The Secret Life of Prisons · Prison Radio Association

The Future of Probation: Part 3 | Martin Jones CBE, Professor Nicola Carr and Dr. Matthew Millings

June 30, 2025·48 min·4 clips

Chief Inspector Martin Jones states probation has too few staff with too little experience managing too many cases.

Probation is carrying the strain now. Paula begins with last summer's episodes and the year since the general election, then moves quickly to early release and the support people may or may not get. Her question is blunt and uneasy. If more people are diverted from custody and more leave prison earlier, the same service has to hold more lives in the community. That lands less like a policy tweak than a body taking another weight. Probation is described as still affected by the schism and reconvening that came with renationalisation, not simply reorganised on paper. Demand is the fear that keeps returning. The sentencing review seems to accept that the service is struggling, but saying that out loud is not the same as having a plan. Optimism does not come easily. One speaker says the review lays bare the scale of the challenge still facing probation, especially if the move from prison to community speeds up. Prison overcrowding has a twin here. The episode names probation overcrowding too, with too many people under supervision and too little clarity about how that load will come down. One recommendation is welcomed. Ending post-sentence supervision for people on short-term sentences is treated as a sensible fix to an earlier reform. But the practical gap stays open. The review acknowledges increased pressure on probation, while the speakers still cannot see how that pressure will be handled. The money tells its own story. The contrast between 700 million for probation and 4.7 billion for prison building becomes a plain measure of where the system still leans. Technology gets a wary hearing. AI may be sold as a way to free staff time for supervision, but no one sounds ready to treat it as a magic fix. The ending lets some air in. Before a summer break, the show asks for questions, ideas, and even daft thoughts from listeners, keeping a heavy institutional subject tied to ordinary conversation.

As heard by us

A clear-eyed probation discussion that keeps the human work at the center.

The episode asks a plain but uncomfortable question: if more people are moved out of custody and into probation, is the service ready for the load? It is most convincing when it stays with staffing, morale, funding, and the limits of technology as a fix.

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Why you'd press play

For when you want a sober look at whether probation can absorb the next wave of demand.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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