Probation Practice and the New Penology: Practitioner Reflections
Contents: Introduction Late modernity, the new penality, managerialism and the culture of organisations The development of penal and correctional policy and its impact on probation practices and culture Attitudes, values and beliefs in the probation service Reflections on practice 1: the assessment of offenders Reflections on practice 2: the enforcement of community orders and post custody licences Reflections on practices 3: case management and the supervision of offenders Probation practice in the early 21st century? Probation and the new penality: conclusions and looking forward Bibliography Index.
Moving Away from Social Work and Half Way Back Again: New Research on Skills in Probation
Research on social work in the criminal justice system was well represented in the social work literature until the 1990s. Since then, changes in the organisation, training and research base of probation practice, particularly in England and Wales, have all contributed to a separation between probation research and the mainstream social work research literature. However, recent probation research, by focusing on individual practice skills and on the quality of relationships, is producing findings which resonate with traditional social work concerns. The study presented here, based on analysis of videotaped interviews between probation staff and the people they are supervising, shows what skills are used and the effects of skilled supervision. People supervised by more skilled staff were significantly less likely to be reconvicted over a two-year follow-up, and the most effective supervisors combined good relationship skills with a range of ‘structuring’ or change-promoting skills. In effect, this can be regarded as a test of the impact of social work skills used by probation staff and suggests that a closer relationship between mainstream social work research and probation research could be productive for both.
But who will do the work?
The fourth successive Conservative government since 1979 sees the Tory wolf camped firmly at the social work door. In successive policy changes, the world of the individual practitioner is set for radical alteration which cannot now be long delayed. The purposes of this article are three-fold. Firstly to look again at two of these major initiatives Community Care for Social Service Departments and Punishment in the Community for the Probation Service in order to highlight one of their unifying ideas, that of practitioner as manager. Secondly to consider one particular aspect of the new arrangements, that of worker organisation and representation. Thirdly, to suggest that, unless the