Community payback and the pressures on the probation system

The delicate balancing act facing the government is neatly summed up by this man sitting on the bench in the sunshine.

Mark Cruise was convicted of a serious assault on his partner of 30 years. He sits, deeply ashamed, he says, horrified by what he has done – but free, not in prison.

“I didn’t feel like I was punished enough at that time,” said Mark, who admits he was shocked and confused when he was told at court he would not be sent to jail.

Instead, he was given a community sentence, part of which was a course run by a probation team in Newcastle, which would force him to look at his behaviour and not just on the night of the assault.

He says it was brutal and – he believes, vital – to stop him reoffending. Mark said he learnt that while he had physically assaulted his partner – the mother of his three children – that one night, for years he had psychologically and emotionally abused her too.

“I was sick to sit in there and realise I had done that,” he told me, “but I accepted full responsibility. Sitting on these programmes you’ve got to be mindful, you’ve got to accept what you did and also want to learn.”

I ask him the obvious question – won’t many people say it’s a cop-out, not punishment enough for such a serious offence?

“Had I gone to prison, what would I have come out like? Holing people up is probably worse for the public. All you’re doing is locking that animal up whereas, yes, I was an animal that night, actually now I have had the benefit of a programme to put myself straight again and give my family what they should have had in the beginning, a nice person.”

As the interview ends, Mark becomes teary and suddenly looks shattered. He knows that just because the course is over he is not suddenly “fixed.” The proof he has changed can only be measured by a negative – by never reoffending again.

Every day moving forward is a test – for him but also for the wider criminal justice system, too.

A prison system bursting at the seams

Decisions to keep people in the community carry risk. The safest, perhaps easiest thing, in the short term at least, is to lock people up.

But with a prison system bursting at the seams, dogged by drugs and violence, rehabilitation is often a dream, reoffending often a given.

An independent sentencing review, launched by the government, is due to report in the next few weeks and much of the focus is expected to be on fewer – if any – shorter sentences, in favour of more punishment served out in the community.

While it may relieve the pressure on prison space, that pressure shifts to probation. Many are concerned that it’s a weight the service won’t be able to bear.

This year’s annual report from the Chief Inspector of Probation, Martin Jones, published in March, revealed there were “too few staff, with too little experience and training, managing too many cases”.

His main concern, “that the work to manage risk of harm and to keep others safe was consistently insufficient”.

Probation on the front line

At the probation office in Newcastle, Laura Coniglio is on the front line – committed, dedicated, but fully aware of what can happen when monitoring offenders in the community goes wrong.

“Lots of things keep me awake at night,” the probation officer tells me.

“You’re managing dangerous people. Safeguarding children is obviously the biggest priority.”

– Laura Coniglio, probation officer

“You are managing dangerous people in the community and at the forefront is always public protection. Safeguarding children is obviously the biggest priority. Sometimes there is a ‘have I done enough, have I done everything I could?’

You’re always worried about serious further offences. I suppose that is my biggest worry – have I done absolutely everything I can to protect the public?”

She acknowledges that the government’s move to train more probation officers will make a difference but it won’t be quick.

In the meantime she says the workload is high, “it’s a stressful job”.

A short drive away, some of the probation unit’s offenders are out, very intentionally visible in bright orange bibs. No confusing the message. “Community Payback.” Their free time in exchange for freedom from jail.

They’re doing unpaid work to pay back for crimes committed in the community. Cutting down trees and mowing grass to help make space for a sensory play area for local children.

Michael, convicted of a public order offence, knows the alternative. He spent two spells in jail, both short sentences. It did nothing, he says. “You just get into a deeper hole.”

Stephen was sent on the payback programme for a driving offence. It’s meant he’s held onto his job and his family and he says it’s the end of his offending.

“That’s me done with it,” he told me. “I’m on the straight and narrow, fingers crossed..”

There are a lot of fingers being crossed. The government knows that to ease the prison population longer term, community sentences have to succeed – keeping people out of jail while continuing to protect the public.

The government knows none of it works unless all of it works. Fingers crossed.