HM Prison and Probation Service.

During my Shrieval year I have had the privilege of seeing Police work in operation, sat in on court sessions, visited prisons and met with charities which help rehabilitation; so I was delighted to have the opportunity of visiting the HM Prison & Probation Service in Staines with Suzanne this week to understand another part of the criminal justice system. There are three Probation centres in Surrey being in Staines, Guildford and Redhill.

I am extremely grateful for the time given and knowledge imparted by Linda Neimantas, Trudy Turner and Debbie Knight, firstly for giving insight into the probation service and then introducing us to various members of the team. It is common to hear about the challenges facing probation services, which will be exacerbated by the upcoming reforms, but it was good to hear that employment levels are rising in the service, although they are still running at 75% capacity.

We were delighted to also meet Jamie and Nicola who explained how AI was improving their working day by transcribing meeting notes and organising action points which means they can concentrate on their clients without having to manually take notes which later would need writing up. Also E-Supervision is being trialled so that in certain cases instead of making people on licence have to always come into the office they could be contacted and respond to questions on-line.

Charley and Natalie then outlined a new initiative of a breakfast club for women on licence, who could benefit from the social interaction of a group session rather than just having one to one meetings.

We next met two ladies who had nearly completed their training to become probation officers. They have been on an intense programme of 15 months. The programme is tailored depending on what education people had completed beforehand; but anyone can look to commence a career as a probation officer and it was a real joy to hear the enthusiasm from everyone we met.

We the heard about the role of the Victim Liaison Officer, who carries out the sensitive role of keeping victims informed of any information that can be disclosed about their offender, such as parole dates and release dates; and any special provisions that might need to be put in place.

And finally we met Peter and Jerry who are two of the team which lead those which have been given unpaid work orders. These orders can be for up to 300 hours and they are constantly looking for opportunities in the community where supervised unpaid work can take place. There are currently around 200 people carrying out unpaid work under this scheme in Staines. 

A thoroughly insightful and enjoyable visit.

[Pictured is Suzanne and I with with Trudy and Linda].