Wendy Fitzgibbon

Defending probation: Beyond privatisation and security:

The current debate about the privatisation of probation in the UK has tended to set up a false dichotomy between state and private that diverts attention from the fact that privatisation as part of a ‘rehabilitation revolution’ intends, in fact, to continue the domination of the risk management approach. What is emerging is a public–private combination of increasingly centralised public sector probation and the private ‘security-industrial complex’ of global security corporations. An important consequence of this process is the annihilation of both residual elements of voluntary sector and community work within probation itself and of the smaller private charities and third sector organisations that have long collaborated with probation in traditional desistance work. This complex dynamic is a reflection of some of the key internal inconsistencies of neoliberalism as a political strategy.

A risky business: An examination of Irish probation officers’ attitudes towards risk assessment

This article examines recent research on risk assessment and probation practice in Ireland and relates the findings to the ongoing debate regarding risk management practices in probation. The piece discusses current theoretical arguments on the influence of risk in criminal justice and outlines the impact of risk discourse on probation practice in Ireland and England and Wales. Using a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods, Irish probation officers’ attitudes are examined in order to highlight key issues facing probation officers when making risk decisions. These findings are compared and contrasted to other research results from England and Wales. All the conclusions identify both positive and negative consequences of adopting risk tools and point to the continued salience of clinical judgment over actuarial methods of risk assessment. It is argued that the research highlights the role of ‘resistance’ by criminal justice professionals in mediating the effects of the ‘new penology’ at the level of implementation. The idea of resistance holds particular relevance for probation practice in Ireland where professional discretion is maintained within the National Standards framework. Despite this, to date there has been an uncritical approach taken to risk assessment which may ignore the dangers of risk inflation/deflation and the need to take into account local factors in assessing risk of reoffending.

In the eye of the storm: The implications of the Munro Child Protection Review for the future of probation

On their election the new coalition government appeared to be keen to review and revise child protection policy following the fallout from the Baby Peter case and the consequent crisis in confidence in social work. This article re-examines the underlying motives for this review and then investigates what the implications of the Munro review are for the future of public protection and the probation service generally.

Riots and probation: governing the precariat

©2013 Centre for Crime and Justice Studies 10.1080/09627251.2013.833787 The young people who took to the streets in August 2011 (see issue 87 of cjm) could be described as coming from what Guy Standing (2011) has characterised as the ‘precariat’. Overwhelmingly from deprived communities, either in and out of insecure, low wage, unskilled employment or facing the prospect of such a status when leaving secondary education, many suffered additional marginalisation though previous criminalisation, special needs or education exclusions.

A Question of Family? Youth and Gangs

The role of the family as a key factor in encouraging gang membership and criminality is hotly debated. Recent political rhetoric in the UK has highlighted the correlation between ‘troubled families’ and the rise in youth crime and gang-related violence. This article is concerned with exploring the role of the family in the formation of gangs, gang-related criminality and desistance. The overall aim of the article is to review the research literature. It posits that the evidence that connects the family to ‘gang’ membership is far from conclusive and argues that the aetiology of gang formation and criminality cannot simply be reduced to poor home environments or ‘broken’ families.

Police, probation and the bifurcation of community

The police and probation services are agencies that have traditionally had close relations with the communities in which they work. Both agencies exhibit tensions in their relations with the community: in policing, in the relation between centralised targets and community needs, and in probation in the role of the community in the process of rehabilitation and desistance. We argue that these tensions mirror deeper contradictions within current urban and social policy concerning the role envisaged for community in the process of urban renewal.

The conveyor belt of criminal justice: the Sonnex case, risk, and de-skilling in probation: Wendy Fitzgibbon explores recent high profile probation cases

The murder of two French students last year by Dano Sonnexis the latest of several recent cases involving murder committed by an individual on parole licence for previous violent offending. Some of the key issues have already been given a public airing: resource pressures in probation, and the failure of multi-agency and risk assessment procedures.

Punishment, Youth Justice and Cultural Contingency: Towards a Balanced Approach

Reflecting developments in the broader penological realm, accounts have been advanced over the last number of decades about a ‘punitive turn’ in the youth justice systems of Western democracies. Against the background of this work, this project seeks to identify convergent and divergent trends in the youth justice systems of England, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland as well as the rationalities and discourses animating these. The results lend support to research emphasising the continued salience of national, regional and local factors on penal outcomes but also suggest the need to steer an analytical path somewhere between nomothetic (convergent) and idiographic (divergent) accounts.

Privatization and coercion: The question of legitimacy

This article explores issues surrounding the legitimacy of private sector provision in criminal justice. It examines changes in ideas about legitimate coercion which have made private sector involvement possible. It then elaborates two models of the processes whereby private sector entities attempt to obtain and maintain the legitimacy of their activities in the eyes of the public.

Lives and spaces: Photovoice and offender supervision in Ireland and England:

The lives and experiences of those on probation supervision are often invisible and dismissed as unimportant or worse as ‘an easy option’. This article reviews two different studies in England and Ireland which utilized an innovative technique, Photovoice, to foreground the experiences of probationers on their journey towards desistance. The difficulties they face such as stigma, social judgement and exclusion are explored as well as their need for emotional calm, and support and understanding from their supervisors and the wider community. Photovoice as a methodological and creative tool is revealed as a novel and expressive means to develop insight into probation supervision and an effective technique for undertaking cross-national research which can communicate across cultural boundaries.