Co-producing justice sanctions? Citizen perspectives
| DOI | 10.1177/1748895816639730 |
| Author | ,Trish McCulloch |
| Date | 01 September 2016 |
| Published date | 01 September 2016 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
research-article2016
Article
Criminology & Criminal Justice
2016, Vol. 16(4) 431 –451
Co-producing justice
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/1748895816639730
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perspectives
Trish McCulloch with members of
Positive Prison? Positive Futures
University of Dundee, UK
Abstract
This article is about the place of those sentenced in criminal justice sanctions. Specifically, it
reports on the findings of a co-productive qualitative inquiry that sought to explore the place
and possibility of service user co-production within justice sanctions, drawing on the experience
of people with convictions. The conclusion of the article is that participation and co-production
matters in justice sanctions. The detail and implications of this conclusion are discussed.
Keywords
Citizen, co-production, justice sanction, participation, punishment, service user
Introduction
Criminal justice services, across most liberal democracies, increasingly operate amid the
push and pull forces of party politics, global trends and crises, media sensationalism,
shifting social attitudes to crime control and the now near permanent reform of public
services. The impact of these alternating forces on the form, identity and function of crim-
inal justice services and sanctions continues to be profound, multi-layered and complex.
In recent decades we have seen the rise and spread of punitive, managerial, mar-
ketized, risk-averse and exclusionary regimes for criminal justice services and sanctions
(Garland, 2002; Young, 1999). In part, these developments have prompted the displace-
ment and/or reorientation of more ‘traditional’ justice ideals – including a longstanding
focus on the individual ‘offender’ and his or her constructive punishment, rehabilitation
Corresponding author:
Trish McCulloch, School of Education and Social Work, University of Dundee, Dundee, DD1 4HN,
Scotland, UK.
Email: p.mcculloch@dundee.ac.uk
432
Criminology & Criminal Justice 16(4)
and reintegration – replacing these with purportedly more modern and expedient priori-
ties in the form of punishment, correction, compliance and control (Feeley and Simon,
1992; Tata, 2010). Accompanying these new priorities is a raft of new technologies of
punishment which, again, pose to significantly alter the place and contribution of those
sentenced in justice processes. In new discourses of punishment (vis-à-vis offender man-
agement) the person sentenced is rarely constructed as a collaborative actor, albeit one
always operating within a context of constraint and coercion, rather, he/she has become
the object upon which justice is done and his or her role in that transaction, typically, is
to comply and conform (or face the consequences of failing to do so) (Raynor, 2014).
The impact of these developing regimes and technologies on criminal justice policy,
practice and outcomes is of course complex and nuanced (see, for example, recent
Scottish writing on the impact of global policy shifts on Scottish penal policy and prac-
tice, Grant, 2016; McAra, 2008; Tata, 2010). Nonetheless, across many jurisdictions,
burgeoning imprisonment rates, system churn, public fear and disillusionment and soar-
ing system costs continue to call into question the merits and effects of evolving cultures
of punishment and control. Further, there is evidence to suggest rising levels of disen-
franchisement and disaffection among the people that justice sanctions remain tasked to
engage and ‘transform’ (Farrall, 2002; Kirby et al., 2014; McCulloch, 2010).
Running alongside this evolution, across the broader sphere of public service provi-
sion, is a connecting and arguably counter (r)evolution under the banners of personaliza-
tion, participation and co-production (Bovaird, 2007; Pestoff et al., 2012). Though these
concepts are by no means synonymous, expressing as they do differing degrees and
practices of power sharing, together they have contributed to a refreshed rhetoric of
involving and empowering service users and communities, towards supporting their sub-
stantive participation in and co-production of public services and the personalized out-
comes to which they aspire. The social, cultural and political drivers behind these
developments are broad and invite critique (Ferguson, 2007). However, central to these
developments is a renewed understanding that the progression of meaningful and effec-
tive outcomes, in any sector, depends on an exchange of dialogue, effort and activity
between service users, traditional providers, groups and communities. This maturing
discourse has significant implications for the developing direction and reform of crimi-
nal justice services. While it may be tempting to side-step these developments on the
grounds that they are too risky or incongruous to the observed trajectory and priorities of
late modern criminal justice policy and practice, it is arguably within these tensions that
the potential and appeal of co-production resides. Further, as I have argued elsewhere
(McCulloch, 2015), the value of these maturing concepts does not reside in their ready
fit with dominant public sector ideology, policy and practice, it lies in their potential to
re-orientate and reconfigure debate around the what, why, how and who of public sector
vis-à-vis criminal justice services (see also Weaver, 2013).
This article starts from the questions and opportunities that arise from the co-occurring
developments outlined. Specifically, it seeks to advance engagement with co-production
as an emerging concept in the criminal justice context. We begin by providing a brief
review of existing inquiry on co-production (and related concepts) in criminal justice
sanctions and services. We then report, partially, on the findings of a co-productive quali-
tative inquiry that sought to explore the meaning, place and possibility of co-production
McCulloch
433
in criminal justice sanctions and services, drawing on the experience of people with con-
victions. The conclusion of this article is that participation and co-production matters in
justice sanctions. The detail and implications of this conclusion are discussed.
A Note re Terms
Noting the elasticity of meaning that surrounds the concept of co-production (Beresford,
2012; Ewert and Evers, 2012), it is necessary to provide some comment on this term and
what we mean in using it. Most commentators agree that the concept of co-production
spread from Ostrom’s work in the 1970s. Reviewing urban reform in the United States,
Ostrom and colleagues concluded that public services are not delivered by a single public
authority, but rather by several different actors, both public and private. Further, they
observed that many public services depend heavily on the contribution of time and effort
by the same people who consume these services, that is, clients and citizens. Ostrom thus
coined the term co-production to describe the potential relationships that could exist
between ‘regular producers’ and their ‘clients’ (Pestoff et al., 2012). In the intervening
years, co-production has become a global and elastic concept and is now used broadly to
describe and analyse citizen participation in the provision of publicly financed services
(Pestoff, 2012: 17). The elasticity associated with co-production mostly reflects the dif-
fering degrees of citizen participation and the different forms in which it occurs. For
example, commentators have long distinguished between low, medium and high levels
of participation (Arnstein, 1971) and between individual, group and collective forms
(Bovaird and Loeffler, 2008). In addition, co-production can be used to describe third
sector participation in the provision of publicly financed services, as seen, for example,
in the rise of third sector involvement in the delivery of community and custodial sen-
tences (Hucklesby and Corcoran, 2016). If we add into this conceptual soup the multiple
individuals and groups that collect under the terms citizen and third sector, the growth of
new and different ways to involve citizens as co-producers of their own and/or others
services (Pestoff, 2012) and the diverse contexts in which co-production occurs, we can
begin to see why co-production has become a fluid and elastic concept. As some com-
mentators observe, in the absence of definitional clarification, co-production runs the
risk of meaning everything and nothing at the same time.
In this article our focus is on the meaning, place and possibility of co-production
within the particular context of criminal justice sanctions. Specifically, we are interested
in exploring the opportunities that exist for those sentenced to play an active and collabo-
rative role in setting and progressing shared outcomes for justice sanctions. With regard
to the particular forms of co-production being considered, it would be premature to pre-
scribe these here. As outlined, key to this article is a concern to explore this developing
concept and practice from the perspective of those who have ‘lived’ justice sanctions.
Notwithstanding, noting our focus, it is expected that emphasis will be given to individ-
ual forms of co-production, that is to co-productive relationships that produce outcomes
that benefit the individuals involved (Bovaird and Loeffler, 2008). In respect of out-
comes, it is expected that...
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