Abstract
This volume seeks to examine the reality of probation practice in the early years of the 21st century by exploring the gap between official accounts of probation practice and those offered by probation professionals delivering services to courts and offenders. The analysis draws on qualitative data derived from semi-structured interviews and focus groups with a range of probation professionals which is complemented and supplemented by data derived from attitudinal surveys undertaken with probation staff and analyses of case files and pre-sentence reports. The empirical data is considered in relation to the profound changes produced in Western societies in the movement to late modernity. Thus the findings are theoretically contextualized with regard to the ‘new penology’ and its accompanying penological aims of risk assessment, offender management and punishment.
The first two chapters address the broad social changes occurring over recent decades in Western societies which have contributed to ontological insecurity and fear of crime and criminals, which in turn has influenced government policy and priorities in relation to the work of probation professionals and probation services. Chapter 2 provides a concise but engaging overview of the shift from modernity to late modernity and the emergence of an increasingly punitive criminal justice system, while Chapter 3 provides a historical review of criminal justice practice and priorities from 1970s to the first decade of the 21st century. The former keys into a range of influential ideas and theories regarding the nature of contemporary criminal justice, which incorporates a diverse range of commentators including Foucault, Garland, Giddens, Loader and Sparks, O’Malley, Pratt and Rose. The latter charts the emergence of the increasing emphasis on ‘what works’, tough enforcement and partnership working via a range of legislative and policy developments culminating in a consideration of the introduction of National Standards, Multi-Agency Public Protection Panels (MAPPs), Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPAs), and the National Offender Management Service (NOMS). The emergence of a managerialist and punitive approach to criminal justice is effectively and engagingly drawn, which in view of the UK Coalition Government’s promotion of ‘payment by results’ includes a particularly interesting discussion, in Chapter 2, on the impact of ‘New Public Management’ and the movement to the ‘entrepreneurial state’ for probation policy and practice. Notwithstanding the profound challenges of these developments for probation practice, the tone here is not wholly negative and − drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of ‘hysteresis’ − Deering emphasizes the unpredictability of the implementation of top-down policies concluding that ‘their final shape (in terms of actual practice)… is likely to be something not quite intended by either management or practitioners’ (p. 28).
Hereafter attention turns to the author’s empirical findings. Chapter 4 addresses the attitudes, beliefs and values of probation professionals with regard to risk, enforcement and managerialism. Chapter 5 focuses on the practice of assessment, the use and importance of risk assessment and the influence of the ‘new penology’ agenda. Finally, Chapters 6 and 7 consider the increased emphasis on control, management and enforcement associated with successive governments’ desires to toughen up community sentences and how this has impacted on probation values and practice. Deering presents the findings from a diverse range of empirical data sources with care and clarity, providing useful summaries outlining the significance of findings presented. The quotes from probation personnel are particularly fascinating to read and provide an engaging and insightful practice commentary on state policy and priorities. The homogeneity of the responses from a diverse range of respondents, including trainees, practitioners with varying degrees of experience and middle-management, highlights the ongoing and dynamic tensions inherent to frontline probation professionals’ roles of care, management and control and their resistance to becoming mere technicians and offender managers.
The final chapters − Chapters 8 and 9 − provide an overview and summary of the analysis presented and reflect upon the likely future of probation under the Coalition Government. Herein Deering’s conviction that we are likely to witness more of the same with a punitive edge continuing to characterize probation policy and practice has proved accurate. Indeed, the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice has recently pledged the wholesale reform of community sentences and the operation of probation services, with an emphasis on the punishment and reform of offenders and protection of the public alongside the principles of competition and payment by results (Clarke, 2012). Undoubtedly this will present further challenges for the provision of public sector probation services. However Deering’s empirical insights suggest some grounds for optimism that the emergent model of probation may not quite hold with the Government’s stated intentions but rather be tempered by professionals’ commitment to pursue probation practice which combines relational based, strengths focused, positive and humanistic responses to the offenders with whom they work.
While there is a degree of repetition in the theoretical and empirical concerns addressed, the major strength of Deering’s analysis is the detailed presentation of empirical findings which provide fascinating insights into the complexities and tensions inherent to the delivery of probation services to courts and offenders. In providing an important contemporary history of probation policy and practice, this book is an engaging read which will be of interest to those with policy, practice and academic interests in the development and implementation of criminal justice policy. In particular, it highlights the importance of situating government policy and rhetoric with regard to the day-to-day values, priorities and practices of frontline probation professionals, while references to a range of related issues, including organizational cultures and the feminization of the probation workforce, suggest further potential avenues of empirical enquiry.