Following the disturbances seen across the country last month, there was much talk about the severity of sentencing and the level of the use of prison both for remand purposes as well as for punishment. While these issues need to be addressed, it’s also important not to loose sight of the soft skills that are required when developing a working relationship with offenders, whether as a prison or a probation officer or in any other capacity.
Heather Munro, the new head of the London Probation Service recently highlighted this when she expressed a ‘new’ approach to managing offenders: respect. Over a lifetime of probation work, she has come to believe that listening to offenders when they express needs and treating them with the same respect businesses show their customers can help to change behaviour and reduce reoffending.
“If we want to cut crime, then vengeance and punishment, disguised as public protection, can no longer remain the cornerstone of the criminal justice system. We should stop reinforcing the loveless and disrespectful world offenders know so well and instead subject them to the tough love that has been denied them at home. We need individual, person-centred programmes to help them change because change is possible in anyone who has the capacity to be honest.”
When respect is at the heart of the relationship, this can be the catalyst to motivate an individual to enter into an alliance with the officer and participate in a process, even if not convinced or its effectiveness. Often, the client will be starting supervision in a state of personal crisis using phrases such as being ‘at absolute rock-bottom,’ ‘I was so depressed,’ ‘I didn’t think I would pull through.’ Problems relating to drugs, alcohol, depression, mental health and relationships would feature heavily in their lives. From this starting point, the offender would have low expectations of the process benefitting them. This entry-point highlights the importance for the officer to develop and sustain a respectful attitude and vision towards the client. (See blog entry: Emotional Proximity, 29/7/11)
When this occurs, the client group will describe the most important qualities in their officers as ‘listening, understanding, approachability, and empathy. Trust is also a dominant quality, inspiring confidence, honesty and truthfulness. When such a relationship develops between the two parties, this underpins each stage in the course of offender supervision: a full assessment, delivering meaningful messages, persuasion of active engagement in methodology, supporting the offender through lapse or relapse (which frequently resembles an act of friendship), and final disengagement from supervision.
However, change doesn’t occur in a vacuum: it is a complex interaction between the offender, the officer, and the range of interventions deployed. At the heart of the relationship lies the trust that offenders speak of which allows them to engage with the work required of them. Offenders will describe such a relationship as one of friendship and trust: ‘someone I could talk to,’ ‘a safe geezer,’ ‘she treated me like an equal.’
If evidence-based practice is to continue to be the key to effective supervision, more and more we need to hear about the successes that are out there. We need to hear about these anecdotes within the Criminal Justice Service, within the community, within the local media, and within the national media. These stories must not be overlooked when devising new structures for service delivery.
An old Romany saying is that, ‘Stories have wings. They fly from mountain-top to mountain-top.’ It’s you and I that give them flight.
