Probation Services Privatised

[Gromit]

// An overhaul of the probation service in England and Wales will see low-risk offenders supervised by the private sector, the government is to announce. //

After the fiascos with G4S and the privatised prisons, is this a good idea?

[Gromit]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20953644

[dollie65]

youve only got to look at all the other companies that have been privatised in england and wales to see that its not a good idea...the whole country is going to pot!!!

[Svejk]

I know it costs ludicrous amounts of money to keep young people in secure accommodation.
Whether this could be one answer I wouldn't like to say.

[marje]

I worked for the service until March this year when I retired. Privatisation for low risk offenders may seem to be a good idea, but they sometimes have more problems than at first glance seems to be the case, which the service aims to help with. There's much more to the supervision of any offender than the general public realise. I really don't think it'll work.

[bibblebub]

it's probably a good idea for those govchums who'll make money out of it

[marje]

Just read the article and the bit about supervising prisoners serving less than 12 months on release has been on the cards for a number of years, so no surprise there.

[divegirl]

Did I just hear correctly thought that they will only be paid if they receive positive results? [sorry, haven't had time to read the article]. Not sure how that will work though... surely they would need to set a minimum re-offending time? Five years should do it in my opinion!

Lisa x

[divegirl]

*they being the private company

[albaqwerty]

Lisa, I wondered about that too. They (private company) being paid for non-reoffending.
So they get paid and 3 years later the person commts a crime, would the company have to repay that money?

To answer your question, Gromit, No, I don't think it's a good idea.

[marje]

I agree bibblebub, that's usually the way it goes. There are going to be repeat offenders no matter who supervises them.

[bazwillrun]

And you can bet your bottom dollar the companies involved will all have directors/CEO's etc that are very friendly with the ministers and their lackeys handing out the contracts

Its just another way to line the pockets of the blue suits

[rojash]

As Baz (almost) says, this is not about efficiency or improved service, it is, as always, about getting money out of the pockets of taxpayers and into the pockets of the posh boys' mates.

[ludwig]

I'm not sure about the pros and cons of the proposition, but I suspect that the government definition of 're-offending' will be changed at some point to demonstrate it was a succesful policy whether it actually was or not.
That's normally what happens with these target driven things.

[PetitAnglais]

On paper it sounds feasable but in reality the company that takes this on will find the best way to get paid form the smallest possible effort. That's what private enterprise does, so I guess it's really about the paramters that are applied. Eg How wll the "getting paid for not reoffending" criteria be defined. How long not offending? How will "offending" be defined? It has potential but it's all about the detail.

[youngmafbog]

Until the details on how they propose to monitor it are relased it is difficult to comment. First reaction is that it is bad, but that is generally the reaction to change.
The article is pretty useless, figures given for reoffending etc are for ALL crimes and not all crimes will go private so a total waste of e-space by the BBC.
I rather like the quote from this woman who has clearly not read the proposal or forgotten to put brain in gear before opening Gob:
//
Liz Calderbank, chief inspector of probation for England and Wales, queried how, for example, a positive result for someone on probation could be measured.

"If you have someone who's convicted of a serious knife crime and then they re-offend by stealing a jar of coffee, is that a failure or a success?" she said.
//

The proposal is not for serious crime !

[LazyGun]

More than a little dubious about this, personally. Payment by results sounds good, but the governments application of this premise so far - for example with the welfare to work programme and A4e - Has hardly been a ringing success.

It does rather seem ideologically driven, and a rather disguised way of cutting the cost of the service at that.

As for Grayling - He said something today in the House along the lines that the previous govt was obsessed with pilots - sometimes you should just give stuff a go - Well that might be a good attitude for, say a parachute or bunjee jump, or any number of one -off endevours in ones private life, but implementing wholesale changes to public services on a whim and without evidence is a recipe for omnishambles, in my opinion...

http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-has-chris-grayling-unlocked-the-prisoners-dilemma/11879

[PetitAnglais]

Great usage of the OED's word of the year for 2012 LG!

[bazwillrun]

It will help a relatively tiny amount of people, and they may well have gone straight without help anyway.

So you can bet the figures that will get spewed out from time to time will be yet another load of skewed statistics to attempt to show it works.

one stat you can be sure of...is that the private companies will make small fortunes out of this wheeze...no surprise there then !

[ChillDoubt]

As pointed out in the OP, this has got 'Olympics/G4S' written all over it.