Sensing probation in Canada: Notes on affect and penal aesthetics in risk assessment
| Published date | 01 August 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/20662203231170688 |
| Author | Micheal P. Taylor |
| Date | 01 August 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
Original Article
European Journal of Probation
2023, Vol. 15(2) 120–146
© The Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/20662203231170688
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Sensing probation in Canada:
Notes on affect and penal
aesthetics in risk assessment
Micheal P. Taylor
Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada
Abstract
Based on 6 years of probation practitioner experience in a metropolis of Canada, I
provide an autoethnographic account reflecting on my fieldwork as I now commence
doctoral studies. Contributing to discussions of experience in the penal atmosphere, I
explore personal ethics and values, looking specifically to LSI-R software, where my
experience with risk-based programming indicates a subjugation of both supervisees and
supervisors. Studying penal aesthetics within the version of the software I used to assess
criminogenic risk thus elucidates why evaluators tend to score their risk ratings upward
rather than downward. Implications for a desistance paradigm are juxtaposed to the RNR
model of offender management, where sensing visual and haptic stimuli pertains to an
algorithmic governance mode limiting human connection. I conclude by reflecting on
organisational values and behaviour to indicate where therapeutic alliances with crim-
inalised people intersect criminalisation and desistance.
Keywords
probation, ethics, values, haptics, optics, affect
A long-standing thought I grapple with is how painfully un-user friendly our software is at
work. Our main risk assessment tool is an application in software which seems like a
switchboard of colourful checkmarks. Like little buttons waiting to be pressed. I recall feeling
in the very early days of my career how awfully specialised it felt to have this training and
knowledge of when to click—or not—the items that represented certain risk factors. …I
wonder, should one of these tools be conducted on me by a close friend or colleague, how
Corresponding author:
Micheal P. Taylor, Safety, Security, and Wellness | Marine Institute, Memorial University of Newfoundland,
Ricciardelli Lab | Room # W3018A, 155 Ridge Road, St. John’s, NL A1C 5R3, Canada.
Email: mptaylor@mun.ca
would the results be similar or different to my clientele? How colourful would the results be?
I’ve always been one to struggle with double negatives, so I naturally hesitate when my
selection of a check mark goes from yellow to green when I determine that the corresponding
risk factor is present. In contrary determination, when I want to indicate the risk factor is not
present, I must double click, and the item turns red. …Indeed, it seems more psychologically
satisfying to me that I receive a green [checkmark] upon a single click making my job half as
easy—as if green means go (Fieldnotes, 26 May 2020).
Introduction
Practising probation through the assessment of criminogenic risk is a form of job crafting
that creates meaning as a form of coping with adversity (Mawby and Worrall, 2013). Self-
modification, I argue, is a major limitation and form of liability for assessing criminogenic
risk. Probation service users in Canadian urban settings, where I was situated when I
wrote the above passage, often represent ‘multiply disadvantaged’people who experience
complex needs such as homelessness (Quirouette, 2016). The job of evaluating them
evinces how risk logic intersects probation practice and criminal courts in such as-
sessment (Quirouette, 2018). I observe this in terms of vulnerabilities for both organ-
isational and personal limitations situating liability on criminogenic structures through
individual action. For example, where criminal charges laid by probation officers for
breaching high-risk probation supervisees in the administration of justice offences po-
tentiate devastation in cumulative effect (Quirouette, 2018), such fundamental principles
of the common law tradition—such as the presumption of innocence—appear to be
evaporating into thin air (Myers, 2015,2017,2019;Pope and Bromwich, 2022;
Quirouette, 2018). This has created a morally injurious climate that represents a high-
stakes situation for practitioners (Griffin et al., 2019;Shay, 2014) as they experience
cognitive dissonance: the state of tension between ideas, attitudes, and beliefs which
become psychologically inconsistent with their work (Brown, 2021: 81). The experience
of vulnerability is, therefore, a personal emotion that arrives from uncertainty, risk, and
personal exposure (Brown, 2021: 13), in which this article warns of the social structures
that exacerbate such alarm.
Showcasing value for practitioner experiences in Canada, my aim is to indicate an
understanding of pervasive uncertainty based on more than half a decade in the field. As
uncertainty is inherent to correctional work, it evinces how vulnerabilities exist in carceral
workplaces. The experience of risk as ‘authority without control’thus pertains to an
alarming prevalence of mental disorders among probation practitioners in Canada
(Ricciardelli et al., 2021: 16). Thus, I argue practitioners embody good people who
become objectified by the dirty work of risk assessment when it is totally institutionali sed.
My intention is to ‘open a window’into risk assessment programming vis- `
a-vis software
and the specific design choices regarding its aesthetic appeal by elucidating a sense of
probation culture in Canada (Worall et al., 2017). I, therefore, make sense of mis-
recognition and misrepresentation where folks on probation are seen badly (McNeill,
2018,2019) as technocratic applications of risk represent a new form of governance
Taylor 121
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