Wednesday 24 February 2016

Risk Is a Smokescreen

From Devon to Carlisle and Newcastle to Southampton the same story is rolling in, this was an untested ill conceived and poorly managed idea that can never generate the profit that was promised...even when the culling stops......the many Chiefs briefings we attended when we were assured that POs will have a role......all lies......the creativity and shackle removing innovation.....lies......the end of red tape......lies and it's now worse than ever....so yes it is bad all over the country so it's time for the MoJ to accept some responsibility for this situation...oh but they did that didn't they.....they won an award......you couldn't make it up........

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TR is even worse than many of us imagined. Many of us did not have a choice about where we went. The numbers were wrong leaving one side or another short of staff. So then rather than giving jobs in NPS to staff that were forced into CRC's they took on new staff. Recently told I have to write a parole report but must have someone from NPS at parole hearing, after years of managing high risk cases.

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All this bleating about "High Risk Cases". Probation Officer work included high risk but was not central to what we did. Risk assessment and understanding may have been (that is another debate) but not HIGH risk. As a PO in NPS my caseload divides into two categories, people who have done something horrid and have done or are doing long sentences. They are largely safe as they know their freedom hangs by a thread. And people who are truly dangerous and we all know about it.

As a PO in my Trust I had a caseload of people some of whom were like those mentioned above but the mass were assessed as Medium risk. they included all those DV cases and chaotic drug using robbers/burglars. Any one of which could go off the deep end at any point. I would argue that the bulk of my caseload were more worrying 2 years ago because they were less predictable.

CRC caseloads are potentially MORE dangerous than the stuff I now deal with day to day. My problem with my current caseload is that I am stressed not by what they might do but by what they have done. Constantly being given rapists and wife killers has/is undermining my faith in humanity and (as a man) in men.

Point is that by banging on about how you could do High risk work you are undermining the point you are trying to make, CRC demands EQUALLY high standards of staff because you have to be alert to what your caseloads might do. A CRC caseload, person for person is statistically more likely to produce an SFO than an NPS caseload. There are no supports for the staff in spotting this and when (and it is a when) it happens, you will be on your own.

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A very clear and concise analysis of reality in probation, past and present. Several years ago I used to work solely with sex offenders. This group, however, were not the ones killing or being killed by others. I've known a fair few probation clients who have sadly met their demise at the hands of other people; the perpetrators on the whole being those that would most likely be assessed as "medium risk."

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As I and others have said here on a number of occasions, the focus on risk is a smokescreen that was fabricated & introduced to divide & rule (e.g. the shafting process of 11 Nov 2013), a Trojan Horse for managerialism, a pseudo-science with which to command & control staff. The manufactured misdirections of Low, Medium & High or Green, Amber & Red, etc., are evident, as shown above, and therein lies the real concern. It is incontrovertible that CRC caseloads are more volatile & more likely to generate a SFO, but the MoJ model states that the CRCs "only" have "low & medium risk cases", and that the "highest risk cases" are managed by the NPS. The implications are clear (NPS good, CRC bad); the deception (of bidders, of staff, of the public) is hidden by the emotive smokescreens of low, medium & high.

They've used labelling theory to bamboozle & corral practitioners, and in the process have encouraged those practitioners to take their eyes off the prize, i.e. the uniqueness of the individual. Long gone are the days of discussing cases; it's now commercially sensitive, this group, that, processing, programmes, sequencing, metrics, blah blah blah.

50 comments:

  1. I agree that 'high-risk' cases are in general easier to manage than medium and low, which is usually where all the caseload volatility lies.

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  2. And what about those sex offenders in CRCs with no ARMS assessments and no Public Protection Unit? The risk remains but there is less access to resources in order to manage it.

    On that note, do CRCs pay NPS when one of their offenders goes on a sex offender programme?

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  3. Whilst a valid question; I think it is rare that a CRC managed SO would be given the requirement at Court to attend the SOTP or equivalent appropriate programme. Simply because, if an individual has committed an offence that qualifies them for a programme and scores at least a medium on RM2000 (a pre requisite to acceptance on SOTP, at least in NPS SWSC anyway), they are likely to be an RSO and therefore managed by the NPS. I am sure the CRC would pay for the SOTP if a case was placed on to it though.

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  4. This issue has always interested me. As an NPS officer, my case load are less likely than my CRC counterparts to commit an SFO. I have always wondered is that due to the large number of licence cases in the NPS and additional risk management frameworks (MAPPA) or is it just because?

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    1. OK look at it this way

      You were a 15 year old carrying a knife (for protection), you pulled it in a fight and got lifed off with a tariff of 9 years. At 26 they let you out. You have done all the courses, you have said all the right things. More importantly you are not going to do ANYTHING to risk going back in. You live with a relative and have a job. All your mates have got on with their lives or are also doing long sentences. You have a girlfriend.

      OR

      you are 23 with a borderline personality disorder. You are surrounded by a peer group who normalise drug misuse. You drink to excess and have had a string of failed relationships resulting in a slew of Common Assault Convictions. You are on a 12 month Community Order for the latest.

      Which is more volatile and which will be in the CRC. Its not because of long licences or risk management frameworks that the bulk of your caseload are not likely to commit an SFO, its because they are SAFER.

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    2. Historically SFOs have more often than not do a form the low and medium risk groups. It has always been this way. Is it as you said because of the additional frameworks or is it because information is missed leading them to be assessed as low or medium when they should be high?

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    3. annual murder rate uk about 550

      http://www.citizensreportuk.org/reports/murders-fatal-violence-uk.html

      Splash piece from the Mail about reconvicted murderers in past ten years (Spoiler alert, there were 12)
      http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2420137/Revealed-The-12-convicted-murderers-freed-licence-kill-AGAIN-past-decade.html

      reconviction percentage 550x10= 5500

      12/5500 x100 =0.21%

      If you were going to butcher the probation service on risk lines then the thing to have done would be to give the released murderers, internet sex offenders (check out their reconviction rates) and most rapists to the CRC's and keep the rest with the NPS with the addition of any rapist/murderer/assorted psycho ASSESSED as posing an on going risk (those people that police intelligence suggest have beaten previous cases or a forensic psychologist says is a danger).
      It would have had the added bonus that you would have been able to point to the successful way that the privateers have "Managed" the "most dangerous" people in society while those losers in the NPS cannot stop those drink drivers from going home and murdering their wives.
      Bingo successful privatisation showing that a few innovative sackings can produce a service with a very low reconviction rate while "Bloated" Public Probation remains a home for useless dinosaurs.

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    4. Anonymous 9:21
      Its because there are so many more of them. Our risk things are great at saying what we already know, which TYPES of people are likely to be risky but very very poor at saying which ones ACTUALLY are. Those ones self select into the NPS via murdering people, therebye proving their risk at that point and getting all the support (and major prison time) which reduces their risk.

      I once had an sfo for threats to kill, very minor details unimportant but the guy had a knife. ACO came to me and said "I notice that 10 years ago he had a possession of a knife conviction, why was he not high risk?" I said nothing but went to my filing cabinet, pulled out about 15 files, dumped em on her desk and said "Every one of them has a possesion of a knife conviction, have we got the resources to make them all high risk?" To be honest I would have guessed any of the others before him anyway.

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    5. 9:45 is right, to a point. The figures I saw - admittedly several years ago - were that 20% of SFOs were committed by clients assessed as High (or Very High) Risk of Serious Harm, meaning that 80% were from the Medium or Low risk group. So any individual SFO is about four times as likely to come from the Medium or Low group.

      However, the group of clients assessed as High or Very High RoSH only represented about 8% of the total caseload of the Probation Trusts, as was. So actually SFOs are 2-3 times more likely to come from the High Risk group, per capita. Which is as it should be, really - they're High risk for a reason!

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    6. Figures for SFOs between 2009 & 2014 seem to show a relatively constant figure at around 240 per year in England & Wales. I can't find any data identifying "risk" or context of the SFOs. Maybe someone has that information available to share? Maybe we can crowdsource the information & debunk the myths?

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    7. 18:11. Think that we might both be right. I divided my caseload into those who have two much to lose to do anything, and those who are dangerous and don't care. I suspect that the bulk of the NPS SFO's come from the second group.

      On a related note, has anybody considered the implications of the RSR tool? The risk "break" is 6.8 or above, over that you are NPS regardless (for those that read this who are not in the priesthood as it were) so even at that level the experts - and I use that word advisedly - expect a non SFO rate of 93.2%. Lets think about that, over 90% of the people we identify as so dangerous they need the "experts in the NPS" are not expected to do anything SFO worthy. Personally I have never seen a score higher than about 5.4. The division along risk lines is stupid in principle and then undertaken in the most stupid way to achieve the most stupid result,

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    8. Having not been ordained into your particular order, please explain in words of one syllable. RSR? What does that do? 6.8, 5.4? What do they mean? More smoke & mirrors to divide & rule? Another cashbuilder for some academic in the employ of NOMS?

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    9. Risk of Serious Recidivism - a NOMS tool used to decide on Case allocation - to CRC of NPS. The score decides where it goes and can be adjusted at the whim of NOMS depending on how they feel at any given time.

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    10. And it gives a % chance that a person with those characteristics will go on to commit a further SFO, not that particular person, just one with the same offending age and gender profile

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    11. Thanks JB & 10:32. So presumably there's a tool for measuring the risk of a risk that there's a risk of some percentage of risky risk?

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    12. When allocating a case you fill in two long and dull forms (of course. One is the CAS (CASELOAD ALLOCATION SYSTEM) which uses information from the RSR (Risk of Serious Recidivism)form.
      The CAS asks a load of largely pointless questions but at the end is a table with a list of five or so questions any one of which if answered yes is an auto-NPS allocation. They go something like has this person

      1 Committed a S15 offence (serious violence or just about any sex offence)
      2 Are they a foreign National being held by immigration
      3 Are they on a deferred sentence
      4 Does the RSR tool result in a score of 6.8 or above
      5 Something else which I thankfully have forgotten for now. It may actually have to do with professional judgement.

      Now the kicker is that if you DO NOT hit one of the above you could have a signed letter from Jesus Mohammed, Buddha, Yahweh and Shiva the destroyer stating that this guy is going to kill somebody (and after all they would know, being omnipotent and all that) and YOU ARE GOING TO THE CRC.

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    13. And then there's the tool for measuring your Risk of Some Other Lesser Event. Apparently it varies from person to person, but is also variable depending on circumstances.

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    14. RSOLE - ah, I see what you did now. Very drole.

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  5. Metrics and reducing Re offending is your only priorities

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  6. Simple Simon @11:47 should be in the Cabinet.

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    1. 11.07 maybe simple but they are right. New world. New priorities. I was told I need yo complete an ISP over attending a CP conference.

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    2. Just following orders hey? Need to be mindful of that.

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  7. The risk mantra is being chanted over & over again, but no-one seems to be asking "what does that mean?". I read "he's high risk", "she's medium risk", "they're low risk", "High risk at point of offence are now low risk"; "Med risk are always high risk..."

    I'm not wanting to be rude but it really doesn't mean anything. Risk is not a generic box into which people are crammed (no pun intended). This is why I would agree that risk IS a smokescreen, in the same way that the weekend patient mortality figures were a smokescreen for Jeremy *unt, and in 45 minutes we were to be obliterated by WMD. They're the manipulations & sleight of hand of professional politicos to achieve ideological ends, not real-world events.

    How many different elements of risk category do probation staff work with? Oasys, PPO, RM2K, ARMS, SARA, MARAC, MAPPA...

    Sure, filling in the forms means the information is collated, but what then? Risk-averse managers start pissing their pants because of resource implications, they dump their anxiety on their staff (or try to get shot of the case to another agency), and the whole shithouse goes up. No-one gets a good deal - not the client, not the practitioner, and not the public. The only benefit seems to be that the manager is praised for "flagging up a risk issue"...

    ...Meanwhile some poor PSO in a CRC has a caseload of volatiles who are in and out of court, getting high every day on anything they can get their hands on, exacerbating any mental health or behavioural traits, knocking their various partners about and inundating the local children's services with numerous safeguarding cases. SFOs are primarily populated with offences involving mental health, domestic abuse, child protection.

    And guess what? Mental health services have been axed to the bone, domestic abuse is rife and social services are in crisis. Now probation has been decimated and the 70% of "low & medium risk" cases sold off to private enterprise who are focused on profit, shedding experienced and "expensive" staff, replacing POs with PSOs, and generally cooking up a disaster which will explode very soon.

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    1. Never a truer word written

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    2. Lots of risk assessment tools listed there. Never forget that all are only slightly more accurate predictors than tossing a coin (which is consistently 50% accurate - as in very high/high/medium/low risk? Yes or no?)Don't conflate risk with dangerousness either.

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  8. In CRC a typical PO case is someone with a history of serious violent crime and / or weapon use who is suffering from mental health problems (anything from low level anxiety to auditory hallucinations and schizophrenia).

    If it's not the violence and mental health issues it's the domestic abuse cases (often also with a history of weapon use).

    And if it's not the domestic abuse it's the prolific crack and heroin users committing countless burglaries to sustain their habit.

    They are some of the most difficult cases to manage. I am fed up or reading (in the very little media coverage we get) that NPS manage the most serious high risk cases. The riskiest cases are spread evenly across both services (NPS and CRC).

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    1. It would be better to say that the NPS manage the cases that have caused the most harm in the past. I used to have a caseload full of lifers that I could confidently say were never going to commit another offence. Very different now.

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    2. Which is why I don't have any truck with the "de-professionalised" argument - my work in the CRC now is just as difficult, if not more, than it was with a mixed high and medium risk caseload in the days of Trusts. Yes, I no longer write PSRs or parole reports, but quite frankly I was perfectly happy to take my skills away from NOMS given the way they set about imposing TR. I don't feel any less professional for it.

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  9. The whole thing is a cynical attempt to attack public service through privatisation and at same time pacify public opinion by presenting facade that sex offending and serious violent offending is being managed by expert smaller public statutory agency more accountable to the state. You can now sleep easy. Cough. Simple as that.

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  10. Agree with much that has been commented upon. My concern is that we are moaning about what a complete and utter mess that TR has exacerbated and exponentially in my opinion (there were a few problems before TR). I want this blog to start focussing on the future and look to proposing ideas that can be adopted, if not in this decade, in the next decade.

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  11. My concern is about the future of staff training and development in CRC's. Anyone taking a serious look at what's happening to learning and development provision?

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  12. Politics has been a hoot today, not least being the response to Mrs Gove's whiney story claiming Michael's opposition to Hameron over Europe is "torture". Nicholas Tubby Soames came up with a Churchillian classic ( it clearly runs in the family): "Much though I love Michael it must be torture being Mrs Gove."

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    1. Oops, seems Gove has upset Flashman aka Hameron, & despite the freedom to speak Gove looks like being the first high profile victim of the Hokey-Cokey (in, out, etc).

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  13. TR, digital courts, erosion of legal rights (which can be bought by the wealthy & therefore that's ok) - it's all about putting the political elite above the legal system rather than the other way round. End of democracy and freedom my friends. Modern 'work' feels more and more like modern slavery. Your contribution, views, health don't matter. You're a figure on a balance sheet. TR is the most unhealthy thing I have seen. It doesn't work, yet we are expected to pretend it works fine. Surreal.

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  14. A word about the lifers who'll never offend again statement - let's not become polarised - until someone does something horrific, we don't know how dangerous people are..we are all capable of committing serious offences. Just as there will be very risky people in the crc, people cannot be held accountable for failure to access their crystal ball...whereas, those who have already done so, may do so again, if the circumstances are right. It is my responsibility to make all possible efforts to ensure it doesn't. I have a lifer, served a lengthy sentence for rape, then re-offended, another rape when on licence, he's now out of custody 4 years on life licence and I am pleased to say, is a joy to supervise, in all respects, but I never loose sight of the fact that it could happen again.

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  15. Released life sentence prisoners are NO MORE likely to reoffend than other released prisoners. Of 1691 released between 1972 and 1994, 28 committed a further life sentence, this is a rate of 1.66%.(Murderers and Life Imprisonment, Waterside Press)

    It could happen again but it's more likely that it won't happen again.

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  16. Word on the ground is that London Napo are planning to oust the GS abs replace him with someone called Waterman

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    1. Mischief though I did hear London are planning some thing big. Only ranjit can save napo.

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  17. Working links are saying that talks are ongoing between NOMS and NPS about MAPPA 1 cases and whether CRCs might take them on.

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    1. Yep it's happening. All MAPPA coming to the CRC. NPS staff should be asking questions on what that will mean for them....

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    2. Quite frankly, Working Links should be concentrating on putting together an operating model that, you know, actually operates, rather than trying to drum up more business.

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    3. More business equals more money equals more clout. Simples

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    4. More cases that they don't know how to deal with equals more offences equals more victims, more like. Now that's simples.

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    5. Yep I moved into CRC from big business. Poppi talks.

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    6. Was Poppi your stage name at clown school? The big top isn't what they mean by "big business", you know.

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    7. MAPPA 1 already being seen by CRC in Wales

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    8. Poppi means cash for simpletons. money dictates everything we do and will do on both sides. The more we make for our CRCs, the more they can invest into designing open plan offices, innovative interview rooms and services for clients. It really is simples. Meet service levels and reduce offending. There you only priority as these are cash linked. If you can't put a profit on it then don't do it

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    9. Poppycock more like!

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    10. I can't see that they will reinvest though, more likely money made will go to other parts of the business or into wages of those at the top of shareholders.

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  18. That won't happen.

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