Saturday, October 06, 2012

Probation Viewed From The Bench

From Bystander M

I had an interesting sentencing hearing yesterday. An man in his 40s who had pleaded guilty to failing to provide a sample, driving not in accordance, no insurance and to top it off racially aggravated public order 'words' towards a police officer in a hospital a&e. All this done while heavily under the influence of alcohol and during a community order for assault PC.

A stand down report had been asked for and the probation service duly provided an aural report in court. The chaps advocate informed us the unfortunate offender suffered from a personality disorder and schizophrenia (he didn't have schizophrenia he was a manic depressive but that's splitting hairs) and this behaviour is very out of character.

The original community order for for 18 months supervision which according  to his supervising officer was running very successfully. I think he or she missed the point his offending had continued and in fact got worse. If that's success for a community order then I'm a chicken. He had attended 23 of 25 offered appointments which is one thing I suppose.

The convicting bench had indicated to the probation service that a community order was to be considered but custody was not ruled out. Punishment though a curfew was suggested with a program to rehabilitate.

We heard from probation about the unfortunate chap's mental health problems, which shouldn't be overlooked or belittled, then we heard a great deal about his girlfriend's, who was at the back of court, problems with cancer. All well and good. Then we moved onto looking at an appropriate sentence.

Prison was ruled out, as it normally is, mainly due to his vulnerability due to his mental health and previous suicide attempts. A curfew was ruled out as he shares a home with his elderly parents and he has a conviction for a domestic assault on his father. Unpaid work was ruled out as he was currently 'on the sick' due to his mental health. An ATR, ruled out, as he did not recognise that alcohol is a problem in his life. A program to look at his clearly racist beliefs, ruled out as he did not consider himself to be racist.

So what's left? The recommended order form Probation, 12 months supervision and a low level program requirement to address his dislike towards those in authority. So we would be re-sentencing to a lower level order than the one he breached for a an increase in offending behaviour.

Suffice it to say we did not follow the recommended course of action but a higher level of programs to address all the issues and a longer period of supervision. Maybe our sentence was too lenient or too harsh. But the tail about how this chap couldn't do any sentence because of his offending, his health, his lack of acceptance showed the inflexibility of the system and really showing, they have missed the point.

19 comments:

  1. 'Ear, 'ear! (it's an aural report, see).

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    1. Far from being the only spelling or grammatical error in this piece. It's a shame to spoil the readability of this excellent blog for lack of using a spelling and grammar check with a UK English dictionary.

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    2. It's so bad that it makes many Probation report writers look good! They at least have some excuse, as it's now so rare to get a written report that many of them are seriously out of practice.

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  2. May I venture to suggest that a full SDR by a qualified probation officer would have been more appropriate in this case and not a 'stand down'.

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    1. Yes of course you are right. But there's no money.....

      Welcome to justice lite

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    2. Since when has custody been ruled out because of 'fragility' - bet the citizens of West London might have a different slant on how to sentence drunk drivers with no license nor insurance on an existing community order.

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    3. The Court I worked in until recently (which Bystander himself has worked at on at least one occasion) uses court based Probation Officers to write its stand down reports. On occasion the bench or DJ may even get a report written by a Senior Probation Officer.

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  3. The whole point of a locality based magistracy was knowing the offender.

    Having "rules" was too expensive for petty offences.

    The desire for understanding etc is at odds with a cheap system. Asa he does not work cannot live with family and takes drugs, alcohol being a drug, he is fit for an open prison: banishment to a Scottish island, uninhabited except for folk like him. No boats except for a policed ferry, bringing supplies to those who lose their place in a stranger based society .....

    There is no satisfactory solution.

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  4. "Banishment" to a desolate island has been tried, I believe, by at least two western European civilizations. The net downstream results were 1) Crocodile Dundee; 2) Papillon. I'm against this tactic unless we can get some better films out of the deal.

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    1. Thanks for that!

      I believe that I should add: LOL!

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    2. The first Crocodile Dundee was amusing, and Papillon wasn't a bad movie either in my opinion.

      Maybe it is the fact that we only got a couple of movies, plus Rolf Harris and Skippy out of it, and you're looking for a greater return on the "investment"..... :-)

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  5. His various woes which impede his ability to comply with any sensible sentence, don't appear to have affected his ability to offend.

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  6. So all you have to do to get out of a proper sentence is to say that you're mentally fragile and bingo, you're free to drink/drive, without insurance, and abuse coppers. Seems pointless even bothering nicking him really.

    Thing is, if the cops hadn't, and he'd knocked down and killed someone, they'd have had to answer to the IPCC, their bosses, and possibly the law.

    Now if he knocks down and kills someone, the Bench in the case have to answer to...no-one?

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  7. Extremely glad to see that normal service has been resumed with two very interesting posts about cases that afffect peoples daily lives......

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  8. To some extent I sometime think the probation recommendation is a bit self selecting. Firstly, there seems to be a heavy reliance on what the offender says and spouts out more in mitigation than most advocates. The various reasons given why an offender can't do something seems to miss the point that whilst of course one aim of the report is to help the offender reform, the other is to punish- a bit old fashioned I conceed but still one of the main aims of the criminal law.

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  9. The error of using a phone on the way to a party in the back of a car. Sorry. bystander m

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  10. Change does not happen overnight and punishing someone is not always the best way to stop them reoffending. It sounds like this person has varied and complex needs and a stand down report is not always the right way to go in these cases. An adjournment would have enabled evidence of his mental illness to be produced, thus Probation and the bench would not be reliant on anyones word.

    And while I don't condone his offence in any way, he didn't assualt the PC...could that not be viewed as progress?

    As it happens the sentence seems fair, although not knowing what a "higher level of programs" or even programmes means it's hard to say. Sentencing to something that Probation don't recommend can result in an application being made at a later date to ammend an unworkable order. Wasting everyone's time for the sake of so called speedy Justice and some Magistrates over-riding urge to punish.

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  11. You know all the pressures the Court is under? It's not just you. The CPS? (as mentioned in more recent post) struggles to follow through on speed justice.
    It's no different from Probation. Forced to prepare reports on the day (not by the bench, but by "the powers that be") and authors unable to propose anything useful or meaningful, because of exclusive criteria that mean only the desired appropriate selection warrant "intervention".

    Probation report writers aren't doing it because they don't want to help. We have so few options left. In this case, do you really think a full SDR would've come back with a different proposal from the ODR? Unlikely. The SDR author is left with as few options as the ODR author but more time to elegantly put forward the simple Supervision-only proposal.

    It's a woefully frustrating time to be a part of the Probation service. And a reason so many are desperately trying to escape. (and thankfully I'm now one of them. Though I only wish it was even further afield than I'm going!)

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