Total Pageviews

Wednesday 31 May 2017

Subject: IPP and Probation Officers, 31 May 2017


By Shivvy
 

Hi
 

I have just read the latest updates on your  IPP website dated Friday 26th May and first of all my I share my heartfelt relief to those who have finally got released under this IPP law.  

 

However your battle will now continue due to your licence conditions and having to be under the control of Probation Services.  I can firmly believe the person who withheld his name regards his complaints of the Probation Services and he said that Probation Services had given serious factual errors in his pre-sentencing report and that he has not received any response from the manager of probation services following his complaint. 
 
This will now also be the problem for every IPP prisoner now released who will have the very fixed mindset of probation officers to contend with who can recall you for simple acts of not making an appointment on time, enforce restrictions on you which will prohibit you from ever integrating properly back into society and one slip up or allegation made against you and you are at their mercy and you are up against such a closed powerful authority that you virtually don't get a say or if you were to speak out this will be held against you because you are still in a virtual powerless position and we all know what could happen if you were to be recalled, you are back in the position of being held indeterminately again in prison never knowing your release.
 
This has also got to change and that the Probation Services do not hold this authoritarian power.  The current situation of my friend is that he was recalled back into prison because of the IPP licence conditions by probation following false accusations made by his ex partner (hence being treated as guilty and then having to prove his innocence which is against the total premise of the fundamentals of our law which is innocent unless proven guitly) of which 3 months later he was found not guilty by the courts, still  held in prison awaiting a civil case in connection with his ex partner which got delayed by 5 months due to the simple fact he couldn't get his legal aid sorted because of the pure fact he was in prison, they could not find culpability of him in the civil court case and then he had to wait a further 5 months for a parole hearing.  He has now spent 17 months in prison only because of an initial false accusation made against him in the first place of which both court reports demonstrated that his ex partner was an unreliable witness and was lying. 
 
He used his time effectively in prison, undertook courses, employment and has very positive prison reports and his OMU officer recommended his release yet his external probation officer didn't suggesting further stay in prison to complete a behavioural / psychotherapy intense programme within another prison of minimum of 6 months. 
 
 This probation officer had virtually not seen him through out all of his time in prison, had not even seen the court reports which were in his favour, totally dismissed all his courses undertaken in  prison and positive prison reports with even the employer of the prison job that he has been "employed" in within the prison actively offering him employment upon his release and because he said to the probation officer due to her intimidating attitude to him upon her meeting with him one week before the parole hearing date that he could not work with her of which she had left until just 1 week before his parole hearing date to submit her recommendation but at this point she verbally had said she would recommend release then 2 days before the parole hearing she now did not recommend release. 
 
The OMU officer who had recommended his release then had to say that if he said he could not work with the probation officer it had a knock on effect on the OMU's decision about recommending release. 
 
The fact is this probation officer which I believe came from the influence of her supervisory probation officer who always had a biased attitude to him of which was obvious from comments made to him and about me and from what conversations I had with the probation officer can be classed as bullies but the probation officer had also failed to do her job properly and not assimilating all the evidence of  not guilty and favorable court and prison reports in front of her and ongoing review of his time in prison and that after 17 months in prison of which 10 months of that was due to delays in court and parole hearings that it is appalling that she could even suggest further time in prison and then suggesting some type of programme within another prison which is just another waste of tax payers money keeping people imprisoned unnecessarily let alone the real mental anguish caused to the prisoner .  Consequently his parole hearing  has not resulted in his release.
The Probation Officers and Services need to be held account and I will ensure that this will be done and I urge for anybody who now finds problems with their Probation Officers to do the same as follows:

 

  • A formal complaint will go to the Probation  Services.  I emailed this probation officer to express my concern over her decision making put very constructively and asked for the names of her who her supervisor was and line managers.  An email was purposely sent so that there is transparency and a record of any communication which can then not be twisted by the probation service.  I was advised the following:


Should you wish to submit a written complaint, copies of the National
Probation Service complaints procedure can be obtained by written request
to:


Complaints Department,
National Probation Service,
5th Floor Oakland House,
Talbot Road,
Old Trafford,
M16 0PQ.

Information in regard to the National Probation Service complaints
procedure can also be viewed at:
www.gov.uk/government/organisations/national-offender-management-service/about/complaints-procedure

Alternatively, copies of the National Probation Service complaints
procedure can be sent by mail upon reciept of a suitable address.
 
  • Before I proceed with the complaint which will be taken to the Prison and Probation Ombudsmen upon a unsatisfactory response his prison lawyer is currently reviewing the case to see if there are grounds for judicial review due to failure of processes of how the Parole Board came to their decision which I believe can be directly related to the recommendations of Probation Services  and as far as I am concerned and I am hoping this can go and will go to the High Court
  • Every IPP prisoner should make sure that they have legal representation upon a Parole Hearing of which they are entitled to and that if they are unsatisfied with their Parole Hearing decision and if there has been flaws in the recommendations by Probation Officers that this should be legally challenged when suitable.
  • That upon the results of the above I will be going to the newspapers for the newspapers to investigate and expose the unscrupulous practice of which is so regularly heard about by the recipients of probation services such as the person who wanted to withhold his name and that I urge every person under the probation services to request that any interviews with them are recorded so that there is total transparency of any meetings that have taken place and this will indeed be a campaign that I want the newspapers to carry out that it will in the future be a requisite of probation services for all meetings to be recorded just as it is now normal practice for police interviews to be interviewed in order to certify that the information is an accurate summary of the available evidence and that any meetings were conducted professionally.  If the probation services have nothing to hide this should not be any problem to them what so ever.  Please keep your own record of any meetings with probation officers.
I would strongly recommend for all the IPP prisoners now released and who are adjusting back to life on civilian street and with my very best wishes to them but to continue to fight on and further protect themselves from this horrendous IPP law which also means have to take every protective measures against probation officers who have the very fixed mindset of that you are labelled as a violent person because of this IPP law and that they have to protect society and no matter what good positive behaviour you show they are only interested in protecting themselves and will be so over cautious in their practice and to take you of their books and accountability that it might not take much to recall you or put you under such restrictive measures rather than rehabilitating you back into society that their practice can be seen as unfair and unjust and that you are virtually powerless to do anything about it. Please keep your own record of any of your concerns of which when the time comes collectively as a society probation services can be nationally challenged with the help of media coverage or that you take your own personal grievance to the probation services complaints department although like me you may feel that even when doing this that nothing will change but it remains so important to stand up for your rights and that the more that any problem is raised then eventually things could change. 

Kind regards
 

Shivvy.
 

 

Jez 

I thought this data would be interesting, Link below to the document concerned. There were 3,528 IPP prisoners as at 31 March 2017 which represents a decrease of 15%
in the last 12 months. This figure has fallen by 42% since the June 2012 peak of 6,080,
HOWEVER, the number of IPP prisoners who have been recalled to custody continues to...
increase; in the past year the recalled IPP population has increased by 26% (to 711)
The trouble is if they send them back for trivial things we just end up with more guys giving up and refusing parole. The probation service need to be more tolerant with prisoners on license, especially those on IPP and DPP. DPP by the way is the same as ipp but it was a sentence given to children.

 
Published  27April www.gov.uk
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/610969/offender-management-statistics-bulletin-oct-dec-2016.pdf
Horton
Comparing that number with the number in custody in September 2016 (so eight months ago), the rate of release does not seem to have gone up very much - about 600 a year compared to 500 or so previously. It will still take 5-6 years to get round to releasing them all - and that's without any more being recalled.
 
You know, my overall concern that I see is not being address for those of us that have come to understand that we are not going to ever master standardized academic standard in our life time and that doesn't need to simply be viewed as we have giving up on learning. Perhaps for many, they have, just giving up on the Education systems that rejected and thrown them away because that may be the best way that Educational System knows how to deal with those few of us, that can't seem to meet the standardized academic standard mandate set forth in our societies.
 
Mullis #standardizedstress ....
 
Howard Yes, I think it is such a waste of time & money, locking people up & not spending that money on actively helping them deal with their issues & turning their lives around so that they can be part of productive society & valued.
 

 

 
 
 
 
 
If you would like to post to the website  Email katherinegleeson@aol.com

No comments:

Post a Comment

comment

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.