Anne Worrall

Analysing Women's Imprisonment

Introduction 1. Histories of womens imprisonment 2. Women in prison: the facts 3. Women in prison: contemporary issues 4. Theories of womens imprisonment 5. Alternatives to custody 6. Feminist theories of imprisonment and penal politics 7. Investigating womens imprisonment: practical issues

‘Polibation’ Revisited: Policing, Probation and Prolific Offender Projects:

The emergence of Prolific Offender Projects (POPs) in England and Wales has been facilitated by the 1998 Crime and Disorder Acts emphasis on multi-agency working. The successful establishment of POPs is predicated upon professionals from different, sometimes mutually suspicious, agencies working effectively together in possibly sceptical surroundings. In this paper, drawing principally on our recent experience of evaluating the Stoke-on-Trent POP, we examine some of the organisational implications of establishing POPs. This includes consideration of the development of a ‘polibation’ ethos within the project team, analysis of project location, and the need to establish the value of the project. We conclude that POPs do challenge organisational cultures but that the case for the existence of a ‘polibation’ officer is, as yet, unproven. We also conclude that effective communication and line management, together with establishing credibility through action, are essential to fostering understanding of these projects within their operating environment.

‘They Were Very Threatening about Do-Gooding Bastards’: Probation's Changing Relationships with the Police and Prison Services in England and Wales

In recent decades the probation service has been encouraged to work closely with a range of public and voluntary sector agencies. This article examines probations changing relationships with the police and prison services drawing on sixty interviews with current and former probation workers. Analysing probation-prison and probation-police relationships pre- and post-1998 and drawing on Davidsons (1976) typology of inter-organisational relationships, the article argues that, despite both structural and cultural transformations, there remain cultural continuities in each organisation that create tensions, the significance (both positive and negative) of which should not be under-estimated.

Probation worker responses to turbulent conditions: constructing identity in a tainted occupation

Much has been written in England and Wales about the changing nature of work with offenders in the community, focusing primarily on the consequences of the political and managerialist pressures to which the probation service has been subjected in the past few decades. There has been little research, however, on probation workers themselves, their cultures and values and the extent to which these have changed. Drawing on funded research on the occupational cultures of probation workers, we explore the motivations, values and job expectations of present and former workers. Arguing that probation work is a ‘tainted’ or ‘dirty’ occupation and that the probation service operates in turbulent political, social and economic conditions, we consider how probation workers respond to these adverse circumstances to make their work meaningful and fulfilling, or just to cope. We propose that probation workers’ responses can be understood using Hirschman’s (1970) ‘exit, voice, loyalty, and neglect’ model, together with the later developments of ‘cynicism’ and ‘expedience’. However, these models of organizational behaviour do not capture the most controversial aspect of probation work, namely, that of voluntary risk-taking or ‘edgework’ (Lyng, 1990). While probation workers may be generally regarded as being unlikely edgeworkers, we argue that it is possible to identify elements of edgework in probation work and that it is only by acknowledging this that we can obtain a complete picture of what it means to be a probation worker in an uncertain and potentially uncontrollable environment.

Looking for Trouble: A Recent History of Girls, Young Women and Youth Justice

This article summarizes key issues in the historical conceptualization of, and responses to, girls’ delinquency. Drawing on historical material, we tease out distinctive elements of the conception and perception of girls’ delinquency in England and Wales. We demonstrate some of the inherent and pervasive myths, muddles and misconceptions in their treatment and outline the implicit as well as the explicit reinforcement of gender stereotypes which have informed theory, policy and practice over time. Yet whilst ‘welfare’ perspectives have often brought trouble for girls in terms of excessive intervention, modern ‘justice’ perspectives have perhaps criminalized girls’ genuine welfare needs.

'What works' with women offenders: The past 30 years

In this article the authors review the development of ideas about working with women offenders over the past 30 years. They provide an overview of articles appearing in Probation Journal related specifically to women offenders, set in the context of criminological thinking about female offending and current government policy.

Probation worker cultures and relationships with offenders

The occupational cultures of criminal justice practitioners are an under-researched area. In this article we argue that amidst changes in training regimes and in ways of working with offenders, different probation worker cultures co-exist which share common central values, including the belief in people to change and the importance of the relationship between probation worker and probationer in facilitating that change. Using the construct of ‘ideal types’, we describe three cultural types of probation worker. Despite differences in social and employment backgrounds, training received and perspectives on the politics of probation work, we conclude that belief in the relationship is one of the ties that bind these types into an ‘honourable profession’.

Gender and probation in the Second World War Reflections on a changing occupational culture

An autobiographical novel by Julia Steel recounts a year in the life of a probation officer working in London in 1945. The unpublished manuscript, written in the mid-1950s, provides a rare contemporary glimpse into the lives and social regulation of a group of families living on a housing estate at the end of the Second World War. Steel herself was a wartime graduate of the Cromwell Road Home Office Training Centre. This article sets primary source material, including lecture notes from Steels training course, in the context of both contemporary and recent academic and professional literature. Following the centenary year of the Probation Service in England and Wales, it aims to contribute some new insights into the history of (women) probation officers and their daily work. It argues that Steels manuscript and lecture notes can be interpreted within an analysis of state intervention in the lives of working-class families that places professional women in a tutelary and disciplinary relationship with mothers and daughters. It concludes by demonstrating the relevance of such an analysis to our understanding of the gendered nature of work in the Probation Service in England and Wales.

From ‘community corrections' to ‘probation and parole’ in Western Australia

Geographically, Western Australia (WA) is one of the largest and most sparsely populated single jurisdictions in the world. Although much of the work of Community Corrections Officers (CCO) in metropolitan Perth is easily recognizable to offender managers in England and Wales, the state’s Indigenous citizens, many living in remote communities, are hugely over-represented in its prisons and pose particular challenges in respect of community supervision. The de-professionalization of CCO training and their supposed inter-changeability with prison officers led to a service that was in danger of ‘losing its way’ and whose performance was comparing unfavourably with that of other Australian states. This article traces the recent history of the post-Mahoney Report Department of Corrective Services, culminating in a return to the title of ‘Probation and Parole’, and asks whether the lessons learned in WA following this re-professionalizing process might be relevant to other jurisdictions.

Picturing probation: Exploring the utility of visual methods in comparative research

A previous review of research on the practice of offender supervision identified the predominant use of interview-based methodologies and limited use of other research approaches (Robinson and Svensson, 2013). It also found that most research has tended to be locally focussed (i.e. limited to one jurisdiction) with very few comparative studies. This article reports on the application of a visual method in a small-scale comparative study. Practitioners in five European countries participated and took photographs of the places and spaces where offender supervision occurs. The aims of the study were two-fold: firstly, to explore the utility of a visual approach in a comparative context; and secondly, to provide an initial visual account of the environment in which offender supervision takes place. In this article, we address the first of these aims. We describe the application of the method in some depth before addressing its strengths and weaknesses. We conclude that visual methods provide a useful tool for capturing data about the environments in which offender supervision takes place and potentially provide a basis for more normative explorations about the practices of offender supervision in comparative contexts.