The Dynamics of Service User Participation and Compliance in Community Justice Settings
| Published date | 01 December 2016 |
| Date | 01 December 2016 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12180 |
| Author | PAMELA UGWUDIKE |
The Howard Journal Vol55 No 4. December 2016 DOI: 10.1111/hojo.12180
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 455–477
The Dynamics of Service User
Participation and Compliance
in Community Justice Settings
PAMELA UGWUDIKE
Senior Lecturer in Criminology, College of Law and Criminology,
Swansea University
Abstract: This article draws on insights from within and beyond the parameters of
criminal justice research, and from key models of community justice supervision, to
illuminate the dynamics of service user participation and compliance in community
justice settings. In doing so, the article provides a multifaceted analysis of how service
user participation in setting the goals of supervision intersects with factors that could
engender compliance. It identifies these factors as: service user agency; positive self-
identity; empowerment; self-efficacy; and responsive services. Several complexities vitiate
service user participation. The article proposes the co-production of compliance as an
antidote that can neutralise the complexities.
Keywords: community justice; compliance; probation; service user participa-
tion; desistance
Several studies have explored the links between the participation of former
service users1as mentors, staff members, or in other capacities, and a range
of outcomes (for example, access to future employment or resettlement)
(Fletcher and Batty 2012; Maguire et al. 2010). This article deviates from
this trend by focusing on the under-researched question of how the par-
ticipation of those undertaking community-based orders might engender
compliance specifically.
Models of supervision, namely the desistance model, the Good Lives
Model (GLM) and the Risk Need Responsivity (RNR) model, have long
identified service user participation in goal setting and decision-making
processes as vital for commitment to change processes (Bourgon and
Guiterrez 2013; McMurran and Ward 2004, 2010; Maruna and LeBel
2010; Smith et al. 2011; Ward and Fortune 2013). But, what the scant
empirical literature on compliance with community-based orders primar-
ily reveals is the dominance of practitioner-led mechanisms of compli-
ance (Phillips 2011, 2014a; Ugwudike 2010; Weaver and Barry 2014).
The studies of compliance suggest that service users play a limited role
in the effort to achieve compliance, and this undermines the quality of
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2016 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK
The Howard Journal Vol55 No 4. December 2016
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 455–477
compliance that is frequently achieved. Often, the studies of compliance
pay insufficient attention to intersections between service user participa-
tion (or non-participation) in setting supervision goals, and different forms
of compliance. This article argues that the minor involvement of service
users in efforts to achieve compliance might stem from their limited par-
ticipation in goal setting and other decision-making processes.
The article expands the literature on compliance by drawing on theo-
retical and empirical insights from various sectors, and from key models
of supervision, to assess the precise dynamics of service user participation
and compliance. Thus, the article illuminates how service user participation
generates or strengthens factors that encourage compliance. These factors
are the service users’ attributes and competencies, particularly their sense
of agency, renewed self-identity, sense of empowerment, and self-efficacy.
Models of supervision reveal that these attributes are vital for service
user commitment to change processes (Maruna and LeBel 2010; Ward and
Fortune 2013). Responsive service delivery is another factor that is linked
to active participation. The aforementioned models of supervision also
emphasise that service users are more likely to engage with services that
are responsive to their personal attributes and capabilities, and also their
social circumstances (Farrall et al. 2014; King 2014; McMurran and Ward
2004, 2010). Although the article mentions some of the themes that polarise
the models, by highlighting the commonalities that unify the models, this
article deviates from the common trend of emphasising their differences
(see, for example, Looman and Abracen 2013).
There has also been insufficient analysis of the complexities that
impair user participation. The article explores these complexities and
argues that the complexities can be addressed through co-productive
strategies that are supported by practitioners and underscored by organisa-
tional commitment to service user participation. The active collaboration of
practitioners, service users, and others, to achieve mutually-defined out-
comes such as: compliance (McCulloch 2013); or longer-term goals (for
example, secondary or permanent desistance) (Weaver 2014), constitutes
co-production. The article contends that co-production can strengthen
service user engagement2during supervision and improve their access
to resources that facilitate social participation and inclusion, which are
dimensions of citizenship.
Conceptualising Compliance
There is no universally accepted definition of compliance in community
justice3contexts. Perhaps this is because compliance is a nebulous con-
cept. In his insightful theoretical analysis of compliance in community
justice settings, Bottoms (2001) identifies conceptual differences between
several types of compliance. For instance, instrumental compliance arises
from the perceived benefits that might accrue from compliance, or from
the belief that the costs of non-compliance outweigh its benefits. Normative
compliance is said to emerge from an internalised obligation to comply. It
could arise from the belief that a representative of authority has exercised
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2016 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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