Delivering desistance-focused probation in community hubs: Five key ingredients
| Author | Beth Collinson,Kathy Albertson,Andrew Fowler,Jake Phillips |
| Published date | 01 September 2020 |
| Date | 01 September 2020 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0264550520939176 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Delivering desistance-
focused probation
in community hubs:
Five key ingredients
Jake Phillips , Kathy Albertson ,
Beth Collinson, and Andrew Fowler
Sheffield Hallam University, UK
Abstract
This article argues that probation is well placed to facilitate desistance when delivered
in community hubs – community-based offices where probation services are co-
located with other community-based provision. However, we highlight that hubs
need to include certain key factors to maximise the potential for desistance. Using data
collected through a piece of empirical research in six community hubs in England and
Wales, we identify what factors make for a ‘good’ community hub as perceived by
staff who work in them, those subject to supervision via a hub, and managers with
strategic responsibility for commissioning hub services. We consider what it is about
those factors which facilitate desistance-focused practice as outlined in McNeill et al.’s
(2012) eight principles of desistance-focused practice. The five key factors identified in
this study are the location of a hub, the hub’s physical environment, the extent to which
services are co-located/produced, the cultural context of the hub, and the need for
leaders to be innovative in the way services are commissioned. The article concludes
with a discussion of the implications for the National Probation Service as it takes over
the work of Community Rehabilitation Companies in the coming years.
Keywords
community hubs, community justice, desistance, probation policy
Corresponding Author:
Jake Phillips, Department of Law and Criminology, Sheffield Hallam University, Heart of the Campus ,
Collegiate Crescent, Sheffield, South Yorkshire S10 2BQ, United Kingdom.
Email: jake.phillips@shu.ac.uk
The Journal of Community and Criminal Justice
Probation Journal
2020, Vol. 67(3) 264–282
ªThe Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0264550520939176
journals.sagepub.com/home/prb
Introduction
Since the implementation of Transforming Rehabilitation in 2014, Community
Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) have made concerted efforts to make greater use
of community hubs to deliver probation services. Although all hubs vary slightly,
they tend to be premises in which more than just probation providers are situated to
enable service users to access a greater range of services as part of their order or
period on licence. For example, the operating model of the now defunct Working
Links CRCs relied on community hubs (Dominey, 2018), and Durham Tees Valley
CRC uses hubs to deliver much of its work with service users (Ellis, 2017). Other
CRC owners have made greater use of hubs, especially when it comes to delivering
services to minority groups such as women, although others – such as Mabgate Mills
in Leeds – have closed down. In spite of the increased use of hubs in the probation
landscape, very little research has sought to understand whether and how they
improve probation practice and even less has considered what makes for a good
community hub. Thus, this article presents data on what probation providers need to
consider when commissioning community hub provision
What do we already know about hub-based probation
practice?
A community hub is ‘a place where agencies (including the CRC) share premises
and other facilities, pooling resources to offer a holistic service’ (Dominey, 2018:
5). Durham and Tees Valley CRC (2015) describes hubs as:
spaces where participants come to see their Responsible Officer whilst on a community
order or licence. Within the Hubs participants also have access to additional support
offered by Volunteers and Peer Mentors as well as signposting information for addi-
tional support from partnership agencies for example Education and Training,
Finances, Health and Housing.
There are several rationales for introducing community hubs in the post-
transforming rehabilitation probation landscape. The overarching rationale to using
hubs given by providers is that they enable people subject to probation supervision
to benefit from a multi-agency approach while meeting the requirements of their
court order or licence. On the other hand, they can enable probation providers to
deliver a service without the need for expensive service user facing offices and
interview rooms, thus continuing a long-standing trend in probation of estate ratio-
nalisation (Bottoms, 2008) and being a cover for the need to cut costs in a privatised
sector.
There has been little research on the use of community hubs. Dominey (2018: 5)
cites Watkins’s (2016) unpublished research which found ‘promising indications
that community hubs were improving the delivery of offender supervision and
encouraging engagement and compliance’. Ellis (2017) found that many partici-
pants were initially uneasy at the prospect of hub-based working but eventually
Phillips et al. 265
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