Staff-resident relationships in Approved Premises

Abstract

Whilst the majority of people released from prison in England and Wales return to private places of residence, a significant minority are required to live in Approved Premises as part of their post-custodial licence conditions. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, it provides an insight into life inside Approved Premises. This subject has largely been neglected in research to-date, despite Approved Premises being important sites of supervision for many people leaving prison. Second, it explores the quality and dynamics of supervisory relationships between members of hostel staff and residents. Based on fieldwork in two Approved Premises, the findings indicate that, although formally equivalent, people subject to penal sanctions may experience and view these sanctions in markedly different ways. Seemingly innocuous variation in policies and practices at a local level, such as open or closed staff office door policies in Approved Premises, can in fact play a pivotal role in the facilitation or hindrance of constructive supervisory relationships, in shaping rehabilitative regimes, and ultimately, in supporting people's successful transitions from prisons to the community.

Hidden in plain sight: Architectures of community corrections as public secret

“…In terms of the criminal legal system, the lack of transparency and openness of these buildings raises questions about how the hiddenness and invisibility impacts those who work in or are required to visit the offices. Given studies that find the interior design of probation offices (Carr et al, 2015; Harrison, 2015; Phillips, 2014) and the use of this design by staff members to interact with supervisees (Doggett, 2017; Irwin-Rogers, 2017) impacts the relationship between supervisors and supervisees, and other research on the impact of prison/jail architecture on behaviour (Beijersbergen et al, 2016; Morris and Worrall, 2014), it is likely the exterior architecture also has an impact. The division between signage and location of probation offices compared to parole offices suggests a need to understand how administrators view both and the impact of this view on building design and placement.…”

Delivering desistance-focused probation in community hubs: Five key ingredients

“…For example, Phillips (2014) focuses on the way in which the architecture of the probation office can reflect policy concerns of risk management. Irwin-Rogers (2017) points to the importance of the physical layout of approved premises in which a more open, inclusive layout enhances the potential for positive relations. Tidmarsh (2019) argues that the managerial tendencies observed in a privatised probation service had filtered into the design of the building and thus influenced practice.…”

Intermediary workers: Narratives of supervision and support work within the halfway house setting

“…Probation Hostels) in England and Wales, halfway houses occupy a liminal space between the prison and the open community (e.g. see Irwin-Rogers, 2017). Working within this transitional context, halfway house staff see themselves as responsible for moulding ex-prisoners into ‘productive’ and ‘pro-social’ individuals, which they view as essential not only for the individual releasee but also for the broader good of society.…”

“…Halfway house workers’ narratives provide grounded insights into the hybrid and variegated character of the penal system (Beckett and Murakawa, 2012) by showing, more concretely, how it can contain within its broad reach workers who often understand themselves as working progressively and/or benevolently outside of, or even against, a more repressive and punitive apparatus (see also Singh, 2011). Moreover, the article, by shedding light on the to-date understudied institution of the halfway house, seeks to advance our understanding of the spaces and places where post-custodial supervision and rehabilitation are enacted (see Carr, 2018), thereby adding to scholarship on other sites of supervision in the community (see Irwin-Rogers, 2017).…”