People are not things: What New Labour has done to Probation
| Date | 01 September 2010 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0264550510373957 |
| Published date | 01 September 2010 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
People are not things: What New
Labour has done to Probation
Lol Burke, Liverpool John Moores University
Steve Collett, Cheshire Probation Trust and University of Liverpool
1
Abstract To many observers, Probation at the end of Labour’s third term was
characterized by an enduring sense of uncertainty resulting from a prolonged
period of unremitting change, burdened by bureaucracy and over-zealous micro-
management by the centre and subsumed into a complex organizational framework
dominated by prison-based personnel. The sense of betrayal and alienation felt by
many within the service towards the Government was a far cry from the cautious
optimism that had marked the election of a Labour Government in 1997, coming
as it did after a period in which the service had seen the short lived promise to move
centre stage (Patten, 1988) replaced by an openly hostile promotion of prison works
which seemed to threaten its very existence. In this article we attempt to evaluate the
changing relationship between Probation and New Labour, placing it within the
context of the wider approaches to crime control adopted by the government in
each of its three terms in office. Finally, we consider the legacy of the past 13 years
and conclude that despite the negative impact on Probation of an unrelenting reduc-
tionist focus on managerialist and technical policy fixes, there may yet be some
grounds for optimism.
Keywords command and control, contestability, evidence base, exclusion,
legacy, managerialism, New Labour, organizational change, Probation, public
protection, reducing re-offending
First term: A cause for optimism?
The election of a Labour Government in 1997 was seen by many within the Proba-
tion Service as marking a potential upturn in its fortunes within a more enlightened
approach to law and order. In terms of its political vision, the party’s manifesto
The Journal of Community and Criminal Justice
Copyright ª2010 NAPO Vol 57(3): 232-249
DOI: 10.1177/0264550510373957
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made it clear that it ‘had no intention or desire to replace one set of dogmas with
another’ and instead promoted an approach based on ‘pragmatism and eclecti-
cism’ (McLaughlin et al., 2001: 305) that offered a ‘third-way’ between right-wing
individualism and left-wing socialism (Giddens, 1998). The slogan, ‘tough on crime,
tough on the causes of crime’ was central to the ideological rebirth of the party,
appealing at the same time to both the sense of social justice associated with tradi-
tional Labourvoters and more populist sentiments(Bennett, 2007). However, as Char-
man and Savage (2002: 211) noted: ‘While the sentiments were fine, the dilemma
lay in achieving harmony between those two somewhat contradictory aims’.
From the outset it was clear that the Government’s intentions towards the Proba-
tion Service would be located within its broader vision to modernize public services
although according to Hough et al. (2006) the New Labour variant of moderniza-
tion was ‘presented not as a retreat from the provision of public services but as a
change in the way that they are delivered.
New Public Management is seen as the best way to drive up public sector perfor-
mance, and thus improve social justice’ (p. 2). Central to New Labour’s thinking was
that social problems (of which crime was one) are interrelated with a range of
causes that cannot be treated in isolation. Therefore, according to McLaughlin
et al. (2001) at the heart of the government’s modernization programme was an
‘emphasis on developing and employing incentives and levers to promote strategic
co-ordination and collaboration via ‘‘joined-up’’ partnerships’ (p. 307).
For the Probation Service this meant closer links with local authorities (through the
provisions of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998), the police (through the develop-
ment of Prolific & Priority Offender Projects) and the prison service (as a result of the
Prison-Probation Review, 1997). In what was a prescient warning of future develop-
ments, the latter review raised the possibility of merging the Prison and Probation
Services but faced with resistance from magistrates, judges and probation interest
groups this course of action was rejected in favour of closer integration and plan-
ning towards the common aim of ‘public protection’
2
and ‘reducing reoffending’.
Despite being committed to maintaining the previous administration’s public
spending plans (Flynn, 2000), the early years of the Labour Government coincided
with a downward trend in crime rates, which in turn supported a political climate
conducive to notions of ‘evidence-based’ policy and practice, providing what Nellis
terms ‘the veneer of managerial and scientific – as opposed to populist – legitimacy
to future policy initiatives’ (Nellis, 1999). As such, the New Labour Government ini-
tially distanced itself from the promotion of ‘prison works’ instead prioritizing
evidence-based policy and practice. This resulted in what works, risk management
and partnership becoming key features of its modernization agenda, building on
what were initially local projects formed on alliances between enthusiastic practi-
tioners, managers and researchers (Robinson and Raynor, 2006). New statistical
techniques of meta-analysis were emerging (particularly in North America) which
appeared to challenge the penal pessimism of ‘nothing works’
3
and small-scale
research studies in England and Wales were also showing encouraging results in
terms of their impact on programme completers compared with similar offenders
who received a custodial sentence (Roberts, 1989; Raynor and Vanstone, 1996).
The intervention of HM Inspectorate of Probation (HMIP) was also to play a crucial
Burke and Collett People are not things 233
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