Delivering Rehabilitation

The politics, governance and control of probation

Lol Burke, Steve Collett

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780415540384
• eBook ISBN: 9781136261558
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

Do offenders have the right to be rehabilitated and should the state be responsible for their rehabilitation? Should the public expect punitive and coercive approaches to offender rehabilitation? Why should the state be interested in the reform of individuals and how can helping offenders be justified when there are other disadvantaged groups in society who are unable to access the services they desperately need? Finally, why does the state appear to target and criminalise certain groups and individuals and not others?

These are just some of the questions asked in this new text, which offers an analysis of the delivery of rehabilitative services to offenders over the past two decades. It focuses particularly on the ideological and political imperatives of a neoliberal state that intends to segment the work of the Probation Service and hand over the majority of its work to the private sector. Issues covered include:

• governance, politics and performance of probation,
• occupational culture and professional identity,
• markets, profit and delivery,
• partnership, localism and civil society,
• citizenship, exclusion and the State.

This book is aimed at academics, practitioners, managers and leaders within the field of corrections and wider social policy. It will also appeal to undergraduates and postgraduates specialising in criminal justice, criminology, politics and social policy.

1
INTRODUCTION

8 November, Leeds. Walking along Wellington Street towards City Square I pass the offices of the probation service, now plastered with protest leaflets and posters from Napo against the selling off of the service, protests that in my view are wholly justified. The notion that probation, which is intended to help and support those who have fallen foul of the law, should make a profit for shareholders seems beyond satire. As indeed is the proposal to take the East Coast line out of what is virtually public ownership and reprivatise it for the likes of the expatriate Branson. I never used to bother about capitalism. It was just a word. Not now.

(Alan Bennett 2013)

Covering the ground

Beginning a book is a difficult and precarious task, but there are times when serendipity delivers exactly what you were looking for. In our case, it is this extract from Alan Bennett’s diary of 2013 that we landed on by good fortune. Not only does he hint at the current situation the Probation Service finds itself, but places our predicament within a wider context. His humanitarian concerns are, in essence, what this book is about. A great many other questions arise: Do offenders have the right or expectation to call on the resources of the state for their rehabilitation from a life of crime? Should the public expect punitive and coercive approaches to offender rehabilitation? Other than incapacitating offenders in prison for the protection of the individual and the wider public, why should the state be concerned with prisoner reform; beyond that, how, can helping offenders be justified when there are disadvantaged groups who are unable to access the services they desperately need? Finally, why does the state appear to target and criminalise certain groups and individuals and not others?

The range of questions, issues and potential approaches that need be included in Delivering Rehabilitation is clearly daunting. Indeed, the interested practitioner, policy-maker or scholar has only to browse through the pages of relatively recent edited readers – for example, Handbook of Probation (Gelsthorpe and Morgan 2007), Moments in Probation: Celebrating the Century of Probation (Senior 2008), or Offenders or Citizens (Priestley and Vanstone 2010) to appreciate the dilemma authors may have in refining their focus. There are also so many excellent books that engage the interested reader in both historical analysis and contemporary debate about offender supervision, rehabilitation and the role of probation. Indeed, the title of Whitehead and Statham’s 2006 book, The History of Probation – Politics, Power and Cultural Change 1876–2005 might suggest that much of the Governance, Control and Management referred to in our title has already been covered and all that is required is an update. Alternatively, our inclusion of Delivering Rehabilitation might also suggest that we are traversing similar ground to that covered so superbly by Rob Canton in Probation – Working with Offenders (2011).

The truth is that whilst we draw heavily on the work of many probation and criminal justice academics, commentators and practitioners, we have also attempted to fashion a more general, theoretical, and politically informed analysis, one that is critical of post-modernity and the hegemonic nature of neoliberalism as it has developed into a global force, ostensibly accepted by both the left and right of the political spectrum. Therefore, publications such as Emma Bell’s Criminal Justice and Neoliberalism (2011) and Organising Neoliberalism: Markets, Privatisation and Justice (2012) edited by Philip Whitehead and Paul Crawshaw, have also been informative. Without, hopefully, doing an injustice to the necessary detailed analysis of probation over the past two decades we have also drawn on the work of authors Loic Waquant, Danny Dorling, Richard Wilkinson, Kate Picket, Michael Sandel, Christopher Lasch and Guy Standing. These authors have influenced the general thrust of our arguments. We are also interested in the role of specific events and personalities in shaping probation’s future. In essence, we have attempted to capture a critical, ever-evolving period in the history of probation, whilst keeping in mind the practical realities of working with individuals who offend.

What do we mean by Probation?

In the quote from Bennett’s diary, he specifically mentions probation service but also refers to probation. It is not clear whether he is using the latter term as shorthand for Probation Service or as a reference to the concept of probation – of putting someone on test to behave better in the future – or indeed as a reference to supervision under the guise of a probation order. Throughout this book, we use probation in a similarly ambiguous way and unless we intend it to have a specific meaning, we leave it to the reader to interpret whether we are referring to specific organisational and bureaucratic features, a concept and a set of values for conducting offender supervision or indeed as a (now defunct) sentence of the court.

We use probation in this generalised way as an umbrella for the rehabilitative endeavour because our understanding of the practical and professional world of probation and the Probation Service is one of a complex value-laden and politicised environment within which committed work with individuals is undertaken on the personal and bureaucratic level to deliver rehabilitation. Furthermore, whether we use terms like offender management, risk management and assessment, control, surveillance or compliance, we nevertheless believe that what has motivated generations of probation staff has been to give individuals who are policed, arrested, prosecuted and sentenced, the opportunity to lead crime-free, productive lives that have meaning for themselves, their families, and the wider community.

Our arguments will acknowledge that whilst punishment has been the enduring core in the state’s response to the treatment of offenders and past approaches to rehabilitation sometimes conveyed more about the aspirations of burgeoning social work and medical professions than the real needs of poor working class people, the state nevertheless maintained a relatively even-handed approach to rehabilitation. However, on the back of rising post-war crime rates, the crime debate became increasingly politicised and despite long-term trends in falling crime and ever decreasing levels of victimisation over the past fifteen years, the penal arms race has been used to the wider political advantage of both Tory, Labour, and now Coalition administrations. This battle for the right to use crime control for party political fortunes now, however, pales into insignificance compared to the insidious impact of neoliberal thinking on the construction of crime, problem populations and the delivery mechanisms for penal big business.

Structuring the debate

The opening chapter – Contextualising Rehabilitation – sets out the general terrain and context for understanding the concept of rehabilitation and begins signposting events that have had a significant impact upon the development and delivery of rehabilitative services over the past two decades. In Chapter Three – Governing Rehabilitation: Politics and performance – we show how a heady mix of ideology, mezzo politics, personalities and events have shaped probation and ultimately led to the future it faces under the Coalition’s Transforming Rehabilitation project. The higher profile given to law and order in recent years has meant battling crime has increasingly been viewed as a mechanism for securing electoral support. Prime Minister Blair’s oft-repeated tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime effectively introduced ambiguity into both public and professional understanding of criminal justice policy approaches to rehabilitation. Contemporary probation practice has therefore had to operate within a heightened and volatile political environment that has often been dominated by anti-liberal rhetoric fuelled by negative media representations. This chapter analyses the ambiguities, continuities and discontinuities of government policy and its impact on the Probation Service. The changing political landscape and drive for public sector modernisation under the precepts of New Public Management (NPM) has also fundamentally altered the relationship between probation and central government. We will question why, given its relative size and influence, the Probation Service has been a particular concern for central government. Rather than being a participant in the decision-making process, the Service has found itself subsumed into a prison service dominated by a command-and-control environment and culture. This has had profound implications on the character and governance of probation and its relationship with local communities. Ultimately it raises questions, we argue, about the significance of losing traditional probation values for local communities and for wider society.

In combination, our first two chapters aim to set out the concepts and the contexts for the rehabilitative endeavor. The remaining chapters take on a more thematic approach to an understanding of delivering rehabilitation. Chapter Four –Providing Rehabilitation: Occupational culture and professional identity – reflects on why so much consideration has been given to a service that has effectively been in perpetual reorganisation since becoming a national service in 2001. We pay particular attention to the operational and professional culture within probation and how its public and political image has changed over the past two decades. We also consider how workers reconcile the care and control aspects of their job and their personal and professional values within the changing requirements of contemporary policy and practice. These requirements include developing new ways of working and different types of relationships with other agencies within and beyond the criminal justice system. Finally, we consider the potential impact of the Coalition government’s Transforming Rehabilitation project upon the occupational culture, training and working practices of probation staff.

Part of the rationale for the creation of the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) was to deliver a system of contestability that hoped to introduce the concept of market tension into the monopoly of community-based corrections. The avowed goal was to improve the quality and effectiveness of public provision. However, the debate has developed into a politically-motivated initiative to privatise aspects of probation as part of a wider desire to expose the criminal justice system to competition and private capital. In Chapter Five – Competing Rehabilitation: Markets, profit and delivery – we discuss these developments in light of recent policy initiatives such as Payments by Results (PbR) and the uses of social impact bonds. This will lead to a discussion of the future role of the state and the private sector in the delivery of the core tasks of offender management and whether or not the arrangements envisaged will lead to greater effectiveness or dangerous fragmentation.

Chapter Six – Widening Rehabilitation: Partnership, localism and civil society – considers a key feature of contemporary criminal justice planning in the concerted attempt to control crime through partnerships of statutory, private and voluntary organisations. Similarly, the idea of joined up government to tackle wider social problems through multi-agency partnerships represents a significant break with the idea of centralised power. The discussion in this chapter encompasses the role of the state in the pursuing reductions in levels of crime and re-offending through non-criminal justice agencies as well as crime agencies and Local Criminal Justice Boards (LCJBs). The chapter will further examine the Prolific and Other Priority Offender (PPO) initiative and explore the workings of Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPAs) established by the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000. Both will be analysed in terms of effectiveness and questions of appropriate levels of intrusion and intervention into offenders’ lives.

The recent experience of criminal justice agencies has been one of an overpowering sense of management, control and direction from their respective central government departments (Home Office/Ministry of Justice). This feature of the Blair years helps to account for and shape much of what has been covered in the preceding chapters. However, the end of the Labour administration heralded a move to localism and the Coalition government has seized on the political and ideological opportunities afforded by a return to the local. Localism has significant potential to tackle local problems but it also exposes the tensions of operating a sentencing framework for England and Wales within the context of local action and community engagement. This chapter will conclude by critically examining what the much heralded but little understood notion of Big Society might mean for managing and rehabilitating individual offenders.

Chapter Seven – Blaming Rehabilitation: Citizenship, exclusion and the state – takes the discussion into a more discursive ideological environment by considering the rehabilitative endeavor in the context of forty years of neoliberal economic and cultural hegemony. Our aim is to analyse how social problems are defined and institutional responses determined. Specifically, we are interested in how responsibilisation has moved beyond the individual to agencies of the state, including probation. A case study of the 2011 riots is used to highlight the way assumptions about the poor are reinforced in negative stereotypes that justify reactionary responses to their plight. We also consider how notions of equality of opportunity and social mobility within a notional modern meritocratic society are deployed to further isolate undeserving groups whilst justifying massive and increasing inequalities in income and wealth.

The title of our conclusion – Reimagining Rehabilitation – suggests, despite our reservations concerning the direction in which probation is being moved structurally and philosophically, that there is optimism at the margins. The debate about the balance between the responsibilities of the individual to behave in a law-abiding manner and those of the state to ensure the preconditions for the good life have been central to debates within probation and wider social policy for generations. Notwithstanding the current domination of neoliberal thinking, we consider that this debate has not atrophied to the extent that community and citizen engagement in the rehabilitative endeavor is beyond the imagination. It will require, however, new ways of working with offenders.

The last decade has seen significant innovation in the multi-agency approach to targeting offenders, and the correctional services have enhanced their ability to differentiate between different kinds of offending and levels of risk. Probation, in particular, has had to respond to working with dangerous and high risk offenders in ways that have impacted on its organisation and operational culture. Yet there is emerging evidence that the relationship between worker and offender remains critical to successful outcomes. In a number of important ways probation has changed for the better over the recent past. Still, reimagining rehabilitation is as much about renewing and reinvigorating features of the rehabilitative endeavor that have been lost as it is inventing new technocratic approaches to supervision that have accountability to shareholders rather than the local community.

References

Bell, E. (2011) Criminal Justice and Neoliberalism, Palgrave Macmillan: London.

Bennett, A (2014) Diary: What I did in 2013, London Review of Books, 36(1) 9 January. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n01/alan-bennett/diary (Accessed 13 January 2014).

Canton, R. (2011) Probation: Working with Offenders, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Gelsthorpe, L. and Morgan, R. (eds) (2007) Handbook of Probation, Cullompton: Willan.

Priestley, P. and Vanstone, M. (2010) Offenders or Citizen: Readings in Rehabilitation, Cullompton: Willan.

Senior, P. (ed) (2008) Moments in Probation – Celebrating the Century of Probation, Crayford: Shaw & Sons.

Whitehead, P. a...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• About the Authors
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Contextualising Rehabilitation
• 3 Governing Rehabilitation
• 4 Providing Rehabilitation
• 5 Competing Rehabilitation
• 6 Widening Rehabilitation
• 7 Blaming Rehabilitation
• 8 Conclusion
• Index