If you repeatedly ask someone to do something that is inherently, and obviously, impossible, and then blame him for not having done it, you might be suspected of ulterior motives, such as a desire to hide something such as your own incompetence.
And so it is with the criticism constantly levelled at the Probation Service, which is accused of not keeping the public safe. It does not do so because it cannot do so. Blaming it diverts attention from the defects of policing and criminal justice policy now going back over decades.
The probation service is a scapegoat for the failure of the police and the judiciary
Much publicity has been given to the case of Zara Aleena, who was murdered by a man called Jordan McSweeney nine days after he was released from prison, having been assessed by the probation service as at ‘medium risk’ of further violent offence. This was despite the fact that he had been imprisoned nine times before, had been convicted 28 times for 69 offences, including for violence.
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