Complaints : Effective Staff Support

Date01 June 1996
Published date01 June 1996
AuthorAnne Cowper
DOI10.1177/026455059604300221
Subject MatterArticles
115
Risky
Behaviour?
Hazel
Kemshall
(PJ,
April
1996)
is
timely
in
reminding
us
of
the
skilled
and
sometimes
unique
contribution
that
probation
officers
can
bring
to
the
process
of
risk
assessment
in
relation
to
re-offending.
An
ability
to
connect
the
seemingly
unconnected
can
result
in
understandings
that
are
not
easily
defined,
and
may
not
emerge
from
even
the
most
stringent
of
’scientific’
risk
assessment
indicator
checks.
Experience
in
risk
assessment
breeds
a
state
of
informed
watchfulness
that
permeates
supervision
of
people
who
might
be
described
as
being
in
a
pre-contemplative
state to
more
serious
offending.
Such
alertness
could
be
difficult
to
justify
if
it
were
needing
to
be
judged
by
completely
definable
factors,
rather
than
the
’hairs
on
the
back
of
the
neck’
indicator.
In
such
cases,
actual
convictions
may
not
be
particularly
serious,
or
numerous.
Evidence
of
a
propensity
to
more
serious
offending
may
only
be
anecdotal
from
other
clients,
or
perhaps
may
arise
out
of
a
range
of
inconclusive
socio-psychodynamic
elements;
unmentionables
in
a
political
climate
where
the
mention
of
Freud
et
al
is
always
a
slip.
For
many
practitioners,
the
risk
of
re-offending
fluctuates
and
is
part
of
managing
the
risk.
Whilst
it
is
judged
as
low
to
medium,
and
is
managed
accordingly,
resources
are
retained
for
more
acute
cases.
In
the
course
of
time,
many
of
the
cases
managed
in
this
way
will
prove
such
a
judgement
to
have been
the
correct
one,
and
the
largely
unmeasurable
factors
that
reduce
crime
will
have
operated
to
do
just
that.
However,
in
a
climate
of
ever
less
professional
discretion
(to
say
nothing
of
performance-related
pay
attached
to
reconviction
rates),
how
do
we
maintain
a
healthy
balance
between
high
and
low
assessments?
To
put
it
another
way,
how
safe
will
it
be
to
make
a
considered
low
risk
assessment?
Is
it
not
likely
that
more
and
more
cases
will
be
marked
’high
risk’,
and
once
this
has
been
done,
there
will
be
little
incentive
for
a
return
to
a
low
risk
assessment.
There
will
be
no
benefit
for
getting
’low
risk’
right,
only
for
getting
’high
risk’
right,
in
the
sense
of
risky
or
dangerous
behaviour
occurring.
Getting
’high
risk’
wrong
in
the
case
of
no
risky
behaviour
occurring
will
not
be
evaluated,
or
will
be
judged
as
having
been
a
good
preventative
measure.
The
range
of
separate
predictors
and
indicators
now
being
developed
in
many
Services
continue
to
expand.
Such
assessment
’tools’
require
definite
judgements
to
be
made,
not
only
of
static
factors
such
as
previous
convictions
but
also
of
those
less
provable
attitudinal
aspects
such
as
’remorse’,
’compulsive
behaviour’
and
so
on.
Used
cumulatively,
assessments
based
on
these
devices
could
result
in
large
numbers
of
probation
clients
moving
out
of
the
low
to
medium
risk
categories
into
the
assessed
’heavy
end’,
where
there
is
no
risk
of
supervisors
getting
it
wrong.
In
the
absence
of
demonstrated
support
to
manage
less
clear
situations
in
low-to-medium
risk
categories,
isn’t
it
likely
that
practitioners
wishing
to
avoid
the
worst
excesses
of
’kneejerk
management’
will
opt
for
safety?
Suzanne
McCarthy
Probation
Officer,
Lincolnshire
Complaints :
Effective
Staff
Support
Alec
Samuels
makes
some
valid
comments
about
the
vulnerability
of
probation
staff
to
serious
malicious
or
unjustified
complaints
(PJ,
April
1995).
I
would
take
issue,
however,
with
his

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