“It’s Pure Chaos Every Day”: COVID-19 and the work of Canadian federal institutional parole officers

As the Canadian federal correctional system grappled with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, institutional parole officers, who play a central role in prisoners’ case management team, remained essential service providers. Working in uncertain circumstances, these correctional workers navigated new and rapidly changing protocols and risks, while attempting to continue to provide support to those on their caseloads. Based on semi-structured interviews with 96 institutional parole officers, conducted after Canada’s “first wave” of COVID-19 infections, we analyze three ways in which their work was impacted by the pandemic: shifting workloads, routines, and responsibilities; increased workloads due to decarceration (i.e., efforts to reduce the number of incarcerated individuals); and the navigation of new forms of risk and uncertainty. This study advances the understanding of stress and risk in probation and parole work and presents recommendations to ameliorate the occupational stresses experienced by correctional workers during and beyond COVID-19.

Longitudinal cross-national perspectives on female desistance: The role of social and emotional capitals in female narrations of maintaining change

This paper offers a unique longitudinal qualitative perspective on a group of women maintaining desisting pathways in two different European countries: Sweden and England. Applying a social and emotional capital framework, with particular attention given to the friend and family connection, the paper aims to unveil how a resource perspective can enable a more nuanced view of the role of overlapping female identities and network management, the paradoxes of trust within these, and experiences of stigmatisation and emotional expenditure in female desistance narratives across time and space. The cross-national perspective brings to light the importance of situating the desistance process in the particular context in which it plays out, making visible how narratives may be structurally mediated by wider social, cultural, penal – and gendered – conditions and processes. These insights may, in turn, contribute to the identification of desistance support that have the potential to make female desistance paths less socially and emotionally costly.

Parole practises in Lithuania: Factors predicting court decisions

This article examines factors that predict parole decisions in Lithuanian courts. The study state has a two-stage discretionary parole system where applicants are first evaluated through a parole board hearing, and the board’s decision is then reviewed in court. The study sample included 360 court verdicts from various court institutions. Intergroup comparisons suggest that parole boards tend to grant parole more often than courts. The results of regression analysis suggest that courts weigh heavily on the decision made by the parole board as well as the number of misconduct reports, time left to serve and previous parole or probation violations.

Punitiveness of electronic monitoring: Perception and experience of an alternative sanction

Electronic monitoring (EM) serves as an alternative sanction to incarceration. An important aspect that remains only scarcely debated in the literature is EM’s punitiveness and, more specifically, exactly how punitive EM is in comparison to different forms of incarceration. Responding to this gap, we propose a systematic meta-analysis of relevant studies that scrutinizes and compares different studies on EM and its punitive effects (or perceptions of its degree of punitiveness) in relation to incarceration. Ultimately, there is no simple and straightforward answer: EM’s level of punitiveness differs with the various sociodemographic variables of respondents included in the studies and the various characteristics of the penal system. It is necessary to assess the degree of punitiveness of EM to determine the conditions under and terms with which it should be applied, for example, as a humane substitute for incarceration or as an additional pain of the penal system.

Released from foreign detention: Examining reoffending rates among returning Dutch detainees in the Netherlands

At least 1,900 Dutch detainees are detained abroad yearly. They are housed in foreign detention because they are accused of having committed a criminal offence in a country that is not their country of residence. This study used data regarding Dutch detainees who were supervised by the International Office of the Dutch Probation Service to examine detainees’ background characteristics and their offending behaviour after returning to the Netherlands. The findings show that 23% of the Dutch detainees reoffended within 2 years of release from foreign detention. Furthermore, several background characteristics, such as their age at release from foreign detention, are related to reoffending behaviour.

Experts of the streets: The thoughts of experts by experience with a history of crime and substance abuse on working as a team with professionals

Expertise by experience has become increasingly significant in the various fields of social work. This study examines narratives told by experts by experience who have undergone an educational expert-by-experience program for people with a history of crime and substance abuse, with the main focus on the participants’ accounts of their expertise and how it is created when working as a team with a professional. The stories create an image of the expert by experience as an agent who is both an interpreter and an advocate advancing the mutual understanding between the client and the professional as well as someone who promotes the client’s status within the service system. However, the experts’ dual role makes it difficult for them to fully recognize their status and roles in the professional organizations. All in all, the study shows that expertise by experience has much use in social and personal services, including probation.