The women who work with murderers and rapists

HELPING a murderer or rapist to come to terms with their crimes and rehabilitating them into society must be a daunting task.

While the rest of us might complain about a scary boss or an awkward customer at work, probation officers often work with offenders who are widely considered to be monsters, thugs or abusers. And yet their role is often misunderstood by the public. So why do probation officers, many of whom are women, choose to do the job?

Fiona O'Neill of the drug intervention team in County Durham, says: "When people ask me what I do for a living, they often say 'what do you want to help them for after what they have done?' That really irritates me, because if you don't help these offenders their behaviour will continue."

Lynn Thomson, who manages community sentences in the county, adds: "Television in cells may seem like pandering to people who many think should really be kept on a diet of bread and water and preferably in a darkened room. But there are very few people in this country who will never get out of prison. The vast, vast majority will come out at some point, and the question is: do we want them to come out reasonably well equipped and motivated, so they can come back into society, or do we want them to be totally bereft of skills to fit in, without any idea of how to be part of a community?"

Lynn admits dealing with offenders is not an easy job, but the key is to set clear boundaries. "There are some people who are potentially extremely dangerous, extremely unpleasant and very, very intimidating, who make it their life's work to scare people. I haven't come across many, but they do exist.

"The thing is to set the boundaries from the start. We are friendly but we are not these people's friends. We do get upset by some of the things we come across, but by working within those boundaries we can deal with it."

Another probation officer, Siobhan McEvoy, agrees. "You have to be able to see the offenders as humans," she says. "If their offending behaviour was on your mind all the time, you wouldn't be able to do your job. A lot of them want to change their behaviour and address the issues and move on.

"When I worked with lifers, I would read the offence and then meet the individual and the two often didn't add up at all. People perhaps think these type of offenders are monsters, but they're actually ordinary people.

"I had some young lifers who had to spend 20 years inside. They're put in prison and won't come out again until their late thirties or forties. How do you then start your life, learn how to get a job, pay bills, find accommodation, things everyone else takes for granted?"

Lynn explains that the role of probation is to protect the public. "That's never going to be easy, because the issues we look at are never pleasant - you're opening a can of worms probably never addressed before.

"It's also important to realise we are not collusive with offenders. People often think we try to make excuses for them, and that's not true, although many offenders have very difficult lives and if I had been through what some of them have been through, I might have turned out to be a criminal."

Getting offenders to break the criminal cycle, which often is ingrained in their lives from an early age, is always hard, says Lynn. "But if you do have some success, someone does decide to stop offending, it is a huge achievement."

How the women got involved in probation work varies for each of them, from a desire to make society a better place, to an interest in people

"The thrill of it is being part of the solution, we might have to work with very difficult offenders and it's very frustrating at times," says Fiona. "There are times when offenders get annoyed or maybe throw things around, but that's just part of the job and we're all trained to deal with that and you have to get on with it."

"It's certainly not a glamorous job," she says. "It's a bloody hard job sometimes and takes a lot out of you, it leaves you drained. There are rewards and challenges, but it's my job and I love it."