To try to raise awareness of the shocking state of the Probation Service?

Jesus. That is bloody awful and so sad.

I worked in homelessness prevention and resettlement for several years and worked with quite a few clients who were coming out of prison. Several of them were among the most pleasant clients I've worked with. They were almost all polite, pleasant, respectful and very appreciative of the help they got.

We didn't work with any that were considered high risk though, they might well be a different kettle of fish.

Probation staff do a fantastic job, imo, and it's rarely recognised.

Yes, why do you think anyone goes into that kind of career, certainly not for the money. Admin and caseload aside, i’m sure it can be a rewarding career to see offenders turn their life around. Of course not all, but the kind of person I am, I know i’d have enjoyed that kind of work.

You'd enjoy working with offenders 🫪🫪

Just refuse to do the job..

Someone i worked with went to Manchester to join the probation service.

Killed himself 6 months later.

absolutely shocking there is at least no metal detector coming in. Awful what happened to that probation officer and good to see a hefty sentence was imposed but more needs to be done.

I wanted to be a probation officer when I was doing my criminal justice degree. I do think i’d have enjoyed working with offenders. I am a public servant, but I don’t work directly with the public.

Sorry to hear this.

Thanks for the heads-up, @HalfMoonRising .

It must be this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m002wlnd/carl-frampton-on-probation

Some episodes still showing on BBC 1 Northern Ireland on Monday, 25th May at 10:30 pm & Wed 27th May at 10:40 p.m.

I’m sorry to hear about this. A vital but inviisable role that benefits all of us every single day. You deserve better

Think there's a new series on iPlayer about probation service. Can't think of the name right now, but check it out

I work in a very closely related sector and think it’s horrendous.

Omg that sounds horrendous. So sorry for what you're going through. Can you anonymously send your account to your local BBC news team, Panorama, C4 News etc...? Feels like tye only way anything changes is when the cold light of publicity is shone on an issue.

Another service that’s fucked and no one knows, is the coroners service. One London coroners court has a backlog of 3000 bodies. The “hidden” public services are in an absolute state and the only one people care about is the NHS. It’s a shit show

Thanks for posting. It's interesting to hear about things we might not know about.
The prison service is in a bad state too. Apparantely prisons are very understaffed.

@ScaryTimes makes you realise what they think of us

Op i hear you. Im one too. Absolutely horrified that the response to 2 officers being stabbed is: make sure you do your training. They are utter tit's and don't even stay past 5pm and leave us officers to fend for ourselves.

That's standard really, but scary when it happens s

OP you're absolutely right and its incredibly scary. I work in a big city in the midlands, and only a few weeks ago a woman was killed in public by someone who was known to the services. The new government changes including FTR48 do not help - only a teeny amount of people can be recalled on a standard now. Predominantly those serving very long sentences, those who are MAPPA levels 2 or 3, and if they've been charged with a new offence. The state of the courts doesn't help - whereby a fraudster is given a prison term but someone who has intentionally strangled their partner gets a community order

Reality is, if it wasn't for FTR48, if the courts were in a better position, if the NHS was not fucked ... that person may well still be alive

Yet nothing is said. Because we are too scared. I know I am, and my colleagues. We are told you can say what you want - but you'd best make sure its not bringing the service into disrepute. When that stabbing happened to the trainee this week, the first email reminded us not to discuss things with the press. Ive a close friend who I offload to in general terms, she's said before the public ought to know. But they won't until something horrendous (although how much more horrendous can it get?) Happens

I qualified in January this year so close on a year qualified now. Since moving to my new office in January we have had

A staff member punched in the head
Staff members threatened to end up on Facebook
A staff member chased by a very high risk offender, who is a risk to staff. She only just made it into the staff area. He was banging on the doors and screaming
Two staff and two security guards assaulted (including biting, punching, kicking to the private area, spitting and racist language) by an offender

One staff member in that last incident was a member of my team. It was horrible to watch on the screen. All I could think afterwards was what if the offender had a knife? What if he had had HIV or similar?

None of these incidents merited a response from the head of my area saying they were aware. Actually in response to the preston attack we were given helpful tips to avoid being attacked - such as ensuring we are on time for appts so offenders dont get annoyed, completing home visit risk assessments. Which was actually quite offensive, given the incident happened within an appt. It smacks of victim blaming. If anyone suggested women ensure dinner was on the table at the time not to 'escalate matters', there would be outcry and rightly so. But clearly if we get attacked its our own doing,there must be something we haven't done!

Very much business as usual after the attacks. My colleague saw his appts later that same day.

We have asked about scanners. Apparently it isnt that simple, its logistics and money. Someone has suggested we buy portable scanners off amazon using the wellbeing budget. Why should we have to?! Wellbeing should be for quizzes and lunches and that. Scanners should be treated in the exact same way as desks and monitors. A necessary expense.

Amongst that its targets, targets, targets. We have a briefing next week, 2hours on promoting positivity! Everyone i know is stressed, overwhelmed, burnt out and struggling. Im intending on having a conversation with manager in supervision tomorrow. Im 'only' on 118% (lowest ive been for ages) but thats with very complex cases and due to us getting new staff, im actually one of the highest in the office now. Im not willing to let my MH suffer. I had a friend round for a cuppa last night and said I was anxious , and she said she can tell

The jobs interesting and its lovely when you do see brief glimmers of change. For all my moaning I do enjoy it most of the time.

But currently, its broken. I dont feel safe going into work, not really. Our job is to challenge yet I know many who don't, to avoid the kick offs.

We're being asked to do the job with a hand tied behind our back and all the tools we have are subpar and out of date. The entire system needs a overhaul because at present it isn't working. Freeing up prisons isnt a good thing. Not when all that leads to is a recall and release misery go round whereby offenders have barely enough time to detox and get stable ish on a script, never mind actually address their issues