‘They Were Very Threatening about Do-Gooding Bastards’: Probation's Changing Relationships with the Police and Prison Services in England and Wales

Abstract

In recent decades the probation service has been encouraged to work closely with a range of public and voluntary sector agencies. This article examines probation"s changing relationships with the police and prison services drawing on sixty interviews with current and former probation workers. Analysing probation-prison and probation-police relationships pre-and post-1998 and drawing on Davidson"s (1976) typology of inter-organisational relationships, the article argues that, despite both structural and cultural transformations, there remain cultural continuities in each organisation that create tensions, the significance (both positive and negative) of which should not be under-estimated.

Can models of organizational change help to understand ‘success’ and ‘failure’ in community sentences? Applying Kotter’s model of organizational change to an Integrated Offender Management case study

“…Finally, some have argued that, at least partly as a consequence of the various changes to the organisation, structure and delivery of community sentences, we have witnessed the emergence of the 'polibation' and the 'prisipolibation' officer (Mawby, Crawley and Wright, 2007;Nash, 2008;Mawby and Worrall, 2011), indicating a shift in occupational identities and a merging, or blurring, of professional roles. It is argued here that whether new initiatives within community sentences achieve their intended outcomes depends, to some extent, on how the accompanying process of organisational change is managed.…”

“…New arrangements and initiatives have led to (if not necessitated) changes to organisational structures, professional identities and occupational cultures (Faulkner, 2008;Robinson and Burnett, 2007;Gregory, 2010;Mawby and Worrall, 2011;Deering, Feilzer and Holmes, 2014). The potential consequences and subsequent impact of these changes have frequently been reported negatively.…”

Mind the gap

“…Whilst the points made here are about legal rehabilitation, McNeill has argued that the lack of social rehabilitation is at the root of a 'hostile correctional climate…and it lies behind the mistranslation, corruption, and misuse of rehabilitation theories' (p.15). Indeed, Mawby and Worrall (2011;2103) have noted how the occupational culture of probation workers has been shifted away from its traditional 'social-work' foundations and towards 'offender management' approaches which are heavily invested in compliance, enforcement and risk-prevention.…”

Experiencing penal supervision: A literature review

“…The probation studies literature provides many accounts of these experiences, especially in terms of how changes in the professional contexts of supervisors affect their practice (e.g. Mawby and Worrall, 2011;Mair, 2016;Deering and Feilzer, 2017;and compare Hucklesby, 2011 regarding electronic monitoring officers). However, two further points should be noted.…”