Probation in 2020: insights, fears and hopes
| Author | Paul Senior |
| Position | Founder of the British Journal of Community Justice, Sheffield Hallam University |
| Pages | 5-20 |
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British Journal of Community Justice
©2021 Manchester Metropolitan University
ISSN 1475-0279
Vol. 17(2) 5–21
DOI: https://doi.org/10.48411/0w2k-2b85
PROBATION IN 2020: INSIGHTS, FEARS AND HOPES
Paul Senior: founder of the British Journal of Community Justice, Sheffield Hallam University
Editorial Comment
On the 28th April 2016, on the eve of his departure from his Chair at Sheffield Hallam
University, Paul Senior gave the final lecture in the Community Justice Portal series. A
recording of this lecture has recently emerged, and we are proud to offer here an edited
transcript of that lecture. The lecture was penned in the early days of Transforming
Rehabilitation: Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) came into existence in June
2014 and probation as a whole was still in the throes of change. In this lecture Paul was
looking to the future of probation, and given probation i s changing once again with the
recent demise of CRCs and the reunification of the National Probation Service, it is
interesting to reflect on his thoughts at that time.
Keywords
Probation; history; future; values
Abstract
Reflecting upon 41 years in probation as practitioner, researcher and trainer, this lecture
discusses what Paul had learnt about the institution of probation. Despite the massive
changes which had occurred during that time, probation was resilient, adaptable and
innovative. The paper draws substantially on work of Paul and nine probation colleagues
at a weekend retreat. There they considered their combined and diverse histories in
probation to learn from the past and present a view of what was important in probation
and how it might look in four years’ time (2020). T heir work resulted in a special issue of
this journal (BJCJ, 2016) containing a range of articles written by the contributors to this
event. Paul’s lecture sets the context by highlighting ten significant points in his career and
his reflections on that career before presenting insights, fears and hopes arising from those
and the weekend retreat.
A Probation Career
I want to start with a few personal reflections about my 41 years around the probation
world. I want people to know what I'm drawing upon. I've recently written a biographical
account of my career for a book (Senior 2016a), probably one of the most difficult chapters
I've ever tried to write. It took me back to my intellectual legacy which I picked up at York
Senior
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University way back in the beginning of the 70s. It reminded me of the people that I
followed, if only in spirit: people like Paulo Freire, A S Neill, Ivan Illich, Karl Marx, and Antonio
Gramsci, who I was particularly fond of. I had no idea I was going to be a probation officer,
I was going to be a teacher, and yet the person I took most inspiration from was someone
who wrote all of his work in a prison cell, in Italy, in the 1930s, under Mussolini’s regime. I
want to start with a quote which I think sums up how I approach things.
I hate the indifferent. I believe that living means taking sides. Those who really
live cannot help being a citizen, and a partisan. Indifference and apathy are
parasitism, perversion, not life. That is why I hate the indifferent. (Gramsci,
1917)
I will highlight just ten things that I think have been significant in my career as a
way of rooting what I'm going to say.
1. Being a probation officer
I was a probation officer for only six years. I loved every minute of it. I found skills in myself,
that I never realised I had. I worked with some of the most difficult and damaged people,
and yet found it inspiring at times, and I loved the work that I did.
2. Joint Appointment
I came to Sheffield in 1982/3. I had a joint appointment, which I loved, between Sheffield
Polytechnic as it was then and South Yorkshire Probation Service. Being a trainer of
probation students, as well as a trainer of probation staff was enormously valuable. All the
time you're sharing your ideas, you're thinking, you're being challenged. Everything about
reflexivity comes out in that world. I think I honed a lot of my ideas with my students as we
worked through things and made progress.
3. National Association of Probation Officers (NAPO)
I sat on NAPO’s (National Association of Probation Officers) Probation Practice Committee
for eight years, for five of which I was chair. I was very privileged at that time, because NAPO
still sat at the Home Office table. I took part in lots of debates with the Home Office about
good practice and ways forward. We were there when the first national standards were
written in 1995. If you look at those, they're an educational document, a way of working to
get people to think about their practice. Sadly, later versions where we weren't involved
became more prescriptive. That was a great time, building policies, working with probation
people from all over the country, and working at ideas and ways of operating. Probation is
an immensely small world. If you go anywhere in the country, you meet like-minded people
who are struggling with the same issues, and I did so much of that in NAPO.
4. Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work (CCETSW)
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