Reunified probation. All aboard the ‘justice fleet’
| Author | Nicola Carr |
| Published date | 01 September 2021 |
| Date | 01 September 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/02645505211039485 |
| Subject Matter | Editorial |
Reunified probation.
All aboard the
‘justice fleet’
Probation services in England were re-unified and brought back into public
ownership on 26 June 2021, following the privatisation and division of services
that took place under Transforming Rehabilitation. Probation in Wales had
already been brought fully under the public ambit in December 2019, following
the collapse of the Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC), which had operated
there. The re-unification of probation services has been welcomed across a range of
quarters, from trade union bodies and parliamentarians to the probation inspector-
ate. However, many who have welcomed the decision have also noted the heavy toll
that years of disruption have had on probation services in England and Wales. A
disruption that has been particularly marked in the impact on the probation
workforce.
We have previously published articles in the journal about the significant effects
of Transforming Rehabilitation on staff across probation services both in the lead up
to and following the implementation of the reforms. For instance, Phillips et al.
(2016) documented the feeling of ‘relentlessness’amongst staff who experienced
the move towards the supervision of primarily ‘high-risk’cases in the National
Probation Service (NPS). In a practitioner response, Lee (2017) observed the
need for enhanced supervisory supports, particularly to address the emotional
impacts of working with high degrees of trauma among service users. A Special
Issue of the journal marking the fifth anniversary of Transforming Rehabilitation
(Volume 66, Issue 1, 2019), included an article by Walker et al. (2019), which
documented the stresses and workload pressures experienced by staff in CRCs
and the NPS, and which for some, led to their decision to leave probation work
altogether.
Further coverage in the journal has charted the vagaries of implementation, for
instance through foreseeable difficulties in Payment by Results (Albertson and Fox,
2019) and the casting aside of smaller local voluntary services under the behemoth
of large-scale procurement processes (Corcoran et al., 2019). Meanwhile in more
recent years, we have published some of the areas in which practice innovation
had been taking place and where some staff articulated a sense of excitement
about the potential for the probation role. It is clear therefore that reunification will
mean different things to staff depending on their position and experiences to date.
Editorial The Journal of Communit
y
and Criminal Justice
Probation Journal
2021, Vol. 68(3) 307–309
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/02645505211039485
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