John Deering

Probation practice and the new penology : practitioner reflections

Contents: Introduction Late modernity, the new penality, managerialism and the culture of organisations The development of penal and correctional policy and its impact on probation practices and culture Attitudes, values and beliefs in the probation service Reflections on practice 1: the assessment of offenders Reflections on practice 2: the enforcement of community orders and post custody licences Reflections on practices 3: case management and the supervision of offenders Probation practice in the early 21st century? Probation and the new penality: conclusions and looking forward Bibliography Index.

Privatising Probation: Is Transforming Rehabilitation the End of the Probation Ideal?

Over the past 20 years, there have been many changes to probation governance in England and Wales aimed at controlling it from central government. However, the changes introduced under the Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) agenda, introduced in 2013, are unprecedented: the service has been divided and part-privatised and no longer exists as a unified public body. This topical book looks at the attitudes of probation practitioners and managers to the philosophy, values, and practicalities of TR. Based on a unique online survey of over 1300 respondents which found that they were unequivocally opposed to its broad aims and objectives, it provides unique insights into the values, attitudes and beliefs of probation staff and their delivery of services. Including broader discussion of the privatisation/marketisation debate, the context of privatisation of criminal justice services and questions of legitimacy and governance, this is essential reading for everyone interested in the future of the service.

The transition from public to private in probation: Values and attitudes of managers in the private sector

This article reports the values and attitudes of a small sample of managers working for the private sector in criminal justice roles. All had previously had careers within the probation service. Their reasons for moving are discussed, along with their views of the relative merits of public and private criminal justice provision. In the main, their views appear underpinned by a clear acceptance of the legitimacy of a role for the private (and third sectors) in the criminal justice system that echo recent pronouncements by the Coalition government. However, their values in other regards reflect what might be seen to be more ‘traditional probation values’.

Revising Wolff’s support for retribution in theories of punishment: desistance, rehabilitation, and accommodating individual and social accounts of responsibility

ABSTRACT Jonathan Wolff supports retribution as a justification for punishment in his book Ethics and Public Policy: A Philosophical Enquiry, arguing that the victim’s status and self-respect has been undermined by a crime committed. Punishment responds to these ‘social violations’, with the criminal justice system acting as a ‘communicative mechanism’ to the offender and victim, restoring the status of the victim by punishing the offender. Consistent with Wolff’s ‘bottom-up’ methodological approach to applied ethics, this paper defends his conclusions supporting retribution, for certain crimes at least, but his position needs qualifying and supplementing. We mount a defence of retribution which, contrary to popular views, seeks to accommodate both individual and social accounts of responsibility. This accommodation is achieved by holding the individual offender responsible via retributive justifications of punishment, while also acknowledging the social responsibility of restoring the status of the offender given the social injustice experienced by many offenders, prior to their offending. Following this analysis, and a consideration of empirical studies concerning probation practice, we recommend the practice of desistance as most likely to help reduce re-offending, alongside the social responsibility of other state representatives and social institutions for building socio-economic capital for the offender.

Voices from Practice – What Probation Has Been and What It Could Become

This chapter considers the degree to which two different constituencies agree about the purposes and values of the probation service. The official government view is examined alongside those of probation practitioners, using ‘voices from practice’ – a series of mainly empirical but also theoretical studies. The broad conclusion drawn is that practitioners have continued to join the service for ‘traditional’ reasons associated with approaches based in a belief in ‘help’ and ‘rehabilitation’, rather than ‘offender management’ and punishment. In this way, some elements of practice have had a different emphasis from those of government and represent a degree of resistance to successive governments’ plans for the service in recent decades.