I do what I’m told, sort of: Reformed subjects, unruly citizens, and parole

Werth, Robert

doi:10.1177/1362480611410775

Cited by 85 publications

(98 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Rehabilitation here can only be a personal project of transformation, not a social one. Werth's (2011Werth's ( , 2012Werth's ( , 2013 exploration of the experiences of parolees in California also produces broadly similar findings, but sheds light on how the parolees resist and subvert their domination and subjugation. In a recent chapter, Werth (2016) argues that many of the parolees were committed to 'straightening [themselves] out', but on their own terms -rejecting externally imposed demands to remake themselves on the system's terms and in its image.…”

Section: Supervision: Discipline Control and Dominationmentioning

confidence: 66%

Mass supervision, misrecognition and the ‘Malopticon’

McNeill

2018

Punishment & Society

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This paper aims to contribute to debates about 'mass supervision' by exploring its penal character as a lived experience. It begins with a review of recent studies that have used ethnographic methods to explore how supervision is experienced before describing the two projects ('Supervisible' and 'Mass Supervision: Seen and Heard') on which the paper draws, explaining these as an attempt to generate a 'counter-visual criminology' of mass supervision. I then describe two encounters with 'Teejay'; encounters in which we explored his experiences of supervision firstly through photography and then through song-writing. Both media are presented alongside Teejay's commentary on what he sought to convey, inviting the reader to engage with and interpret the pictures and song. In the concluding discussion, I offer my own analysis, arguing that Teejay's representations suggest a need to recognise mass supervision as 'Maloptical' as much as 'Panoptical'. Through the 'Malopticon', the penal subject is seen badly, is seen as bad and is projected and represented as bad. Experiences of misrecognition and misrepresentation constitute significant yet poorly understood pains of supervisory punishment. The paper concludes by suggesting several ways in which a counter-visual criminology might follow Teejay's lead in exposing and challenging of mass supervision.

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Section: Supervision: Discipline Control and Dominationmentioning

confidence: 66%

Mass supervision, misrecognition and the ‘Malopticon’

McNeill

2018

Punishment & Society

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“…). Interaction with mental health professionals were managed by adopting what Werth () refers to as surface compliance. That is, they chose to give the appearance of accepting professional ideologies while maintaining a degree of resistance.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Treatment, deterrence or labelling: mentally disordered offenders’ perspectives on social control

Dixon

2015

Sociology Health & Illness

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Mentally disordered offenders are a group of service users who experience substantial amounts of control and supervision. This article uses theories of social control to analyse the way in which mechanisms of control are understood by this group. Semi-structured interviews with mentally disordered offenders in England who were subject to a restriction order under the Mental Health Act 1983 (as amended by the Mental Health Act 2007) provided the empirical basis for this study. The offenders had a number of perspectives on the restriction order. Firstly, it was seen as a mechanism for identifying those suffering from a mental disorder and for providing appropriate treatment. Secondly, the restriction order was viewed as a form of disciplinary control through which societal norms might be internalised. Thirdly, it was seen as labelling offenders in a manner that was experienced as limiting and oppressive. A number of research participants were aware that the order acted to limit staff actions. These participants saw the order as a means by which they might shape the support that they received in order to further their own aims.A video abstract of this article can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwIwDI2sOTY&feature=youtu.be.

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“…Yet this process often denigrates these returning citizens, forcing them to accept a criminal identity as a person beset by "criminal thinking" errors, while providing few structural solutions to address severe material deprivation. As a result, supervisees often report both benefiting from-and actively resisting-the narratives foisted upon them by probation and parole officers and social service providers (see also Werth, 2011Werth, , 2013. 8 Leverentz' (2010) study of women in a half-way house in Chicago, for example, shows the contradiction between the lessons of the house staff to avoid the "people, places, and things" associated with addiction and the lived reality of the women, whose primary PRINTED FROM the OXFORD RESEARCH ENCYCLOPEDIA, CRIMINOLOGY AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE (oxfordre.com/ criminology).…”

Section: Commonalities For Supervision In the Communitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Supervision in the Community: Probation and Parole

Phelps¹,

Curry²

2017

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice

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Over the past half-century, the number of adults under criminal justice supervision increased precipitously in some Western countries, with carceral control in the United States reaching an unprecedented scale. While much of the scholarly attention has been focused on the development of mass incarceration, new research focuses on the parallel expansion of mass probation and, more broadly, mass supervision. In the United States, the number of adults on probation and parole supervision increased from one million in 1980 to a peak of nearly 5.1 million in 2007, more than double the number of inmates in local, state, and federal jails and prisons. Estimates from Europe in the late 2000s suggest that there were approximately 3.5 million on community sanctions, compared to 2 million incarcerated. Individuals on these sanctions serve out their initial sentences (or remaining time after release from jail or prison) while residing in the community under the supervision of a probation or parole officer. As scholarship increasingly focuses on the expansion of community supervision, we are learning more about this form of punishment. Probationers and parolees are subject to a variety of conditions, including reporting regularly to their supervising officers, finding and maintaining employment, avoiding drug use and re-arrest, participating in therapeutic programs, and paying fines and fees. Failure to comply with the demands of supervision may result in variety of penalties, up to a return to custody for the entire length of the suspended prison sentence. Thus, while probation and parole are often framed as acts of leniency—allowing individuals to avoid incarceration and/or exit early—they can be experienced as quite punitive. In other words, the official discourses and everyday practices of supervision blend both punitive and rehabilitative elements. The composition of this blend varies significantly across countries, states, local departments, individual officers, and the officer-supervisee relationship. This variation has produced a kaleidoscope of different practices, all under the banner of community supervision.

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I do what I’m told, sort of: Reformed subjects, unruly citizens, and parole

Cited by 85 publications

References 23 publications

Mass supervision, misrecognition and the ‘Malopticon’

Mass supervision, misrecognition and the ‘Malopticon’

Treatment, deterrence or labelling: mentally disordered offenders’ perspectives on social control

Supervision in the Community: Probation and Parole

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