Napo Probation conference / Day 3
Saturday 16th October 2021
It was always ambitious to start conference at 9 00 am on a Saturday morning. The energy expended from the previous evening’s Ceilidh meant an extra hour in bed may be required.
With only the morning left it meant that not all motions were going to be heard.
An emergency motion was passed calling for an investigation into misogyny and sexism within Probation. This came after the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving Police Officer and the announcement of an inquiry into the same issues within the Metropolitan Police. The example highlighted was how male violence against women is most often viewed as a medium risk of serious harm. While it is unlikely to mean these same cases will be deemed high the motion awakens us to the possibility that due to sexism and misogyny being inherent within our culture we may be perpetuating it by how we assess risk.
The vote on another motion on the need to revive Anti Discriminatory Practice (ADP) raised concern. Napo was using a handheld device to record voting in order to integrate members attending online and those in person. The concern was conference did not vote 100% for this motion. This was uncomfortable for many who were left wondering how any Napo member and or staff of the Probation Service could vote against such a motion. Perhaps the handheld devices showed up what a show of hands wouldn’t. The reality is that just as misogyny, sexism exists within members so too does racism. Indeed even those who voted in the right direction need to remain self vigilant as these ‘isms’ surface.
Reviews of Serious Further Offences have been handled by a specialist unit that was set up shortly after the split in Probation eight years ago. These occur when someone being supervised commits a serious offence. Testimony was given of the lack of support and the impact on officers subjected to such reviews. Rather than looking at the whole line management structure from director to officer it seems the front line officer is the one spotlighted.
With the clock approaching one o’clock motions ended and Katie Lomas, national chair brought conference to a close.
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Writing as a Napo member
