Probation Governance, Identity, and Practice

Making, Unmaking, Remaking
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-032-87660-3
Verlag: Taylor & Francis

Buch, Englisch, 218 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 485 g

Reihe: Routledge Studies in Probation and Community Sanctions

This book explores the making, unmaking, and remaking of the Probation Service in England and Wales – an organisation that, in recent decades, has seemingly been in a constant state of flux. It draws on original empirical data derived from 38 semi-structured interviews with staff from across the probation estate to scrutinise ongoing changes to probation governance, identity, and practice.

The book focuses on recent restructurings of probation – namely, the 2014 Transforming Rehabilitation reforms, which resulted in the majority of services being delivered by private providers; and the subsequent unification, in 2021, when services were returned to the public sector. In this sense, it provides the first monograph-length account of the re-nationalisation of a public service in the UK. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s theory of governmentality, it explores how probation governance, identity, and practice have been made, unmade, and remade. In particular, it situates the Probation Service within a neoliberal apparatus of (in)security, a concept that highlights the convergence of heightened punitiveness and managerialism, increased expectations for inter-agency working, and the weakening of the public sector in the UK. The book argues that the Probation Service can, and ought to, perform a civilizing role as an organising ‘node’ that brings together social welfare, treatment, and community spheres. However, probation’s ability to realise this axial role has been undermined by both organisational crisis and the impact of the politics of austerity.

This book will be essential reading for students and scholars of criminology. It will also be of interest to practitioners, policymakers, and social workers engaged in probation and welfare services.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate and Undergraduate Advanced

Autoren/Hrsg.

Tidmarsh, Matt

Fachgebiete

• Rechtswissenschaften Strafrecht Kriminologie, Strafverfolgung
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Kriminalsoziologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction: Making, Unmaking, and Remaking 2. Probation, Punishment, and (Welfare) Professions 3. Probation Beyond the State? Governance, Identity, and Practice 4. Transforming Rehabilitation as an (Unsuccessful) Exercise in Nodal Governance 5. Unifying Probation: Professional Identity in a ‘Caring’ Profession 6. ‘We’re Genericists’? Towards Nodal Governance, Identities, and Practices in Probation 7. Conclusion: Civilizing Probation?

Über Autor(innen)

Matt Tidmarsh is Associate Professor of Criminal Justice in the School of Law at the University of Leeds. His research interests are interdisciplinary, drawing from criminology, sociology, and penology, with a particular focus on governance, identity, and practice in probation. He is also the Co-Director of the Centre for Criminal Justice Studies at the University of Leeds.