Probation Occupational Cultures for the future? A Focus Group Discussion
| Author | Lol Burke, Michael Teague, Dave Ward, Anne Worrall |
Introduction
The concept of culture embraces a diversity of notions, ideas and meanings which may be linked with roles, norms, and values. If culture is effectively a system of collectively held values, then as Schein (2010:21-22) noted, once 'a set of shared assumptions has come to be taken for granted, it determines much of the group's behaviour, and the rules and norms that are taught to newcomers that is a reflection of culture'.
Academics in the fields of social policy, sociology and economics have acknowledged that work is at the core of human social and cultural life (for example, Edgell, 2012; Vallas, 2012). As Vallas (2012:8) noted, 'how work is arranged… has massive institutional and cultural effects'. Trice (1993:xii) observed that 'occupations tend to be cultures in and of themselves'. Deering (2011:25), writing about the impact of penal policy upon probation practitioners, pointed to the plethora of definitions of culture in general, and more specifically the range of definitions of occupational culture.
Johnson et al. (2009:320) argued that occupational culture may exert such a significant impact that it 'shapes perceptions of reality'. It is clear that probation practitioners, like groups of workers in many occupations, develop their own specific occupational culture. Research on the police (for example, Graef, 1989; Loftus, 2012; Reiner, 1992) underlines the importance of studying occupational cultures. Within the criminal justice system, Sir William Macpherson made the following observation about the power exerted by police occupational culture in his report on the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence:
'We are all consumed by this occupational culture… we tend to conform to the norms of this occupational culture, which we say is all powerful in shaping our views and perceptions of a particular community.' (Macpherson, 1999:25)
Writing about probation in particular, Mawby and Worrall (2011:4) observed that occupational culture may be viewed as 'the values shared by individuals that manifest themselves in the practices of members of that occupation or organisation'. They cite an early definition of occupational culture by Schein as helpful for their discussion of probation cultures: 'The deeper level of basic assumptions and beliefs that are shared by members of an organisation, that operate unconsciously and define in a basic taken-for-granted fashion an organisation's view of itself and its environment' (Schein, 1985 cited in Mawby & Worrall, 2011:5). If we want to understand what Schein labels as the 'deeper level' assumptions of probation workers, a consideration of how future probation occupational cultures may develop is essential. Such attitudes and perceptions may exist and function beneath the official presentational umbrella of the agencies which now cover what formerly constituted the probation service. The study of probation's occupational cultures may provide access to understanding which may otherwise be relatively inaccessible, given that it is situated beyond the presentation level.
The deeply ingrained notions and ideas embedded in an occupational culture are effectively the substance of that culture; that is, they communicate to those who are part of the culture which particular activities they ought to be undertaking, and how they should understand them. There is, of course, the possibility of discrepancies between the probation agencies' official mission and the everyday lived reality of practice as experienced by frontline practitioners. This underpins the importance of paying careful attention to probation occupational cultures as understood by a range of practitioners. How these cultures may develop in future is precisely what this focus group aims to discuss. It is also important to note that the process by which we view occupational culture did not develop independently, in a vacuum; it is inevitably shaped by wider political, social and economic forces. This discussion must also take account of that reality.
What do we mean by 'occupational cultures'?
Michael: It's very important to define what we're doing. You could say it's some kind of collective programming of what we do as a people, collective programming of the mind and shared values and ideas of how a particular job is undertaken. There are going to be as many different definitions of culture as there are sociologists and criminologists. If we're talking about organisational culture, I would tend to see that as a top-down phenomenon, driven from the top of the managerial hierarchy, and if we're talking about occupational culture that's a process that is driven from the ground up, by frontline practitioners. So if we're looking at occupational culture we're looking at ideas that people are bringing to their job, why people come into probation. That might be one of the key areas that's changing as the nature of probation changes and the CRCs develop. Linked with this are the ideas that practitioners embrace once they're in the job: ideas of what they're actually doing, how they understand what they're doing, and what the job actually means. And interlinked with that are practitioners' ideas of what punishment is, and what rehabilitation is. And those are all incredibly varied. If we're looking forward we've got all sorts of ideas to draw upon from probation from the past. The original one is still the belief that if there was a return to social work education and a social welfarist ethos, everything would be magically resolved - that idealistic view - and then you could move it right up to the present day to confrontation, control, compliance - all of those issues. That whole idea of risk assessment interlinked with ideas about technology and how we communicate. Patterns of work can be altered by technology, which can mean the deskilling of practitioners, and the degradation of their work. If we characterise early probation as 'advise, assist and befriend' and maybe mid-probation as 'confront, control and monitor', is there a pithy three pronged analysis of what probation might be in 2020?
Anne: Going back to what you said earlier about organisational cultures and occupational cultures, if we look at where the boundaries are between those two, that might be the thing that has changed and is changing. But as you were saying that, I was writing down 'autonomy and accountability' because one of the key things in 'traditional' probation occupational cultures has been the autonomous professional worker being able to make their own judgements and that has been steadily eroded. The other phrase I've written down is the one about cultures being about 'how things are done around here'. It's the informal, the back story of how you're socialised into a particular occupation and what the process of that is. Between us we've got quite a clear idea of what the process has been and I wonder if it's the process of socialising into the occupation that has changed so dramatically with Transforming Rehabilitation.
Michael: And you're not talking about training specifically here?
Anne: No, clearly training is one important element. That's the key to how you get a raw person off the streets and into the job but that's not the only thing about occupational cultures. It's what happens after the training or alongside the training, it's about the group dynamics and the way in which the group socialises its members into particular ways of doing things.
Michael: That's important because how we organise work is going to have massive institutional effects, cultural effects, just the way in which it's structured for practitioners on a daily basis, and occupational norms and values. That's going to have a huge impact.
Dave: And things that were being talked about earlier in relation to open plan offices and the way the work is physically arranged has an impact. I'm just saying that as a side issue, I don't know how that helps us.
Anne: I don't think it's a side issue, it's absolutely crucial. We've done quite a lot of work between us on the physical environments. We've done the European project on photographing the physical environment of probation, for example, because we think it really is an important part of the culture, so I think you're quite right to raise that.
Lol: Why I think it's really important is that one of the things that Transforming Rehabilitation has done is very quickly changed the demographic of the organisation, so you've now got lots of new staff who are coming in and have not worked within the old culture. So the environment and organisational memory that the new providers are trying to create, for some workers that will be what they've been socialised into. The providers think that by concentrating a lot of their efforts in terms of the physical layout of the working environment for example, they are making a strong statement of intention.
Anne: Yes, why spend all that money on creating a particular kind of model of the physical environment if you don't think that it's going to impact on the way in which you're working and how people see their role within the organisation? Also, the issue of values has to come through all the time, how you sustain (if you want to sustain) the values of traditional probation cultures and how those have to be changed in the new environment.
Dave: For me, connected to values is all that you were saying earlier about the impact on occupational culture of the changing demographic which is the gender changes in probation, of it becoming a woman majority occupation.
Anne: In a way the voice of the occupational cultures of probation has now become much more a female voice than it was in the past. It's not necessarily that there...
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