Back to the future? The long view of probation and sentencing: A practitioner response
| Published date | 01 December 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0264550519870239 |
| Date | 01 December 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Practitioner response piece |
Practitioner response piece
The Journal of Community and Criminal Justice
Probation Journal
Back to the future?
2019, Vol. 66(4) 456–463
ª The Author(s) 2019
The long view
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0264550519870239
of probation
journals.sagepub.com/home/prb
and sentencing:
A practitioner
response
Becky Shepherd
National Probation Service and London South Bank University, UK
Abstract
This practitioner response reflects on Peter Raynor’s insights into the role probation has
played in sentencing over several decades. It considers some current challenges for
probation staff in court, including speedy justice initiatives and the changing role of
reports. This article conceptualises current probation practice within a continuum of
person-centred practice which, although modernised, is informed by the traditional
probation principles of advise, assist, and befriend.
Keywords
courts, narratives, organisational culture, practitioners, probation, PSR/court reports,
relationships, sentencers
Introduction
Raynor starts his piece by reflecting on the origins of the probation service, in which
being ‘on probation’ involved ‘proving’ one’s commitment to desist from offending,
in exchange for which punishment could be averted (Raynor, 2018: 336). His
beautifully put description of probation being the bridge into the welfare state has
real resonance for me: My work as a probation officer over many years has often
Corresponding Author:
Becky Shepherd, National Probation Service and London South Bank University, London SE23 3PL, UK.
Email: shepher7@lsbu.ac.uk
Shepherd
457
felt like a form of social work by stealth, to which the values Raynor espouses are
central. Although the modus operandi of the probation service has significantly
changed since the days of ‘advise, assist and befriend’ (Probation of Offenders’
Act, 1907), the ethos of helping clients to improve their circumstances, and
recognising their often multiple vulnerabilities, remains a driving force for my work,
although it often feels as though this is no longer a priority for the service as a whole.
Raynor’s considered analysis of the role of probation in sentencing through the
years expresses frustration at the changing nature of that role and identifies several
key factors, of which two are particularly pertinent – the change of the Social Inquiry
Report (SIR) into the Pre-Sentence Report (PSR) and the speeding up of justice. Both
of these issues are considered in this response. In my role writing PSRs for both
Magistrates and Crown Courts, I feel directly affected by the initiative to speed-up
sentencing, and I find myself constantly negotiating the tension between tight
deadlines and doing my duty to the clients and the Court in my reports.
From social enquiries to stand-downs
Although there has always been poverty and exclusion, the era in which Raynor
practised embodied a continued post-war optimism that inequality could be
reduced and that support from welfare state agencies could result in positive
change. Since that era, the United Kingdom has endured Thatcherism, economic
neo-liberal hegemony, multiple wars, and the global financial collapse of 2008,
ushering in the current prolonged and brutal period of ‘austerity’, with a corre-
sponding rise in managerialism and the responsibilisation of the individual within
probation culture. Raynor discusses this in the context of SIRs changing to PSRs and
then on-the-day or oral reports (the latter also known as stand-down reports) and
addresses the debate on whether material circumstances can provide a lens through
which someone’s offending is less ‘blameworthy’. This is an issue that has definitely
changed over the intervening decades since Raynor was in practice. It seems that
greater numbers of newer staff (e.g. who have joined the service since the formal
break with social work) place less emphasis on the influence of environment on
offending, including in Court reports. This is exemplified by the offensively named
Lifestyle section of OASys, which implies a far greater measure of choice than cli-
ents often have.
This brings to mind Laureen Snider’s (2003) insight, written in the context of
female offenders, in which she warns that power structures co-opt the language of
resistance to further their own ends. In probation, this occurs with the conflation
of risk and needs. For example, including a wealth of detail about clients’ often
horrific circumstances can engender anxiety in report writers that instead of this
being considered as social context for offending, it risks being interpreted by sen-
tencers as proof of irredeemable criminality. Raynor rightly identifies the rise of risk-
focused...
To continue reading
Request your trial