Lets Do Something Different

The Justice of the Peace Blog highlights the sort of story which really gets me annoyed for a whole variety of reasons. He quotes the recent case of a 54 year old itinerant man from Neath who has 220 previous convictions and was in court for breaching an ASBO given in 2007 and which prohibits his presence in a small part of the town centre. He clearly has a chronic alcohol problem and I'm guessing most of his convictions are drink-related and a good number will be for petty offences such as Drunk and Disorderly. 

I have previously discussed similar cases and described how up until the mid 1980's there was a network of hostels and night shelters for such people run by the likes of the Salvation Army, Church Army the DHSS and Local Authorities. They have virtually all closed and been replaced with a smaller and much more highly regulated and bureaucratic regime of projects for the homeless. The trouble is that hardly any are direct access, ie open 24/7 and virtually all have complicated referral and selection criteria.

Now all this is understandable and commendable at the level of professionalism, health and safety etc etc., but of course people like the chap from Neath never quite fit the criteria. He and I suspect many hundreds of other similar men - and it is mostly men because Local Authorities still have some statutory obligation towards women and young people - simply fall through the net. When they cause a problem, society in the form of the Courts just want them moved on in classic Elizabethan-style to the town boundary, a method enforced nowadays by an ASBO. Alternatively they are just incarcerated for a few days before the whole process repeats itself again. Everyone wrings their hands, says nothing can be done and secretly hope that they turn up on someonelses door, or die. 

Over the years I have taken a close professional and personal interest in such cases as our chap from Neath. Until he had a stroke and was eventually housed in a sheltered housing complex, I regularly supervised a man in his 70's who was the subject of a ten year ASBO which amongst other things, forbade his entry into the town of his birth unless to see me. I still find this approach to dealing with such social problems as nothing short of astonishing and will be glad to see the back of the whole damned concept shortly. 

Anyway, back to Neath man, what do we do with him next time he appears in Court? He will of course within days because it is quite unfair and naive to think he can 'turn his life around'  by himself and motivated by a good telling off.  My answer is simple, but will be unpopular. He's given a Community Order with supervision for 12 months, whatever the probation FDR or SDR says. I say this because invariably either will categorically say 'there is nothing the Probation Service can do'. What that really means is that they don't want to get involved as it will be too difficult, for a new-style officer anyway.

Well I beg to differ and in any event the permission of the Probation Service is not required to make such an order. If it leads to trouble, an interesting dialogue can be opened up as to exactly which agency is responsible for trying to tackle this mans offending, if it is not the Probation Service? Homelessness should not be a bar to such an order either. True it is unusual to give a Community Order to someone who is homeless, but there are precedents and the legislation does not stipulate that an address is required. Care should be taken to question the Probation Service closely should the order be returned to court as 'unworkable'. Do they really mean 'difficult'?

This man will have been on probation before and there will be a very thick file held in the dead file store. My guess is that he will have been very well known and may well have some history of violent offending, so his risk level may not be that low. This might be significant because of the probation mantra 'resources follow risk'. I'm even prepared to go that bit further and help write the supervision plan for the hapless colleague who might get the case.

This chap requires someone to talk to on a regular basis in order to get the full history (if not in the file). This will build a relationship and help to discover the reasons behind his downward spiral. There may well be health issues in addition to the alcohol and my guess is he has no GP. The PO can sort that as it is a statutory obligation to have one allocated. This advocacy function can be extended to discussion with the solicitor in order to prepare a case for lifting the ASBO. He may well have special needs that require involvement from Social Services and it will require all the skills of a PO to get them to agree responsibility, but that will lead to assessments and then appropriate referrals to possible housing providers.

I could go on, but I hope readers get the gist. It is ridiculous, callous and inhumane for society to continue to allow men like this to carry on being ignored when they clearly need help. We have an appropriate agency of the State sitting on the sidelines currently saying it's nothing to do with them. They just need a nudge and a reminder as to how it used to be done. So lets do something different next time.