What’s it like being a prison probation officer?

Outcomes

The emotional and psychological toll felt by probation employees was evident within the analysis. Employees shortages and more and more unmanageable caseloads had been putting large pressures on POMs and so they described feeling a heavy weight of accountability.

‘I get up and am stuffed with dread. I can’t do my job so what’s the level in me coming in. Can’t go in and spend time with the lads as I’ve 4 parole studies to do. Now I don’t know who my circumstances are.’

This was linked to a rising discomfort amongst POMS on the choices and ‘trade-offs’ being made of their prioritisation of duties and the immediacy of males’s wants which regularly resulted in choices made to prioritise resettlement over risk-based exercise.

Probation employees, together with HoMDs, spoke overtly concerning the function having modified to reply and react to present pressures inside the service, relatively than it being the function, that they had initially utilized for and been skilled to hold out. It was clear that probation employees had been burdened and sad at not having the ability to supply a great high quality of service to folks in jail who they felt they had been letting down.

Conclusion

Ms Pope describe how these pressures and limitations led to POMs feeling deskilled and devalued. They felt a diminishing sense of accountability, whereby their skilled opinions had been perceived to be sidelined, intensifying friction between their neighborhood friends and hampering their very own capacity to train skilled discretion.

Many POMs spoke about shedding credibility and accountability when transferring right into a prison-based function. The notion of worth for probation employees was intrinsically linked to their skilled id. They described a lack of id via a mixture of things together with diminished tasks, and a scarcity of assist and recognition from their jail and neighborhood counterparts, and a system misalignment between nationwide and native insurance policies and the OMiC framework.

Regardless of a number of prime stage methods and coverage choices comparable to ONE HMPPS, it’s clear that the cultural variations between jail and probation employees stick with a major impression on the standard of service supply to folks in jail and on launch.

Due to Andy Aitchison for sort permission to make use of the header picture on this put up. You possibly can see Andy’s work right here