Rehabilitating Probation: Strategies for Re‐legitimation after Policy Failure

Abstract

This article draws on insights from the organisational studies literature to make sense of the recent history of probation in England & Wales in the aftermath of the failed Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) reform programme. It considers that recent history as a crisis of legitimacy, necessitating active strategies of re‐legitimation aimed at recovering from reputational damage. It argues that top‐down plans to restructure the service will only go so far in this endeavour: the expanded National Probation Service must also be prepared to engage in legitimation work on its own behalf. However, this is likely to be challenging for a number of reasons that include the mixed constituency of external stakeholders whom probation seeks to satisfy, and important questions of identity, agency, and voice.

Making, unmaking, remaking: Mapping the boundaries of professional legitimacy, identity and practice in probation in England and Wales

“…However, an increase in the probation caseload contributed to top-down modes of governance that culminated, eventually, in the failed TR reforms and the (further) demise of professional practice. The rest of this article builds upon Robinson's (2021) strategies for re-legitimation in the aftermath of TR: strategic restructuring, re-professionalisation, and work with probation's organisational field. Such strategies can enhance the external and internal dimensions of the service's legitimacy: the former concerns recognition from extraneous stakeholders; the latter relates to the identity and self-image of the service and its staff (Robinson, 2021).…”

“…The rest of this article builds upon Robinson's (2021) strategies for re-legitimation in the aftermath of TR: strategic restructuring, re-professionalisation, and work with probation's organisational field. Such strategies can enhance the external and internal dimensions of the service's legitimacy: the former concerns recognition from extraneous stakeholders; the latter relates to the identity and self-image of the service and its staff (Robinson, 2021). The article thus presents a practical and moral case for remaking probation in England and Wales in such a way that the service can reassert its legitimacy and identity, while people on probation can take ownership of their desistance.…”

“…Given the abovementioned challenges posed by TR, strategic restructuring (Robinson, 2021) through the reunification of services, in June 2021, represented a remaking of the boundaries between the probation profession and the market. Robinson's (2021) analysis of government documents from July 2018, when the decision to abandon the architecture of TR was announced, reveals several strategies of re-legitimation. For example, the Government sought to demonstrate decisiveness, to terminate CRCs' contracts just 4 years after the reforms were implemented.…”

“…The final part speculates about how professional boundaries can be remade after the collapse of TR. By reconstituting probation through strategies of reunification and re-professionalisation, the service can empower those within its organisational field (Robinson, 2021). Here, a brief case study of community hubs is utilised to illustrate probation's value as an 'interstitial' (Abbott, 2017) jurisdiction that operates between different social spheres.…”

“…Where previous scholarship has discussed the re-professionalisation agenda in the abstract, as a regulatory framework through which to re-legitimate an organisation which was fragmented by part-privatisation (Robinson, 2021), this article is the first to explore what it might look like in practice. In this way, it builds upon Robinson's (2021) arguments on professional legitimation and advances understandings of how probation identity and practice can be enhanced post-TR. The article makes an original contribution to knowledge in three distinct ways.…”