Service was strengthened and advanced by the reputation gained for the honesty and probity of its officers which stemmed from their background and their sense of public commitment. Generally speaking, the service has been trusted by the courts and the public alike – and indeed by almost all the offenders with whom it has been in contact. What has always been demanded of its officers was a certain type of person – almost saint like according to some commentators – with a strong focus towards public service. And in this respect it appears to have been successful, whether in the creation of its image, or the actions of its staff. An ethic of public service was often underpinned by a religious or political belief, and frequently a mixture of both. The book The golden age of probation (2014), written by a number of officers recalling their career experiences, is instructive on this point. Many became successful and did so from relatively humble origins, but were attracted to probation work by a deep sense of Christian belief and charity. The public service ethic was their driving force and was freely acknowledged and accepted. It had to be, for they were certainly not well paid. Jim Cannings, who later became Chief Probation Officer in Derbyshire said when working in London in the 1960s he was not “earning enough to keep a family” and “less than some of the young men on probation working as scaffolders or digging tunnels on extensions to the Underground.”¹⁰ And this after a three year training programme, two of which were at university and one on a poorly paid Home Office grant.

I do not want to convey an image of Probation Officers as always being wrapped around a saintly do-good image, unable to change with the times and unaffected by the outside world. That was never true of all Probation Officers and at all times. And certainly less so after the mid 1970s and beyond. Nonetheless the saintly approach still lingered although it was gradually replaced, at least in some quarters, and sometimes very slowly, by a new group of officers wanting to know what works and how best to reduce criminality. These later Probation Officers were no less hard working than their predecessors, but for the most part were more willing to move away from a casework-therapeutic approach, being otherwise trained and more knowledgeable about crime and offenders. In the mid 1970s for example the problem of substance abuse was taken more seriously, and closer alliances were being made with the voluntary sector. Drug workers were coming into the offices to carry out joint assessments in ways that never occurred before. Times were changing, but whether the change was as comprehensive or as swift as required is a moot point.

Nor do I wish to convey the image of a service in its “Golden Age” staffed by high quality Probation Officers, who, when compared with the post privatised officers, were superior in every way. It is easy to believe the “Golden Age” was the high point of probation practice, and the service has deteriorated thereafter, but things were never that simple. Had there been such inspections during that “Golden Age” as there are in the post privatised world I suspect some awkward truths would have been revealed. Not all officers were hard working, skilful, and beloved by their “clients.” Such faults as existed were never brought out into the open, inadequacies were covered by keeping out of the spotlight.

Yet in spite of it all, most governments, at least since the 1990s, did see the Probation Service as a dedicated service, although they may not have seen it as an organisation that fitted easily into the modern criminal justice system. It was an awkward service administratively. It was not part of the custodial system, its members generally being unsympathetic to the prison system, yet it was required to supervise offenders on release. Nor was it part of the community system, members also seemingly unsympathetic to the Community Service Order which they regarded as punitive, albeit that community service provided an alternative to custody. And the Probation Order itself was odd, in that it was a Court Order yet was “instead of punishment,” i.e. not a community penalty in the strictest legal sense of that term. The offender had to agree to being placed on probation, a legal anomaly if there ever was one. In short it seemed not to belong anywhere.

Its connection and relationship to the courts, and its subsequent rise to prominence, can only be understood in terms of the history of the service. Briefly, this goes back at least to the mid-19th Century when famously John Augustus, a cobbler from Boston, Massachusetts, USA, undertook to stand bail for offenders and supervise them before their sentence. He was not an officer of the court, this was a later development, but he did offer a service which the courts accepted. He was apparently successful, especially dealing with offenders with alcohol problems and those who were poor. So much so that his approach and techniques were taken up by a number of others who continued the work. The basis of probation was therefore settled early; instead of a sentence of the court the offender was looked after for a stipulated period by a person who cared for the offender’s welfare. It was rehabilitation or reform was based on a belief in the welfare of the offender. The court became the Probation Officer’s power base.

From these rather humble beginnings the Probation Service flourished and for the latter half of the 20th Century was prominent in criminal justice. It became an internationally respected service, as well as a national one. The change therefore from that somewhat lofty position to that following privatisation has been unprecedented, whether so compared with any other government department, but let alone in criminal justice. It is doubtful if much of that early ethos has remained, there being few remnants of that original probation ideal. Privatisation has chang...