No abstract

Peer mentoring is an increasing feature of UK criminal justice, yet very little is known about the micro dynamics of this practice. Drawing upon an ethnographic study, this article identifies a number of 'core conditions' underpinning the practice, including caring, listening and encouraging small steps. Mentors and mentees highlight these conditions as antidotes to what they often perceive as disconnected, unhearing and technocratic criminal justice practices. Peer mentoring is claimed to release suffering, to unburden the self of grief and to explore new directions, given that mentors 'genuinely care' and are tolerant of slip-ups. Respondents offer valuable insight into the experience of being intervened upon and advocate for manageable shifts, which could meaningfully improve services for a range of vulnerable and stigmatized populations. However, the article also introduces tensions, including the expectation of emotional toil for little financial reward and the context of an increasingly results-driven criminal justice system.

The background I 1 Introduction: peer mentoring in criminal justice 3 2 The penal voluntary sector, peer mentoring and desistance from crime 12 3 Theorising peer mentoring as a critical relational practice: identity, pedagogy and collective politicisation 38 4 The research field 69 PART TWO Making sense of peer mentoring 89 5 The importance of identity to peer mentoring 91 6 Agency, action and acknowledgement in peer mentoring 117 7 The values and'core conditions'of peer mentoring 141 8 The terror, complexity and limits of change 164 9 The hidden power dynamics of peer mentoring 191 10 Conclusion 226 Index 235

Despite growing enthusiasm for peer mentoring as a criminal justice intervention, very little is known about what actually happens within these relationships. Drawing upon an ethnographic study of peer mentoring in the North of England this article will foreground the concept of 'inspiration' in these settings. It will argue that Rene Girard's theory of mimesis offers a framework with which to analyse role modelling in mentoring relationships and that a Girardian reading also offers interesting insights into the unresolved problem of the origins of personal change.

Increasing calls for ‘nothing about us without us’ envision marginalized people as valuable and necessary contributors to policies and practices affecting them. In this paper, we examine what this type of inclusion feels like for criminalized people who share their lived experiences in penal voluntary sector organizations. Focus groups conducted in England and Scotland illustrated how this work was experienced as both safe, inclusionary and rewarding and exclusionary, shame-provoking and precarious. We highlight how these tensions of ‘user involvement’ impact criminalized individuals and compound wider inequalities within this sector. The individual, emotional and structural implications of activating lived experience, therefore, require careful consideration. We consider how the penal voluntary sector might more meaningfully and supportively engage criminalized individuals in service design and delivery. These considerations are significant for broader criminal justice and social service provision seeking to meaningfully involve those with lived experience.