Published: Thursday, 12th March, 2009 8:30am

A Red Nose beats a red face

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ONE might imagine the jobs of probation officers would be immune from the ravages of the recession.

After all the numbers of offenders in need of their guidance, pre-trial and post-prison care and counselling, is hardly likely to decrease any day soon. And if unemployment gets anywhere close to the worst case scenario then criminal activity across society is likely to rise proportionately.

Making more than 100 probation officers redundant in the Thames Valley as an economic measure would appear fairly shortsighted. To our knowledge there are very few under-worked probation officers, so any potential long-term savings will surely be more than cancelled out by the soaring costs of incarcerating prisoners for ever longer periods.

Let us not forget either that the probation service is a vital cog in the joined-up thinking which is supposed to ensure that, once the police have caught a criminal and the prison service has kept him locked up, he is not simply turned loose onto the streets to link up once more with his old drug dealer and former accomplices who will have been waiting nostalgically to renew acquaintances.

Many an old lag has cause to be grateful for a probation officer's support and wisdom, so the only people with anything to smile about will be the bureaucrats and their accountants capable of omitting practicality and human emotion from their calculations.

Fortunately, this week many thousands of people have chosen to do something funny for money, and while the jokes may be wearing thin, the charities and good causes which stand to benefit are worthy of our serious attention. Some of the stunts may be shambolic but the single-minded determination of the participants and organisers puts Government ministers, politicians, economists and bankers to shame.

Rather a Red Nose than a red face.