Exploring and Explaining Non-Compliance with Community Supervision

Abstract

Despite a developed theoretical and empirical body of research into the dynamics of compliance with community supervision, the phenomenon of non-compliance has received surprisingly less attention. This article explores the perspectives and experiences of 93 people in Scotland who were breached or recalled for non-compliance with the community sentences or post-release licences they were subject to. Drawing on this analysis, we advance an integrated, theoretically explanatory and empirically informed model demonstrating the contributions of, and interplay between, three key elements we identified as shaping non-compliance: motivational postures and attitudinal stances and their underlying mechanisms; various systemic, structural and social influences that bind the exercise of agency and shape situations of actions; and the impacts and effects of people’s interactions with authorities.

How probation officers understand and work with people on community supervision sentences to enhance compliance

“…Probation officers were mindful that several obstacles to compliance that have nothing to do with criminality existed for their supervisees. This is consistent with previous research that suggests non-compliance with sentence conditions is not always deliberate or intentional, but can be a result of chaotic lifestyles, substance use, poor planning, or practical problems such as lack of transportation (Denney et al, 2014; Hucklesby, 2009; Weaver et al, 2020). Even supervisees who were committed to desisting from criminal behaviours still struggled to comply with their sentence conditions due to cognitive or skill deficits.…”

Citizenship on probation: Understanding the labour market exclusion of criminalized people in Scotland

“…As noted, many criminalised people already experience a range of social inequalities and disadvantages (such as disrupted experiences of work or education, physical and mental health concerns, substance misuse, and unstable housing) which can constrain their ability to secure and sustain employment (Anazodo et al, 2019; Cherney and Fitzgerald, 2016; Goodman, 2020; Weaver et al, 2021). Furthermore, these disadvantages are experienced in a wider context of an ongoing rise in non-standard, low-paid, and precarious work, which leaves many people trapped in a cycle of unstable employment and in-work poverty (Sheppard and Ricciardelli, 2020).…”

“…This differential relationship with the state as a consequence of a criminal record, of course, has implications for the forms of citizenship accessible to criminalised people (Miller and Alexander, 2016; Phelps and Ruhland, 2021). While those subject to community supervision in Scotland remain under the purview of statutory social work services, often these services are under-resourced and over-stretched, with individual practitioners lacking any meaningful powers to address the socio-structural and systemic issues faced by their service users (Weaver et al, 2021). We therefore suggest that while many of our participants strive for the full citizenship enjoyed by those with ‘conventional’ lives, they are encumbered by a criminal justice system which imposes and exacerbates stigma (in the form of a criminal record), while doing little to address harms engendered by structural issues such discrimination, an absence of secure and stable employment opportunities, and the ongoing violence of deindustrialisation which is felt by many Scottish communities (Fraser and Clark, 2021).…”

“…Justice involved/affected people share many problems with long-term unemployed people with regards to labour market attachment such as low levels of educational attainment, low self-esteem, and a limited educational and employment history and vocational skills (Ramakers et al, 2016). However, it is also true that they are often affected by wider, sometimes interconnected sets of challenges, which underpin offending in the first place, and which include physical and mental health concerns, substance use, low self-esteem, poverty, social isolation, and precarious housing and homelessness (Anazodo et al, 2019; Cherney and Fitzgerald, 2016; Goodman, 2020; Nugent and Schinkel, 2016; Weaver et al, 2021)…”