Exploring Autonomy in the Finnish and New Zealand Penal Voluntary Sectors: The Relevance of Marketisation and Criminal Justice Policy Environments in Two Penal Voluntary Sector Organisations
| Published date | 01 September 2019 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12319 |
| Date | 01 September 2019 |
| Author | MAIJA HELMINEN,ALICE MILLS |
The Howard Journal Vol58 No 3. September 2019 DOI: 10.1111/hojo.12319
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 404–429
Exploring Autonomy in the Finnish
and New Zealand Penal Voluntary
Sectors: The Relevance of
Marketisation and Criminal Justice
Policy Environments in Two Penal
Voluntary Sector Organisations
MAIJA HELMINEN and ALICE MILLS
Maija Helminen is Doctoral Candidate, Faculty of Law, University of Turku,
Finland; Alice Mills is Senior Lecturer in Criminology, School of Social
Sciences, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Abstract: Our understanding of the structural factors shaping the agency of penal
voluntary organisations in different jurisdictions is limited. This article explores how
political, economic, and ideological factors in the voluntary and criminal justice sectors
have affected two voluntary and community organisations (VCOs) which work with
offenders – Finland’s KRITS and New Zealand’s NZPARS – and their ability to pursue
their charitable goals and values. Based on qualitative thematic documentary analysis,
our findings indicate that while marketisation and the populist penal policy environment
contributed to the downfall of NZPARS, KRITS has been able to pursue its value-based
mission of introducing unique elements to the criminal justice system, in spite of also
experiencing pressures of marketisation. By contrasting these accounts it is clear that the
current structures in New Zealand society have not supported the autonomy of all penal
voluntary sector organisations, adding to the challenges of reforming the criminal justice
system.
Keywords: Finland; marketisation; New Zealand; penal populism; penal vol-
untary sector; prisoner rehabilitation; voluntary and community organisations
(VCOs)
For well over 100 years, various voluntary and community organisations
(VCOs)1have served the needs of prisoners and those released from prison
through volunteer work, donations from private institutions or individu-
als, and/or state finances (for example, Carey and Walker 2002; Gill and
Mawby 1990). Despite their importance in the lives of prisoners and ex-
prisoners, until recently VCOs have attracted little attention in criminology.
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2019 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK
The Howard Journal Vol58 No 3. September 2019
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 404–429
However, the recent large-scale privatisation of criminal justice functions
in England and Wales and the consequent increased share of government
contracts for some large VCOs have induced a lively discussion, espe-
cially among British and North American criminologists. Concerns have
been raised that accepting state service contracts may jeopardise some
VCOs’ independence and distinctiveness, and their ability to work ac-
cording to their charitable missions, provide alternatives to state services
and act as critics of government policies (Corcoran 2009, 2011; Corcoran
et al. 2018; Maguire 2012; Mills, Meek and Gojkovic 2011). Others have
argued that a large number of organisations working in the penal volun-
tary sector2remain unaffected by the recent pressures of ‘marketisation’
(Tomczak 2014, 2017), which, broadly defined, refers to the introduction
of markets, market forces and market(-like) principles and practices in
the delivery and management of public goods and services (Birch and
Siemiatycki 2016).
Nevertheless, our knowledge of the penal voluntary sector is still partial
and theoretically underdeveloped (Tomczak 2017). One explanation for
this may be that previous research has been dominated by Anglophone
scholars, mainly from the UK and North America (for example, Cor-
coran 2009, 2011; Corcoran et al. 2018; Kaufman 2015; Maguire 2012;
Maurutto and Hannah-Moffat 2016; Mills, Meek and Gojkovic 2011;
Tomczak 2014, 2017; Tomczak and Thompson 2019), who have exam-
ined the sector in a particular sociopolitical context, potentially hindering
a more thorough examination of the structural factors such as funding
arrangements, political context and economic histories that can influence
its form and function. This article therefore aims to provide a broader un-
derstanding of how different political, economic, and ideological factors in
the voluntary and criminal justice sectors can affect the position of VCOs in
the penal voluntary sector,by contrasting the accounts of two organisations
which work with offenders in Finland and in New Zealand – KRITS3and
NZPARS4– through qualitative thematic documentary analysis of their an-
nual reports. It examines how such factors appear to have affected KRITS’
and NZPARS’ abilities to pursue their value-based missions and ultimately,
their fundamental roles as VCOs. It notes the impact of a neoliberal5modus
operandi in state administration on these organisations, particularly as the
state has shifted from being a provider of public services to a facilitator of
market solutions (Bell 2011). Both Finland and New Zealand have been
affected by neoliberalism, but neoliberalism interacts with specific cultural
and institutional factors in different contexts, producing variable results
across nations at different times (Bell 2011, p.6). Although the two organ-
isations under study do not represent the whole penal voluntary sector
in their respective jurisdictions, they can illustrate the conditions under
which similarly placed organisations operate.
Finland and New Zealand provide meaningful cases for comparative re-
search as they are both relatively wealthy liberal market societies, and until
the 1980s both could be described as social democracies with high levels of
universal welfare benefits. Yet,whereas Finland has continued to maintain
comparatively generous welfare state assistance, New Zealand has turned
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2019 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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