Forum members give evidence to the Justice Committee

Four of our Service User Forum Members appeared on a panel before the Justice Committee at the House of Commons this morning, accompanied by Director of Service User Involvement Tina Braithwaite.

Daniel Coriat, Brett Hawksley, Danny Mitchell and Angela Prince spoke to the committee about their experiences with the probation service, what they believed worked and what didn’t, and what the role of probation should be.

Although all four had been on probation, they were able to present contrasting views due to the varied experiences they had of the probation service in different parts of the country.

The Justice Committee is an all party group of MPs. They approached Revolving Doors to help them find people who could give insights into the probation service from the perspective of a service user. The committee will then use these testimonies when they prepare their report recommending changes to the current system. The committee were interested in the responses of our forum members and found them very helpful and the forum members themselves welcomed the opportunity to have their experiences heard.

One common theme in the discussion was the fact that being on probation can be a golden opportunity to address the issues that have led the person to be in that situation, but sometimes that opportunity can be missed when the probation officer focuses solely on the issue of offending as opposed to the other related issues, such as homelessness, mental health problems and drug and alcohol misuse. The panel members were all in agreement that probation should be more active in dealing with the corresponding problems that can lead offending.

You can watch the video of the entire hearing here.