| Author |
Message |
    
The Boy
Member
Username: The_boy
Post Number: 114
Registered: 02-2009
| | Posted on Monday, September 07, 2009 - 11:55 am: | |
Jack Straw is a war criminal; we work for the Criminal Justice System; ergo, it would be worth asking him the question: "Why, as a former lawyer, did you not ensure that Tony Blair adhered to international law and refrained from leading Britain into the US's illegal invasion of Iraq?"
I disagree that an illegal war that has cost billions of pounds and led to the deaths of over a million people has nothing to do with Napo AGM. Aside from the moral issues, we ought to be at least asking why billions of pounds of our money has been spent killing people when it could have been used to fund public services such as the Probation Service. |
pipling
Member
Username: Reality
Post Number: 258
Registered: 05-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, September 06, 2009 - 12:45 pm: | |
I'm not really interested in Jack's Straw's part in the decision to go to war in Iraq. Its not a relevant issue for a NAPO AGM as far as I'm concerned. Raising such issues will be used by him as a stick to beat NAPO with and provide him with a distraction from answering the relevant questions alluded to by Fyrewalker. |
Crisis What Crisis?
Member
Username: Crisis_what_crisis
Post Number: 223
Registered: 03-2006
| | Posted on Friday, August 21, 2009 - 01:17 am: | |
Fyrewalker,
Excellent post. |
The Boy
Member
Username: The_boy
Post Number: 107
Registered: 02-2009
| | Posted on Thursday, August 20, 2009 - 02:52 pm: | |
Fyrewalker, you're not a soft-hearted liberalist, you're just talking sense. |
Duende
Member
Username: Duende
Post Number: 77
Registered: 11-2008
| | Posted on Thursday, August 20, 2009 - 02:35 pm: | |
Well said Fyrewalker.
When people like Louise Casey says Probation has an' institutional reluctance to put the public first and a kind of institutional desire to put offenders first, over and over'
and JS nods away behind her you know they neither understand nor care about rehabilitation. Jack Straw is a top flight ambition monster politician who has no qualms about telling er, 'terminological inexactitudes' (Winston Churchill) or 'porky pies' (Dennis Skinner). I can't think of a single question that he wouldn't willfully avoid.
Expecting him to give an honest answer is like expecting a cat to sing La Traviata. |
Fyrewalker
Member
Username: Fyrewalker
Post Number: 67
Registered: 04-2008
| | Posted on Thursday, August 20, 2009 - 11:29 am: | |
I attended the TPO study week at Portsmouth Uni this year when Jack Straw came to speak to the students. He gave a speech about probation's role in community justice and he must have mentioned the word 'punishment' about 50 times. During his question time I referred to this and asked him whether 'rehabilitation' still had a role to play in probation's work. He fudged his way through his answer - honestly, I don't think he even understood the concept of community rehabilitation.
One of my TPO colleagues asked him that given the economic climate, was it right to continue planning to build titan prisons instead of investing further in probation in order to keep less serious offenders out of prison which was a cheaper alternative of supervising these type of offenders and thus freeing up spaces for the more serious offender not suitable for community justice. He said prison was effective and the country needed more prison spaces and Labour had made a commitment to that.
Another TPO colleague asked him about cuts to probation funding threatening front line services. He avoided the question, giving us the old speel about 70% increase and that all public services were feeling the squeeze in the current economic climate.
During his speech he acknowledged that many of the attendees listening to him in the room probably belonged to NAPO, offering his apology for his criticism before attacking NAPO and accusing NAPO of exagerrating the figures and suggesting they were scaremongering for their own purposes.
I've never heard JS have a good word for NAPO - I don't know how he could have the face to attend the AGM - I don't think he'll be there.
Having written to my own MP, who has given me a marvellous response, I have also had a copy of Maria Eagle's letter accusing NAPO of scaremongering about front-line services. My question would be: We TPOs are heavily invested 'frontline' staff who are not getting contracts - would you like to explain to me how unrealistic NAPOs claims are? I'd also like to ask how much of the famous 70% funding increase was spent on the new NOMS infrastructure? I've been with probation for 5 years and during the last 3 of those I've personally seen staff leaving and not being replaced, thus increasing everybody else's workload.
I'd also like to ask why it is that NOMS has so few staff with a probation background, and so many from the prisons background. Is it that probation perspectives are not valued, or is it that this is the beginning of phasing out the probation service altogether, to be swallowed up by the prison estate? In looking for alternative employment recently, I've noticed projects in the third sector funded as part of the 'integrated management of offenders'. I know the govt envisage the third sector becoming more involved in delivering offender rehabilitation services - is that why funding is being cut to probation - in order to strengthen the third sector so that it can replace probation?
I would agree that the third sector has a valuable part to play in offering services to offenders, thus getting them back into the community. I also agree that probation should have a responsibility for protecting the public and helping to prevent further offending and harm to victims - it's one of the reasons I joined. But at the risk of being accused a 'soft-hearted liberalist' I also think that social issues such as poverty, unemployment, poor housing, lack of education, the effects of broken families upon people's mental health, social bonding, and drugs/alcohol issues are as prevelant today as they were at the inseption of probation. I feel the danger of losing probation is the loss of a national voice which is prepared (if it still is) to stand up and speak out about the issues that affect a group of people who are often the most voiceless. Kick a dog enough and don't be surprised when it bites!
OK...that feel's better... |
The Boy
Member
Username: The_boy
Post Number: 105
Registered: 02-2009
| | Posted on Thursday, August 20, 2009 - 09:28 am: | |
I would like to see the question about the union allegedly scaremongering to be asked, though I suppose it could be answered with a swift "no". "Why did you lie about Iraq and Afghanistan?" or "Why, as a former lawyer, did you not ensure that Tony Blair adhered to international law and refrained from leading Britain into the US's illegal invasion of Iraq?" are open questions that require a bit more effort to answer. |
sleepy Not a TPO
Member
Username: Sleepy_notatpo
Post Number: 282
Registered: 03-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 19, 2009 - 11:02 am: | |
after youyr plan to rule the world by hypnotising school children failed, what made you go into politics? |
Rob Palmer
Moderator
Username: Rob_palmer
Post Number: 482
Registered: 05-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 19, 2009 - 10:36 am: | |
I'd like to ask him (or her)
'Do you actually think we are stupid'?
'Do you actually think we believe you when you say we are not facing redundancies when we are all looking at the first redundancy notices some of us have ever seen? In our hands or the hands of colleagues? Now? Today'?
'Do you think it is scaremongering for the trade unions to say there will be redundancies when your Chief Officers have already told you that there will be'?
'Do you think I came down in the last shower'?
I don't think, therefore I'm not.
|
Dave
Member
Username: Davedrummer
Post Number: 44
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 18, 2009 - 04:14 pm: | |
A colleague of mine wrote to her local MP who forwarded her concerns to Maria Eagle - her response, and I quote, "It is claimed by NAPO that 'most probation areas' could be looking at cuts of between 13% and 25% by 2012. This is wholly incorrect and is, bluntly, scaremongering"
..."there is no reason why the probation service cannot manage within tighter budgets"
Will be interesting to see the response she gets when she re-iterates that in Torquay, given that JS is highly unlikely to attend! |
devonboy
Member
Username: Morgan144
Post Number: 41
Registered: 02-2009
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 18, 2009 - 03:40 pm: | |
I'd like to ask him why he lied about Iraq/Afganistan, why he lied about the problems in London, why he thinks it is OK to spend 170K on art for his office whilst cutting frontline probation staff, why his "belief" that the probation service would be at the centre of the New Labour CJ policy (1996 - Lancashire Branch AGM, Blackburn has changed so extremely. Also, what have we done to upset him? Then, when he asks if there are any more questions, I would like to ask him why he doesn't just b***er off? |
The Boy
Member
Username: The_boy
Post Number: 104
Registered: 02-2009
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 18, 2009 - 03:20 pm: | |
Napo has invited Secretary of State, Jack Straw, to address this year’s AGM and take questions. If he is unable to attend, Justice Minister, Maria Eagle, has agreed to speak.
If Jack Straw does attend what question would you like to ask him? |
