Men, Masculinity And Offending: Developing Gendered Practice In The Probation Service
| Published date | 01 March 2001 |
| DOI | 10.1177/026455050104800103 |
| Date | 01 March 2001 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
10
Men,
Masculinity
And
Offending: Developing
Gendered
Practice
In
The
Probation
Service
While
the
link
between
masculinity
and
crime
has
become
a
more
prominent
area
of
criminological
investigation
in
recent
years,
it
has
continued
to
receive
limited
attention
in
general
criminal
justice
policy.
Mark
Johnstone
argues
that
the
Probation
Service’s
piecemeal
incorporation
of
new
thinking
around
gender
and
crime
must
now
evolve
into
a
more
consistent
strategic
approach.
He
offers
some
ideas
on
the
way
in
which
the
masculinity/offending
link
can
be
explored
and
possibly
broken
during
work
with
male
offenders.
ender
is
the
single
largest
correlate
of
crime:
m
1997
recorded
crimes
indicated
that
95%
of
burglaries,
94%
of
motonng
offences,
88%
of
drug
offences,
98%
of
sexual
offences
and
83%
of
violent
crimes
were
committed
by
men
(Home
Office,
1999).
In
1999
106,866
men
(85%
of
the
total)
were
subject
to
probation
supervision
(community
service
orders,
probation
orders
or
combmation
orders)
in
England
and
Wales,
compared
to
19,679
(15%)
women
(Home
Office,
2001).
Probation
practitioners
can
be
in
little
doubt,
therefore,
that
to
work
with
offenders
is
largely
to
work
with
men.
Despite
this
fact,
men’s
gender-related
behaviour
has
all
too
often
blended
into
the
background
of
the
Criminal
Justice
System
(Buckley,
1996;
Worrall,
1996).
Only
in
recent
years
have
the
social
constructs
of
crime,
gender
and
power
come
under
critical
scrutiny
from
feminist
writers
(e.g.
Dominelli,
1991;
Campbell,
1993;
Buckley,
1996).
Men
are
mcreasingly
understood
not
only m
terms
of
their
power
relationship
with
women,
but
also
their
contradictory
power
relationship
with
each
other
(see
Ramazanoglu,
1992).
This
theoretical
interest
in
men
has
constituted
a
&dquo;well-
documented
explosion&dquo;
within
social
science
and
criminology
(Collier,
1998,
p.viii).
For
the
Probation
Service,
domestic
violence
programmes
have
transcended
the
theory/practice
divide,
seamlessly
linking
offending
behaviour
to
gender
power
relations.
However,
the
Service
has
not
consistently
and
explicitly
encouraged
integration
of
theoretical
understandings
of
the
social
construction
of
masculimty
into
work
with
male
offenders
generally.
There
have
been
some
notable
exceptions,
where
men’s
offending
programmes
have
focused
on
the
link
between
masculimty
and
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