Offender Management Community Scoping of London Gang ...

4. Interviews and case studies
It is important to note that these interviews took place prior to the series of half
day briefings which took place between January and March 2009.
4.1 Sample
There was a two stage process for the practitioner consultations, which involved
interviews with at total of 31 staff of London Probation Service. There was an
open invitation to London Probation staff to participate in the practitioner
perspective as part of this research project. The initial group of volunteers
included an Assistant Chief Officer, two Senior Probation Officers, three
Probation Officers and a Probation Service Officer. They covered quite different
geographic areas and across the range of probation work, including Unpaid
Work, MAPPA and field work. Following this, there was a series of
consultations with “case study” areas, including London Boroughs and prisons.
This group included a further 7 Senior Probation Officers (including 2 prison
based), 8 Probation Officers, 4 Trainee Probation Officers, 4 Probation Service
Officers and an Assistant Chief Officer. These case study meetings were
extremely useful in highlighting common concerns and issues and have made a
significant contribution to the recommendations in this report.
These consultations were informal, but structured around four main themes; the
role and experience of the interviewees, local knowledge, current local practice
and issues, and policy implications.
It should be noted that these interviews and consultations were undertaken prior
to the half day briefing sessions which focussed on the health and safety
aspects of working with serious group offenders.
4.1.2 General Observations
There was a lot of concern about the issue of serious group offending, but the
overwhelming aspect of this concern was about ensuring the safety of the
offenders whilst under the supervision of the London Probation, rather than risk
to staff. All the interviewees were impressive in their commitment to fulfilling
their statutory obligations without compromising their professional task of
reducing reoffending, in a very challenging environment.
There was considerable disparity between the geographic areas in terms of
inter-agency communication and co-operation, knowledge of local support
networks or community projects. In some areas there is close co-operation with
local police officers with very good information sharing, but in others it is
considered to be very poor. Generally, information sharing between YOTs and
Probation was considered to be inadequate.
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