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positive
Member
Username: Positive
Post Number: 8
Registered: 06-2009
| | Posted on Sunday, August 23, 2009 - 11:22 pm: | |
Spike i agree with u in all u said - totally - and applaud it totally.
However - that is well and good if thats the sort of thing thats actually going on. But what i see is people who dont really require the sort of supervision that we ARE prepared to give out... and alot of factory line work going on. To me that seems wasteful.
I think a total change of heart is what is needed - until then i think we need to look at what were doing with what we have? |
Spike
Member
Username: Spike
Post Number: 1039
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, August 23, 2009 - 08:53 pm: | |
Positive, I thought about this a bit and was going to post soemthing similar to yours, but on reflection i realise I have become "hooked" on the public protection party line. What you say is true, if we are to be an extension of the prison service - on the cheap. However perhaps we should be keeping dagerous people locked up for longer(how about 2/3rds of their sentence)it used to work quite well?? instead of pretending that "suprvision is an equally good way of protecting the public. Yes high risk people need to be monitored, but what about prevention being better than cure, todays low risk is next years SFO unless we can get in earlier - that was why I joined  |
positive
Member
Username: Positive
Post Number: 7
Registered: 06-2009
| | Posted on Sunday, August 23, 2009 - 06:12 pm: | |
For the most part i deal with high risk cases... but when i think back to when i used to have more lower end of tier 3s and some tier 2s... and thin of colleagues who do now, how many realistically are coming in for a nice chat, or the old hi and bye???? honestly..... in my experience alot.
The area where i work - only tier 3 and 4 should have supervision... tier 2 should not as its an expensive and time demanding resources... and years ago we had got our heads round the idea of risk following resource. |
Crisis What Crisis?
Member
Username: Crisis_what_crisis
Post Number: 224
Registered: 03-2006
| | Posted on Friday, August 21, 2009 - 01:25 am: | |
Perhaps Mr Wheatley is just using this argument as coded shorthand for the new National Standards, which it is suggested may (will) reduce some levels of contact including Tier 2 cases from weekly for 4 weeks then fortnightly to fortnightly from the start. |
heavyraisin
Member
Username: Heavyraisin
Post Number: 2
Registered: 07-2009
| | Posted on Friday, August 21, 2009 - 01:00 am: | |
"It is obviously for the courts to decide how they deal with people, but I make the fairly obvious point: fines make money, criminals pay, and community sentences, which involve the Probation Service doing things with people, cost money.”
"Fines make money". Mmmmmm, money for what? Ludicrous expenses claims comes to mind...... |
justa TPO
Member
Username: Justa_tpo
Post Number: 384
Registered: 06-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, August 20, 2009 - 10:12 pm: | |
Given the amount of fines owed by my punters (which never appear to decrease, only increase) I'm not entirely convinced that they are cost effective. A bit like UW. |
Dodo
Member
Username: Dodo
Post Number: 36
Registered: 01-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, August 20, 2009 - 09:39 pm: | |
This is nothing new. There have been calls for the increased use of fines in past years, usually as a political response to a resource issue. The same tacic has been used over the years in relation to the 'lock'em up, keep them out' debate that occurs when the prisons are bursting at the seams. In fact, the role of Probation as a Public Protaction agency was largely borne out of the spiralling costs associated with the increased use of custodial sentences. |
Rob Palmer
Moderator
Username: Rob_palmer
Post Number: 484
Registered: 05-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, August 20, 2009 - 03:16 pm: | |
Article reads as follows:
Community sentences should be replaced by fines for thousands of offenders, the head of the Probation Service says.
Phil Wheatley told The Times that his service was at risk of being overwhelmed because the courts were sentencing too many offenders to community service.
It is understood that officials in the National Offender Management Service, headed by Mr Wheatley, may reduce supervision levels for offenders considered to be at low risk of harming the public or reoffending. This includes cutting the amount of time that offenders spend with probation officers.
A record 147,000 people were given community sentences last year, while the number of fines fell sharply.
Mr Wheatley’s comments provoked an angry response from magistrates. John Thornhill, chairman of the Magistrates’ Association, said yesterday that it was not for the National Offender Management Service to say how people should be sentenced. “Mr Wheatley has to put everything in the context of a budget and financial constraints,” Mr Thornhill said. “We come from the angle of justice.”
Mr Wheatley was speaking to The Times as the latest official figures showed a record number of offenders starting Probation Service supervision last year.
He called on the courts to be much more willing to fine offenders rather than place them on community services, which he said was costly in both manpower and financial terms.
Mr Wheatley said: “It is true from the sentencing data that the courts are fining less and using community sentences more. It is obviously for the courts to decide how they deal with people, but I make the fairly obvious point: fines make money, criminals pay, and community sentences, which involve the Probation Service doing things with people, cost money.”
Mr Wheatley was careful not to be seen to be telling the courts directly to fine more offenders, but he made clear that he would like them to be used more frequently enabling him to focus probation resources on supervising prolific criminals and those likely to cause serious harm to the public.
“It is important that the courts think carefully whether a community sentence is really the best option. Is it needed rather than a fine?” he said.
The Probation Service’s budget has been cut by more than 2 per cent to £886 million this year, but the latest figures show no sign that the numbers being put on supervision are falling.
In the first three months of this year the number of offenders starting community sentences jumped 9 per cent to 35,900 compared with the same period last year. There was a 27 per cent rise in those considered low risk who were put on community orders.
Mr Wheatley said: “It is important we do not spread our resources too thinly. It is a bit like taking antibiotics. It is better to do a good job with somebody, give them the full course in antibiotic terms rather than give everybody two pills each and hope it is sufficient to do the job.”
He admitted that there had been serious failings in the case of Dano Sonnex, convicted of murdering two French students in New Cross, South London, while under the supervision of the London Probation Service. But he said that putting an offender under supervision did not remove the risk to the public or mean that he or she would not commit further offences. “I do not overpromise what is possible,” he said. “We must be very careful in alleging that as a result of probation supervision, even intensive arrangements, we have removed risk. We have reduced risk.”
Mr Thornhill said that one reason for the fall in the number of fines handed out was because of the rise in out-of-court, on-the-spot fines for minor offences. He said that unpublished figures from the last quarter of last year showed an increase in the use of fines at magistrates’ courts.
“It is wrong to say magistrates have stopped using fines to sentence,” he said. “There was an increase in the last quarter of last year.”
But he said that in cases involving shoplifting or fraud, a community penalty rather than a fine was a better option. “What is the point of fining them when financial problems have probably been part of the problem? You are setting people up to fail.”
I don't think, therefore I'm not.
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devonboy
Member
Username: Morgan144
Post Number: 43
Registered: 02-2009
| | Posted on Thursday, August 20, 2009 - 12:37 pm: | |
Wish I could read it - but this PANTS internet access I have been granted (on the basis that if I have greater access I'll spend all day surfing for porn or blogging on forums - whoops!)means I cannot. Any chance of a precis, Rob? |
Rob Palmer
Moderator
Username: Rob_palmer
Post Number: 483
Registered: 05-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, August 20, 2009 - 12:17 pm: | |
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6802599.ece
An article showing Mr. Wheatley's perspective on dealing with the 9% increase in workloads for Probation (bearing in mind the 10-20% cut in funding).
Simples.
I don't think, therefore I'm not.
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