If we replace probation officers with machines, reoffending rates will rise
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Version 0 of 1. It was necessary to check the date when reading Alan Travis’s report on plans to replace probation officers with computer terminals. But no, 1 April and Jeremy Clarkson joining the Guardian was yet to come. It was fairly transparent that the “transforming rehabilitation programme” (TR) would be another nail in the coffin of the probation service, but the speed of the burial is still breathtaking. While the words are fine, TR has only ever been about reducing costs and the handing over of lucrative contracts to companies adept at running rings round hapless, evanescent civil servants who, in the words of former cabinet secretary Gus O’Donnell, lack skills in commissioning and procurement. Much was made by the lord chancellor and justice secretary, Chris Grayling, about the fact that for the first time, prisoners serving less than 12 months would in future receive compulsory supervision in the new service. At a stroke, some 50,000 prisoners were added to the caseload of those tasked with delivering the new service – but with no additional funding. Some may indeed benefit from supervision, many may simply not need it. It was an ill thought-through, empty gesture. But what kind of service will be delivered to these and the rest of the 80,000 offenders coming out of jail annually by these newly created community rehabilitation companies; and, more important, by whom? Traditional probation officers cost money: skills, competency and experience don’t come cheap, so finding a cheaper alternative was always going to be one way to cut costs. Hence a programme of government-funded early retirement and redundancies that will now roll out across the sector. The fat cats heading up the new companies are reluctant to say precisely what the skills and training of these new “deliverers of rehabilitation” will be, but there is a tempting model in the care system of zero-hours contracts at minimum wage, which will have set mouths watering. But even the care system has not, for now, replaced workers with computers, although I dare say someone, somewhere is developing a robot that can change a bedpan. We have already made commodities out of the elderly receiving care at home. They are no longer people but “tasks” to be completed in a set time. They may be entitled to a meal, but other needs that might happen to crop up in the 15-minute slot allocated must be passed over or the needs of the next slot will not be met. Those heading up the companies trouser millions, while not paying a living wage to those actually doing the work. The consequences are borne by the elderly themselves, their relatives and those paid less than £7 an hour to do what the rest of us would not. Large salaries, bonuses and dividends are not troubled by contractual or legal obligations. If anyone is taken to task then an apology and attendance on a greed awareness course will usually suffice. So we will now commodify rehabilitation. Advise, assist and befriend used to be the mantra of a probation service, much admired by other jurisdictions around the world. The degeneration into a community police force began a long time ago, and accelerated when the service was subsumed into the prison service under the aegis of the National Offender Management Service. The correlation between the service’s decline and the continued high reoffending rates has not been understood by governments of any colour, who eschew evidence and debate in favour of quick headlines and ministerial careers. We risk reaping a whirlwind as the management of offenders in the community is reduced to an algorithm delivered by untrained people or computer terminals. We have been good at locking people up for years. It is a particular skill of this country, whose prison population has nearly doubled since the Strangeways riots 25 years ago. Locking people up is easy, getting them out and ensuring they stay out is the problem. We know the issues of difficult damaged and chaotic people coming out of prison to meet unemployment, addiction and fractured relationships. Dealing with a multiplicity of complex issues is task enough for the highly trained and committed professional. In the new world, expect nothing more than “computer says no” and a quick recall to prison. The prison service itself expects a modest rise in the prison population beyond the “Savile effect”. Expect any such figures to be a gross underestimate. As the parties slug it out over the next few weeks about who is toughest on crime, there seems little likelihood of politicians heeding Lord Woolf’s plea to take politics out of prison. It seems we will need more than one new Titan prison in the next couple of years. |