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

Abstract

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.

The revolving door of reform

“…Most recently, Transforming Rehabilitation saw probation trusts disbanded and a 'new' National Probation Service established, alongside 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies combining private companies and third-sector organizations in a hybrid model of public service delivery (Tomczak, 2013). While this arrangement offers potential access to a greater number of staff, they are of varying skill, experience and qualification (Annison et al, 2014). Nevertheless, this was a further reduction in the complement of staff working for a public sector probation service.…”

Social network use and youth well-being: a study in India

“…Distinguishing between continuity and change, however, is challenging. To some extent, TR can be considered to significantly extend, rather than introduce the privatisation of the criminal justice sector (Annison et al, 2014). Twenty years ago, a study quoted a senior officer's observation that "the Probation Service has absorbed the politics of punishment, entered the market place, mirrored the private sector [and] taken its managers through a grand renaming ceremony" (Wallis, 1997, cited in Garland, 2003.…”

Police/probation partnerships – the anticipated impact of “transforming rehabilitation”

“…TR has been described as "radical and controversial" by the House of Commons Justice Committee (2014, p. 3), and much of the comment has raised potential issues with the proposals, which can be summarised as risking, "fragmentation, loss of expertise, conflicts of interest, inconsistent practices and the danger to public safety" (Senior, 2013, p. 1). The swift pace of the TR changes has also been raised as a problem (Annison et al, 2014;Senior, 2013). House of Commons Justice Committee (2014) also raised concerns over the bidders in the TR process being primarily the small number of large companies which already hold government contracts.…”

“…Indeed it has been estimated that a quarter of those supervised change their risk categorisation during their period of supervision (Annison et al, 2014). It is for this reason that the local IOM teams met formally each week and exchanged information each day.…”