Surviving the revolution? The voluntary sector under Transforming Rehabilitation in England and Wales

2020 ◽  
pp. 221-238
Author(s):  
Kevin Wong ◽  
Rob Macmillan
Keyword(s):  
Turning Point ◽  
Voluntary Sector ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Future ◽  
Probation Service ◽  
Open Question ◽  
The Revolution

Regarded by commentators as an emollient to soothe critics of the part privatisation of the public probation service, the Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) reforms in England and Wales promised an enlarged role for the voluntary sector in the resettlement and rehabilitation of offenders. Whether such changes mark a decisive turning point or in the fullness of time represent just another twist in the long and messy narrative of voluntary sector provision of offender services remains an open question. This chapter will examine the role and fortunes of the sector during the tumultuous period between 2014 and 2019 and identify what lessons can be learnt for the future.

scholarly journals The probation service in England and Wales: A decade of radical change or more of the same?

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-146
Author(s):  
Matt Tidmarsh
Keyword(s):  
Radical Change ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
The Public ◽  
Performance Targets ◽  
Conservative Government ◽  
General Decline ◽  
Medium Risk ◽  
Probation Service ◽  
Privately Owned

This article reviews developments in probation in England and Wales since 2010, a decade in which services were exposed to the logic of competition and profit. In 2014, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition government’s Transforming Rehabilitation ( TR) reforms promised an end to a top-down, target-centric culture of state intervention by outsourcing services for low-to-medium risk offenders to 21 privately-owned Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs). And yet, just four years after the reforms were implemented, the Conservative government announced that CRCs’ contracts would be terminated, with all offender management services returned to the public sector. With a focus on the private sector, the article argues that radical change to the probation service’s structure has entrenched a focus on centrally-administered performance targets and audit. In other words, contrary to the decentralising rhetoric at the core of TR, the decade has in many ways produced more of the same managerialism that the reforms were presented as a means to displace. The result has been a general decline in the quality of probation services.

Anatomy of a Revolution: Law, Change, and the Public Inebriate

1975 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 207-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen S. Manos
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Social Norms ◽  
New Model ◽  
The Public ◽  
Justice Model ◽  
Open Question ◽  
Welfare Model ◽  
The Revolution

Public intoxication, once a crime in virtually all states, is now being decriminalized by an increasing number of jurisdictions. The transition from a criminal justice model to a civil model is a legislated revolution. The old model existed because the public intoxication laws served to isolate and punish undesirables, confirm social norms, and provide a form of social welfare for the hapless. The new model, a social welfare model, favoring voluntary treatment and rehabilitation, reflects views that the old system was ineffective and that society can afford a humanitarian ethic. Whether the intentions of the new model will be realized remains an open question. The new model may be subverted by old goals and new problems. The outcome of the revolution is thus in doubt.

scholarly journals Futurism, Futurology, Future Shock, Climate Change: Visions of the Future from 1909 to the Present

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 99-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Potts
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Technological Progress ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Environmental Concern ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Post Industrial

This essay charts a brief intellectual history of the futures – both utopian and dystopian – conceived in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It traces perspectives on the future since 1909, when the term ‘futurism’ was coined in the publication of the ‘The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism’. The essay maps changes in the vision of the future, taking a chronological approach in noting developments in the discourse on the future. A prominent theme in pronouncements on the future is technological progress, first in relation to industrial technology, later in the context of post-industrial or information technology. A turning-point in this discourse can be isolated around 1973, when ideas of technological progress begin to be challenged in the public sphere; from that date, environmental concern becomes increasingly significant in discussions of the future.

‘The customer is always right’? Consumerism and the probation service

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-66
Author(s):  
Rebecca Crook ◽  
Dave Wood
Keyword(s):  
Social Structures ◽  
Budget Cuts ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
The Public ◽  
Governmental Policy ◽  
Probation Service

The probation service of England and Wales has faced ongoing change to its structures and challenge to its theory and value base throughout its history. Recent years have seen an acceleration in the scope of this change with sizable budget cuts alongside the threat of competition and subsequent privitisation of probation services. This article explores whether the more fundamental but subtle challenge to practice may yet come not from explicit governmental policy, but the underlying consumerist social structures at play that operate not only in governance, but also in the mindset of the public, practitioners and probationers alike.

scholarly journals Probation migration(s): Examining occupational culture in a turbulent field

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 192-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lol Burke ◽  
Matthew Millings ◽  
Gwen Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Private Sector ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Private Ownership ◽  
Occupational Culture ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
The Public ◽  
Turbulent Field ◽  
Community Rehabilitation ◽  
Probation Service ◽  
The Impact

In June 2014 approximately 54 per cent of the total probation service workforce in England and Wales were transferred to the newly created Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) as part of the government’s plans to establish a market for offender management services. This marked the beginning of one of the largest and most significant migrations of criminal justice staff from the public to the private sector in England and Wales. This article presents findings from an ethnographic study of the formation of one of these CRCs through to the period immediately following the transfer into private ownership. The authors discuss the key features of this migration which are identified as ‘splitting and fracturing’, ‘adapting and forming’ and ‘exiting or accommodation’. It is contended that this development not only has significant implications for the future of probation services but also provides a unique example of the impact on an occupational culture of migration from the public to the private sector.

Transforming Rehabilitation: Another example of English ‘exceptionalism’ or a blueprint for the rest of Europe?

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jill Annison ◽  
Lol Burke ◽  
Paul Senior
Keyword(s):  
High Risk ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Special Edition ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
The Future ◽  
Medium Risk ◽  
Probation Service ◽  
The Media ◽  
Potential Impact ◽  
Rehabilitative Services

The Transforming Rehabilitation agenda represents a radical departure in the way that rehabilitative services are delivered in England and Wales. Under the proposed changes, the existing Probation Trusts will be replaced by a significantly smaller National Probation Service dealing with the rump of high-risk public protection cases. The supervision and delivery of services to those offenders assessed as low and medium risk will be contracted to a range of providers on a payment by results basis. In this introduction to the special edition of the European Journal of Probation, the authors trace the policy developments that have extended the scope of the privatisation of state services in England and Wales. They then consider the values underpinning these developments and the potential impact on probation work before finally exploring the ways in which the current debate over the future of the probation service in England and Wales are being constructed and responses to this crisis shaped. This is organised into four interrelated arguments – the evidence response; the implementation response; the media response and the reclaim response.

scholarly journals The revolving door of reform

2018 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Tangen ◽  
Ravinderjit Kaur Briah
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Revolving Door ◽  
Management Service ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
Probation Service

Reform of probation services in England and Wales has been a frequent feature of its history, though the pace of review, restructuring and modification has increased exponentially in the last 30 years. This paper provides a brief history of changes to the National Probation Service since its inception in the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 to the recent announcements of the merger of prison and probation services into a new agency, Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service. Commonalities are identified between the various programmes of reform instigated throughout the last 17 years, drawing on insights from Pollitt. The paper addresses the implications for the future of a public probation service in England and Wales after the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) ceased to exist in April 2017 and Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service was inaugurated.

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

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 78-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rob C Mawby ◽  
Anne Worrall
Keyword(s):  
Voluntary Sector ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Cultural Transformations ◽  
Probation Service

In recent decades the probation service has been encouraged to work closely with a range of public and voluntary sector agencies. This article examines probation's 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 Davidson's (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.

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