In 2014, the coalition government's Transforming Rehabilitation reforms led to the wholesale restructuring of probation services in England and Wales. As part of this reconfiguration of probation services, more than half of the employees of public sector Probation Trusts were transferred to 21 new Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) set up to manage medium-and low-risk offenders and destined for sale in the criminal justice marketplace. This article presents the findings of an ethnographic study of the formation of one CRC, with a specific focus on the construction and negotiation of identities. We identify a number of key themes, prominent among which is 'liminality': i.e. the experience of being betwixt and between the old and the new, the public and the outsourced. Other themes discussed in the article include separation and loss, status anxiety, loyalty and trust, liberation and innovation.

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.

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

This article considers the recent partial privatisation of probation services in England and Wales from the theoretical perspective of legitimacy. Drawing in particular on Beetham's (1991) work, we argue that the question of legitimacy in respect of privatised probation services is a complex one which requires attention to the multiple – and different – perspectives of key stakeholders or constituencies in the probation field. We argue that in the probation context there are five key stakeholder groups: the general public; offenders and victims; ministers and civil servants; sentencers; and probation employees and their representatives. We consider what is known about the perspectives of each of these groups in turn, before concluding that privatised probation services need to be aware of both the legitimacy deficits they face and the complex dynamics likely to be involved in its cultivation with these different constituencies.

This paper draws upon research documenting the implementation, management and delivery of Through the Gate service provision in one case study area across an 18-month period. In referring to interviews and focus groups with professionals, male prisoners, and the families of these men, the paper provides a critical examination of the practice implications of administering Through the Gate provision in a resettlement prison. In doing so we reflect upon the changes in organisational structures, the evolution of occupational culture(s), and on the impact on multi-agency partnership working practice evident within this Transforming Rehabilitation led period of transitional change.