Mike Nash

Enter the ‘Polibation Officer’

The rise of public protection to the top of the international law and order agenda in recent years has had a major impact upon criminal justice policy. The increasing focus of the concept of dangerousness upon a specific and narrow band of offenders has facilitated a punitive penal agenda which has served a useful political purpose in many countries. In the UK the public protection issue dominated the last years of John Majors Conservative Government and was used repeatedly by Home Secretary Michael Howard to create distance between the Government and the Opposition. The Labour Party, in not resisting the agenda, merely served to encourage its escalation, a situation only becoming challenged well over a year into office. This paper examines the effect of the public protection debate on agency practice and focuses on the police and probation services in particular. It considers a merging of aims and objectives between the two services within the public protection field, a merger which has severely challenged traditional ways of working and cherished values. The strength of the political climate, and the need to avoid being blamed for potential calamity, has meant that this developing merger has been relatively trouble-free and unopposed. To a certain extent it has perhaps gone further than even the Government intended and certainly leaves the door ajar for a considerably revamped probation service to emerge.

Exit the Polibation Officer? Decoupling Police and Probation

Since 1999 the pages of this journal have periodically carried articles based on the idea of a ‘polibation’ officer, or variants on that theme. The idea arose from the possible outcomes of increasingly closer collaboration between police and probation services under the public protection umbrella. Eight years on it is evident that, in a variety of settings, roles have been established which take individual practitioners some way from their roots in terms of professional practice and culture. This article briefly revisits this process and explores the pros and cons of fused roles. It concludes with the announcement of a split in the functions of the Home Office which results, at least on paper, in a decoupling of police and probation services. The future of the polibation officer is considered in this light.

Consumers without teeth: can probation service “clients” have a say in the service they receive?

Explores recent changes where, like other public sector organizations, the probation service did not escape the managerial revolution. The service has become increasingly focused in its objectives on policies determined by the Home Office, policies which have tended to measure numerical data rather than quality of performance and effectiveness. Alongside the overwhelming need to demonstrate that something is being done (although not necessarily effectively), has come the adoption of a consumer perspective reflecting the wider charter movement. Yet to what extent can a consumer who is subject to a restrictive court order determine the level and quality of “service” he or she is to receive? Argues that the probation service needs to move away from simple, numerical indicators of what has happened to ones which incorporate effectiveness. Suggests that the involvement of the consumer perspective will considerably enhance this process.

A Criminal Record? Law, Order and Conservative Policy

There is no denying the central role played by the ‘law and order ticket’ as the Conservative agenda for Britain emerged in the late 1970s. The Conservatives, of course, had for many years previous to that been regarded as the ‘party of law and order’, but Thatcher’s campaign lifted that banner to new heights as the 1979 General Election approached. An image was painted of a Britain which was increasingly lawless, with rising crime rates, industrial unrest and political protest presented as related indicators of a deep malaise affecting the country. As the above statement makes clear, new strategies for law and order were placed alongside fundamental changes in the state’s relationship with economy as the two main pillars of the General Election campaign.

Scum cuddlers:police and the sex offenders’ register in England and Wales

Police services in England and Wales have been given an increasingly important role in community offender management. In many ways removed from what might traditionally and perhaps stereotypically be regarded as ‘real’ police work, it has nonetheless become a standard way of working for large numbers of police officers. One aspect of this work has brought the police into much closer and lasting professional contact with sex offenders as a result of new responsibilities given them under the Sex Offenders Act, 1997. This article discusses the findings of a small study of police offender managers (OMs) whose primary responsibility is to monitor and visit registered sex offenders in their homes. The findings give a snap shot of opinion from an offender management team, offering views on their role and the skills they perceive as necessary to assess and manage risks posed by sex offenders. It will also give the views of these OMs on the position they perceive their work to hold within the wider police community.

Managing risk ‐ achieving protection? The police and probation agendas

In recent years the “protection of the public” has risen to the top of the law and order agenda, fostered by a populist Home Secretary. Not only has the effect been to raise the stakes in the sentencing process but also to shape the working and managerial agendas of criminal justice agencies. This article explores the potential of two agencies working to the same agenda of public protection, the police and probation service. It asks who will gain most from joint working and what might be lost in the process. It explores the difficulty of setting and achieving targets in an area fraught with so much uncertainty but etched into the public consciousness as needing action.

Criminal justice managers: setting targets or becoming targeted?

Despite the rhetoric of new public sector management, criminal justice agencies in England and Wales are still driven by a political agenda. Initiatives, such as the setting of targets and increased efficiency objectives, can be over‐ridden not only by reversals of government policy but by clashing agency policies. The absence of a clear management strategy for all criminal justice agencies renders them liable to sudden change in a sensitive political climate. Analyses case examples discussing cautioning of offenders and the granting of bail to demonstrate the “knock‐on” effects of policy change in one area for a whole series of agencies further along the line. Concludes that moral panics and political pressure are greater predictors of managerial change than sound business sense.

Probation, PSRs and public protection: Has a ‘critical point’ been reached?

This article asks if the time has come to develop ethical and legal safeguards in respect of probation service interviews with offenders related to public protection matters. Police interviews in England and Wales with suspects have long had protective measures around them and have also in recent years developed a whole range of ethical training and protocols to govern the quality of interviewing and information gathering. The measures are deemed necessary as these stages in criminal justice processes are considered to be ‘critical points’. It is argued here that at a time when probation interview training (at least in the qualifying phase) has decreased, the importance attached to the information gained has increased. As indeterminate sentences for public protection become ever-more popular with sentencers, the importance of probation officer risk assessment has reached new heights; yet offenders have only minimal safeguards in terms of what they say to probation officers in interview.

Yet Another Agenda for Law and Order: British Criminal Justice Policy and the Conservatives:

The British government has recently launched a new package of legislation for criminal justice, one that is widely regarded as marking a return to traditional right-wing strategies of increased police powers and harsher punishments for offenders. This paper examines that development against the backcloth of Conservative policy for law and order as it has developed since the Conservative government came into office in 1979. It concludes that it is now possible to identify three clear phases in criminal justice policy under the Conservatives, each linked to wider political objectives. The effect of such policy shifts has been to destabilize the criminal justice system and to subordinate criminal justice policy to political expediency.

The realities of legislating against and protecting the public from risky groups

In the world of public protection the application of sanctions to those assessed as posing a risk of harm takes a significant departure from how most offenders are dealt with. In essence, this distinction is simple to understand; it is based upon the harm people might pose in the future as much as on the harm they have already done. In other words they are to be dealt with for potential, future crimes or harmful behaviour. Indeed, in the most recent developments, discussed below, it is not even necessary for some individuals to have a previous history of criminal behaviour. They, like others, can be brought into the ‘system’ through the use of civil-law-based measures grounded upon a suspicion (or some might say prediction) that they might harm individuals in the future. Underpinning these measures and in essence forming their central rationale is the assessment of the risk of harm an individual may pose to the public. We will discuss risk assessment elsewhere in this chapter and it runs as a theme throughout the volume. Suffice it to say that there should be sufficient doubts about its effectiveness to at least pause the constant introduction of new criminal, civil and regulatory measures deployed against this group. However, any analysis of these measures over the past 2 decades might suggest that the only caution exercised has been the reluctance to be more discriminating in the use of the high-risk or dangerous label; indeed, public protection has become a very inclusive agenda.