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From The Socialist newspaper, 21 July 2010
Keep probation services public
IN HIS interview (The Socialist 632), Brian Caton rightly highlights the hypocrisy of Ken Clarke's plans to cut the prison population by increasing community sentences.
Barry Conway
As a probation officer, responsible for overseeing offenders in the community, I listened with interest as Clarke gave lengthy radio interviews about the importance of rehabilitation without once mentioning the probation service. As with prisons and all other public services, this government is planning to slash our budgets massively.
This year alone, the probation service has been told to cut £44 million and anticipates double this amount over the next two years. Cuts of this size will mean 20% fewer can be supervised safely in the community. So what is Clarke up to?
As Brian Caton points out, Clarke and his colleagues are looking for private companies and charities to do this work, and big business stands to make a healthy profit. Clarke gave the game away on the Today programme when he talked about "paying by results" to companies that show they stopped someone offending for two years by getting them a job or putting them through a rehabilitation programme.
But this is like telling a doctor that you will only pay them if the patient is cured. The logic of this is that you will only treat those you think you have a good chance of saving! So what happens to all the others with complex drug, mental health and personality problems in the prison system?
Prison and probation staff should stand united in defending our public services. We need also to fight for political change that can start to address the massive social inequalities that are the basis of much of the crime and anti-social behaviour in our communities.
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The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.
The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.
The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.
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In The Socialist 21 July 2010:
Socialist Party youth and students
Youth and students: organise to fight for a future
Socialist Party Marxist analysis
Anti-cuts campaign
Education workers must teach Tories a lesson
Socialist Party workplace news
Wales: No to fire service cuts
Strike action wins at Tube Lines
Socialist Party workplace analysis
PCS: a strategy to stop the cuts
Unite the struggle to defend pensions
Socialist Party NHS campaign
Con-Dems propose denationalisation of the NHS
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Comment
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Keep probation services public
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