probation officer

 I want to tell you a story about my experience with probation, a story that has left me frustrated, shocked, and honestly a little scared. Today, I had a meeting with my probation officer and my POM, the kind of meeting that’s supposed to be routine, but instead became an exercise in disbelief.

It all started when I received the paperwork for my paper review. I read through the probation officer’s report and immediately noticed something deeply troubling. She had written about me without ever interviewing me. Not once. Yet, she had taken it upon herself to make sweeping claims about my character and my risk to others.

What shocked me most was her recommendation. She suggested that I remain in closed conditions. Closed conditions meant restrictions, loss of privileges, and being treated as a high-risk individual despite having no evidence against me to justify it.

The part that made my blood boil was what she wrote about my relationship with children. She stated, word for word: “In my opinion, Mr XXXX, is a risk to his fiancé’s children.” This statement was not only false but completely unsupported. I have never committed any offence of that kind, I am not a Schedule One offender, and I am certainly not a paedophile.

I couldn’t stay silent. I challenged her on this point immediately. “There is no evidence for that,” I said. “This is not true.” But she responded calmly, almost smugly: “It’s my opinion.”

I stared at her, incredulous. “Your opinion?” I said. “My fiancé’s son is thirty-nine years old. How could I possibly be a risk to him?” Her response was not what I expected. Instead of acknowledging the absurdity, she tried to flip the conversation, asking me if she had any grandchildren.

That was the moment I lost my patience. I realized that she wasn’t interested in facts or evidence. Her goal seemed to be nothing more than to paint me as dangerous, to keep me at high risk for everything, regardless of the truth.

She doubled down, saying, “Because you were away a long time, you could be a risk.” I was speechless. The logic was circular, baseless, and frighteningly personal. Being in prison for a long period suddenly became, in her mind, evidence that I might harm children?

I tried to make her see reason. I referenced policies, laws, and guidelines. I even quoted official documents that clearly stated that I posed no risk to children. But she waved it off, repeating over and over: “It’s my opinion.”

The whole situation felt like a personal attack, a calculated attempt to keep me locked up longer than necessary. There was no proof, no precedent, no evidence—just a cold, arbitrary judgment made in a room without witnesses.

For as long as I’ve been in prison, I have never encountered anything like this. I’ve never been accused of harming children, never faced allegations like this, and never been considered a risk in this context. And yet here it was, written down officially by someone sworn to assess risk accurately.

I have tried repeatedly to have my probation reviewed, to have my status reconsidered, to correct this mischaracterization. Every attempt has been met with dismissal. They look at me, hear me, and then simply say, “It’s my opinion.”

In that room, I felt powerless, trapped by a system that allowed someone’s subjective judgment to outweigh facts, experience, and reality. The cold-heartedness of it made me question the humanity of the process. If this is how assessments are done, then what hope do those of us under supervision really have?

As the meeting progressed, my frustration grew. Every point I made, every piece of evidence I presented, was met with indifference or rationalization. It was as if the report was a script, and no amount of reasoning could change her narrative.

I wanted to scream, to shake her, to demand justice. Instead, I kept my voice steady, even as my mind raced with anger and disbelief. I couldn’t understand how a professional could operate so freely with opinions that carried such weight over someone’s life.

Leaving that meeting, I felt exhausted. Emotionally drained. Angry. Disbelieving. And yet, I also felt a renewed determination. I needed to document everything, to make sure that the truth could not be buried under someone’s prejudiced assumptions.

I write this story not to attack anyone personally, but to show how arbitrary and harmful these reports can be. People in positions of power have the ability to make judgments that affect lives in ways that may be completely unjustified.

If you read this, I want you to understand the stakes. I am not dangerous to children. I have never been accused of such behaviour. Yet a single “opinion” has the potential to alter my freedom, my life, and my reputation.

The system should protect against this. Checks and balances, evidence-based assessments, transparency—they should all exist to prevent this kind of abuse. But today, I saw how fragile those protections can be.

I am sharing this anonymously, to protect myself and those around me, but also to remind anyone reading that authority is not always just, and opinion is not always truth.

At the end of the day, I walked away from that meeting knowing one thing: I must keep fighting, keep speaking, keep documenting. Because if I don’t, no one else will. And the cold-hearted opinions of one person should never dictate the reality of another’s life.