Riots and probation: governing the precariat

Fitzgibbon, Wendy

doi:10.1080/09627251.2013.833787

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…For probation staff transferring to CRCs, there has been uncertainty about future terms and conditions of employment; but also uncertainty about who future employers will be (and their potential palatability). CRC workers, then, have arguably joined the ranks of the 'precariat' (Standing 2011;Fitzgibbon 2013), and it is unsurprising that insecurity emerged as a strong theme in our interviews. As one PO explained: 'I think we feel less safe, I feel less safe.…”

Section: Liminality and Insecuritymentioning

confidence: 92%

Criminal Justice Identities in Transition: The Case of Devolved Probation Services in England and Wales

Robinson¹,

Burke²,

Millings³

2015

CRIMIN

116

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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.

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Section: Liminality and Insecuritymentioning

confidence: 92%

Criminal Justice Identities in Transition: The Case of Devolved Probation Services in England and Wales

Robinson¹,

Burke²,

Millings³

2015

CRIMIN

116

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“…Probation training broke the link with social work, probation became a sentence of the court and the service was bureaucratically amalgamated with the prison service through NOMS. Closer central direction imposed formulaic risk assessment and management procedures, and professional autonomy was eroded by thematic inspection regimes, increasing workloads and employment of increasing numbers of semi-skilled practitioners (see Fitzgibbon, 2013; Goodman, 2012).…”

Section: State Control and The Relative Autonomy Of Probationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Defending probation: Beyond privatisation and security

Fitzgibbon

Lea

2014

European Journal of Probation

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The current debate about the privatisation of probation in the UK has tended to set up a false dichotomy between state and private that diverts attention from the fact that privatisation as part of a ‘rehabilitation revolution’ intends, in fact, to continue the domination of the risk management approach. What is emerging is a public–private combination of increasingly centralised public sector probation and the private ‘security-industrial complex’ of global security corporations. An important consequence of this process is the annihilation of both residual elements of voluntary sector and community work within probation itself and of the smaller private charities and third sector organisations that have long collaborated with probation in traditional desistance work. This complex dynamic is a reflection of some of the key internal inconsistencies of neoliberalism as a political strategy.

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“…For some, most notably the media and politicians, rioters are bored youth who engage in opportunistic crime and violence (Clarke 2011) and, indeed, we know that, in the case of the United Kingdom riots of 2011, there was $200 million worth of damage (Barentsen 2013) and 2,500 shops were looted (Treadwell et al 2012;Barentsen 2013). For others, rioters are marginalized subjects whose actions are symptomatic of a post-political climate, where political solidarity and action are replaced with rampant consumerism (Treadwell et al 2012;Fitzgibbon 2013). However, we also know that, of the 1,344 people who appeared before the courts following the 2011 riots, 78 per cent were on the Department of Work and Pension's National Benefits Database (Berman 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recognizing the 2011 United Kingdom Riots as Political Protest

Akram¹

2014

CRIMIN

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Drawing on the 2011 United Kingdom riots, this article explores contestation over the meaning of riots. Is rioting criminality and looting, or are there political aspects to the act? For those advocating a political element, there is difficulty in reconciling how an apparently spontaneous act can have political motivations. This article argues that rioting is a distinctly political action, and in order to understand it we must theorize the characteristics of agency that underpin the act. Drawing on Bourdieu's habitus, but developing it to include a preconscious component, the article develops a novel theoretical framework for understanding the rioter. Habitus is presented as a mechanism that can help better understand how experiences in the past affect the rioter's present, thereby leading to a coming to the surface of underlying political grievances.

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Riots and probation: governing the precariat

Cited by 5 publications

References 4 publications

Criminal Justice Identities in Transition: The Case of Devolved Probation Services in England and Wales

Criminal Justice Identities in Transition: The Case of Devolved Probation Services in England and Wales

Defending probation: Beyond privatisation and security

Recognizing the 2011 United Kingdom Riots as Political Protest

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