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.
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.
To many observers, Probation at the end of Labour’s third term was characterized by an enduring sense of uncertainty resulting from a prolonged period of unremitting change, burdened by bureaucracy and over-zealous micro-management by the centre and subsumed into a complex organizational framework dominated by prison-based personnel. The sense of betrayal and alienation felt by many within the service towards the Government was a far cry from the cautious optimism that had marked the election of a Labour Government in 1997, coming as it did after a period in which the service had seen the short lived promise to move centre stage (Patten, 1988) replaced by an openly hostile promotion of prison works which seemed to threaten its very existence. In this article we attempt to evaluate the changing relationship between Probation and New Labour, placing it within the context of the wider approaches to crime control adopted by the government in each of its three terms in office. Finally, we consider the legacy of the past 13 years and conclude that despite the negative impact on Probation of an unrelenting reductionist focus on managerialist and technical policy fixes, there may yet be some grounds for optimism.
In 2013 the UK government published plans to radically reform resettlement provision for released prisoners via a Through the Gate scheme to be introduced as part of its Transforming Rehabilitation agenda. Under the scheme 70 of the 123 prisons in England and Wales were redesignated 'resettlement prisons' and tasked with establishing an integrated approach to service delivery, seamlessly extending rehabilitative support from custody into the community. This article utilises a case study of one resettlement prison to critically consider the implementation of these new arrangements. Drawing on insights by prisoners, prison staff and other key stakeholders it argues that instead of enhancing resettlement Through the Gate is actually enhancing resentment with Transforming Rehabilitation appearing to accentuate, rather than mediate, long-standing operational concerns within the prison system. The paper argues that unless there is a significant renewal of the structures, processes and mechanisms of administering support for addressing the rehabilitative needs of prisoners the current operational flaws within Through the Gate provision risk deepening the sense of a penal crisis.2
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