Nordic and Scottish Civil Society Organisations Working with Offenders and the Effects of Service Delivery: Is Pursuing Mission Impossible Whilst Bidding for Contracts?
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12152 |
| Date | 01 May 2016 |
| Author | MAIJA HELMINEN |
| Published date | 01 May 2016 |
The Howard Journal Vol55 No 1–2. May 2016 DOI: 10.1111/hojo.12152
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 73–93
Nordic and Scottish Civil Society
Organisations Working with
Offenders and the Effects of Service
Delivery: Is Pursuing Mission
Impossible Whilst Bidding for
Contracts?
MAIJA HELMINEN
Doctoral Candidate, Faculty of Law, University of Turku, Finland
Abstract: It has been suggested that civil society organisations (CSOs) in the penal
sector may be losing their autonomy, whilst delivering services to the public sector. This
interview-based study explores this question in the context of Nordic and Scottish CSOs.
The findings reveal that for these CSOs that already are dependent on co-operation with
the criminal justice system, service-delivery contracts have generated additional difficulties
in remaining truthful to their missions. However, those CSOs that had embedded their
core activities in volunteering instead of paid professionals were able to hold on to their
original missions to a greater extent, regardless of service delivery. The article suggests
that CSOs that still wish to remain loyal to their original purposes should reinforce
volunteer-based working methods within their organisations.
Keywords: civil society organisations; service-delivery contracts; offenders;
Nordic countries; Scotland
Previous discussions in England and Wales have suggested that civil soci-
ety organisations (CSOs)1working in the area of criminal justice face the
danger of losing their status as independent actors due to their increasing
service delivery to the criminal justice system. Indeed, an increasing mix
of providers from the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors offer crim-
inal justice services – particularly now, as the majority of probation work
has been opened up to competition with the ‘Transforming Rehabilita-
tion’ programme (Ministry of Justice 2013). However, the growing service
delivery from the CSOs to the criminal justice system has been seen as
problematic in many ways. Scholars have argued, for example, that in the
effort to try to win contracts from the public sector, CSOs face the danger
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2015 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK
The Howard Journal Vol55 No 1–2. May 2016
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 73–93
of ‘goal distortion’ (Kendall and Knapp 1996), the loss of their ability to
criticise government policies, and a failure to meet the interest of the peo-
ple they should be representing. In addition, they may become unable to
use their special knowledge and skills and may even contribute to further
exclusion of an already marginalised group of people (Mythen, Walklate
and Kemshall 2013; Maguire 2012; Senior 2011; Corcoran 2008, 2009;
Vennard and Hedderman 2009).
With the spread of neoliberal management ideologies, the trend of
outsourcing public sector services to enterprises and CSOs has become a
commonplace practice elsewhere too. For instance, Scotland has, in many
respects, followed similar policy lines to the recent Westminster govern-
ments in terms of civil society, hence emphasising the role of CSOs in
the future delivery of public services (Alcock 2012). The Nordic coun-
tries, which are commonly considered to favour a strong role for the State
in welfare provision, are also increasingly utilising private companies and
CSOs in the delivery of public services, as this article will later demonstrate.
Consequently, the prominence of CSOs in service delivery has provoked
concerns about the diminishing representative and political functions of
the traditionally strongly ‘voice-orientated’ Nordic CSOs (Matthies 2006).
However, the actual research evidence about the possible effects of
service-delivery contracts on the independence of the CSOs working with
offenders and their ability to pursue their missions whilst delivering public
services is still scarce, and much of it is based on speculation. For example,
in one of the few studies in which stakeholders from the CSOs were inter-
viewed, half of the interviewees stated that government contracts muted
their critical voice, whilst half of them had not noted such an effect (Mills,
Meek and Gojkovic 2011). Furthermore, Tomczak (2013) has highlighted
the heterogeneity of the CSOs working in the area of criminal justice, ar-
guing that CSOs are able to find alternative funding sources instead of
becoming ‘junior partners’ of the government. Hence, these observations
suggest that the effects of service-delivery contracts may not be as harmful
for the civil society sector as previously imagined.
As illustrated, the earlier discussions have scrutinised the possible con-
sequences that acting as a service provider to the public sector may have for
the two widely-acknowledged main purposes of CSOs – the roles of CSOs
as interest mediators and spokespersons of certain groups and providers
of services to these groups. The aim of this study is to further explore
these possible effects of service delivery on the abilities of CSOs working
with offenders to carry out their original missions and it is based on inter-
views with representatives of seven ‘key CSOs’ in three Nordic countries
– Finland, Norway, and Sweden – and in Scotland. Thus, the study of-
fers a comparative perspective on the relationship between CSOs working
with former offenders and service delivery. The article commences with a
brief examination of the roles of CSOs in the aforementioned three Nordic
countries and Scotland. This section focuses particularly on the roles of the
CSOs that operate in the welfare sector,as this is the reference group of the
CSOs examined in the study. The next section of the article offers a back-
ground about the scale of the penal sectors and discusses the significance of
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2015 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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