Still Working With Involuntary Clients

AuthorJane Dominey
Pages119-122
119
THOUGHT PIECE
'Thought Pieces' are papers which draw on the author's personal knowledge and
experience to offer stimulating and thought provoking ideas relevant to the aims of the
Journal. The ideas are located in an academic, research, and/or practice context and all
papers are peer reviewed. Responses to them should be submitted to the Journal in the
normal way.
STILL WORKING WITH INVOLUNTARY CLIENTS
Jane Dominey, PhD candidate at the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge and
former Probation Officer and lecturer in Probation Studies
The Government’s reform plans for the Probation Service perplex, confuse and anger me.
On occasions I find myself trying to explain the changes to people who, whil st
knowledgeable about criminal justice, know little of probation practice or the position in
England and Wales. This experi ence tends to highlight both the peculiar and the p olitical
nature of the Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) project. Y es, I find myself confirming, I did
say that the existing Probation Service will be split between two diff erent organisations
who will arrange to buy interventions from each other. Yes, I did say tha t the re-offending
rate of short sentenced prisoners is one of the official explanations for the abolition of
Probation Trusts despite the fact that such prisoners are not currently supervi sed on
release. Yes, I did say that existing P robation Trusts are not allowed to bid for the
contracts to run the new Community Rehabilitation Compa nies (CRCs) and that CRCs are
not required to employ qualified offender ma nagers.
I am currently res earching the experience of probation supervi sion in the context of the
increased involvement of voluntary organisations and private companies in offender
management. In the last year I have been undertaking fieldwork talking to supervisee s
and supervisors. Everyone in my sample of sup ervisees is assessed as low or medium ri sk
of causing serious harm and subject to a community order. In the new world of TR they,
and their difficulties withfor exa mpledrugs, mental health, domestic violence, pover ty
and disability, will be the responsibility of the CRCs. In interview we have talked about the
different contributions to community orders made by a variet y of providers and a range of
workers. Supervisees have explain ed what they make of these contrasting inputs and how
they see the role of their probation offender manager. S upervisors have spoken of what,
from their perspective, mak es for good practice. A number of, sometimes familiar,
community justice themes are easy to identify from the in terviews: these include the
British Journal of Community Justice
©2013 Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield
ISSN 1475-0279
Vol. 11(2-3): 119-122

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