Probation officers threaten militant action on salaries

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34132, 20 April 1976, Page 1

Probation officers threaten militant action on salaries

(By

JOHN BROWN)

Probation officers are prepared to work to rule as a means of halting the run-down in the country’s Probation Service, caused by staff cuts, inadequate salaries, and excessively heavy case loads which place impossible strains on highly qualified staff.

Staff ceilings placed on the Probation Service because of the economic situation mean that when officers leave they are not replaced. This amounts to staffing cuts, which in some districts have reached serious proportions.

Officers of the Probation Service in all districts are increasingly restive. They are defined formally as social workers, but, under the staffing restriction and low salaries, they consider their role of assisting offenders to rehabilitate is fading further into the background. The low starting salary of about $5600 for probation officers compares unfavourably with the $7176 paid for first-year policemen. This disparity between the “treatment” side of the Department of Justice and the'police. probation officers believe.

is a poor reflection of how New Zealand regards the rehabilitation of offenders. The probation officers will make a pay claim in July, and they will seek increases of up to S2OOO a year. They are prepared to work to rule or to take even stronger action to advance their claim, and the/ cite the successful pay claims made by the country’s State employe'd psychologists. (The Department of Education employs 110 psychologists. 75 are employed by the Department of Health, and 25 by the Department of Justice). In many cases these psychologists gained pav increases of un to SIOOO, and probation officers are adamant they will not accept

anything much less than an increase of $2OOO a year. In the present economic situation they are unlikely to get anything close to such a claim, but if they do not, they are prepared to take strong action, particularly in view of the fact that most probation officers take a drop in salary when they join the service. Most are holders of degrees. Their minimum entry age is 24, and all but a few have previous experience related to their work. In Christchurch. 23 probation officers must handle 1500 cases, making a case load per officer of about 70. This is 20 more than they should look after, particularly when they must carry out statutory obligations in connection

with court work such as the collection of fines, restitutions, and the supervision of community work by periodic detainees. It costs more than $5OOO a year to keep an offender in a penal institution, but less than $lOOO to provide periodic detention, so Jong as this is assisted by a staff of probation officers who are given the time for proper assessment and rehabilitation work. The present “very unreasonable” situation of the probation service must not be allowed to continue, probation officers say. If the service is permitted to run-down any further then what should be its primary aim, that of social welfare will be lost. Staff are no longer prepared to accept second rate treatment from the Government especially when the courts and the police are making ever increasing demands on the probation service.