Selling the Public on Probation: Beyond the Bib

Abstract

With the release of the Casey Report, Engaging Communities in FightingCrime (Casey, 2008), improving public confidence in criminal justice work, and community penalties in particular, has become a central concern for the British Government. Among the other suggestions for improving public confidence in community interventions is to require those doing community service work to wear fluorescent bibs identifying themselves as 'offenders'. In this article, we review what is known about public opinion regarding community penalties, and discuss two possible routes to changing these attitudes: one is cognitive and the other is emotive. We review the research evidence on both, and discuss the likelihood of either being successful. We conclude by returning to the context of the Casey Report and assessing the likelihood that the Casey proposals will be successful on the basis of the evidence reviewed.

Punishment in Society: The Improbable Persistence of Probation and Other Community Sanctions and Measures

“…see Robinson & McNeill 2008). Another (recent) example (discussed further below) is the 'punitivising' of community service work (Maruna & King 2008) through various forms of 'stigmatizing shaming' (Braithwaite 1989). In the UK and many other jurisdictions, technological innovations have also been used to increase the 'punitive bite' of CSM, or to increase the restrictions placed on probationers in the community.…”

“…it should be unfulfilling and unpleasant) and that individuals doing payback should wear high visibility vests identifying them as such (i.e. it should be shaming) (see Maruna & King 2008).…”

Portrayal of the Croatian Probation Service's Development in Print Media

“…Rational appeals about benefits of various justice options should not be used in promoting probation to the public since it was clearly shown that: (a) there is difficulty in "selling" probation that captures a number of interventions against the singular, easily understood concept of imprisonment (Allen, 2006), and (b) the pub- lic has been largely unconvinced by rational appeals and statistical argument in favour of probation based on the high costs of imprisonment or the growing numbers of incarcerated citizens (prison over-crowding) (Stead, MacFadyen, & Hastings, 2002;Maruna & King, 2004). Negative portrayal of probationers should also be avoided since this type of reporting increases exclusion and negative attitudes towards probation in general (Maruna & King, 2008), and promotes a populist model of penal policy-making (Johnstone, 2000). Affirmative and personalised stories and a trend towards more affective reporting should be used instead for a more proactive promotion of the probation service 7 (Maruna & King, 2008).…”

“…Negative portrayal of probationers should also be avoided since this type of reporting increases exclusion and negative attitudes towards probation in general (Maruna & King, 2008), and promotes a populist model of penal policy-making (Johnstone, 2000). Affirmative and personalised stories and a trend towards more affective reporting should be used instead for a more proactive promotion of the probation service 7 (Maruna & King, 2008). Newspaper articles should be more focused on personal experiences, transformed offenders, and offender redemption and redeemability in order for the probation service to take advantage of emotional appeal in promoting confidence in the criminal justice system, in engaging the public (Maruna, 2007;Maruna & King, 2004), and focusing less on public protection (McCulloch & McNeill, 2007).…”

“…Maruna & King, 2008;Phillips, 2014), that probation had a marginal position (Mason, 2006), and it was often portrayed as inferior to incarceration (Hayes, 2013). Probation's "image problem" (Bauwens & Mair, 2012) could be partly a product of its ambiguous status as a combination of institutionalisation and community rehabilitation; questionable appropriateness and/ or legitimacy; the fact that probation does not provide the same volume of information of interest to the public as other criminal justice topics and may not have reason to disseminate as much information to the public as e.g.…”