The Meaning of Place and Space in a Probation Approved Premises
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12162 |
| Date | 01 May 2016 |
| Published date | 01 May 2016 |
| Author | CARLA REEVES |
The Howard Journal Vol55 No 1–2. May 2016 DOI: 10.1111/hojo.12162
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 151–167
The Meaning of Place and Space in a
Probation Approved Premises
CARLA REEVES
Subject Leader in Criminology, University of Huddersfield
Abstract: In a previous article (Reeves 2013b), the author explored how the social life
of resident offenders in a Probation Approved Premises (PAP) was structured around
social group identities; noting that these groups were reflected in the way space within the
institution was used and imbued with meaning. This article develops on these observations
from an ethnographic case study of a PAP, highlighting the interplay between residents’
social and place-identities and the fundamental importance that appreciating the meaning
of places within the institution has to understanding the cultural experience of being a
resident within this criminal justice context.
Keywords: Probation Approved Premises (PAP); hostel; place; space;
place-identity; social identity; offender; probation; ethnography; observation
Recently, the importance of offenders’ social space (their social relation-
ships, peer groups, family networks, and support services) has been gar-
nering much attention as its influence on offenders’ internal narratives of
desistance, motivation to change, and offending identity are recognised
(cf. Reeves 2013b; Fox 2015; Giordano, Cernkovich and Holland 2003;
Paternoster and Bushway 2009; Weaver and McNeill 2015). The relation-
ship of social space to the meanings attributed to physical space is less
well-explored within the criminological literature, but has been, at least
implicitly, acknowledged in research such as Kirk (2012), which focuses on
recidivism rates for released prisoners moving back to the area in which
they were initially living, compared with rates for those who moved away.
Kirk found that place is wrapped up in the social context of (re)offending
and so a new physical space is also a new social space in which the likelihood
of desistance is improved.
Followingon from such observations, Hunter and Farrall (2015) have re-
cently explored the meaning of routines and places to desistance, and how,
as an offender moves through a desistance process in which they change
their perceptions of themselves and their social networks, so changes the
meaning of the places that they and others inhabit. Like Kirk (2012),
Hunter and Farrall (2015) found that desisters were more likely to move
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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 1–2. May 2016
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 151–167
away or refrain from using places that they associated with their offending
pasts. They also noted that desisters go through a process in which places
change meaning for them as they desist, but also that the spaces to which
they go change as they seek out places with new or different meanings
in accordance with their personal internal and social processes of change,
and that these places support offenders’ desistance. Thus, people ‘make’
places through the meanings they attach to them, but places also ‘make’
people through their social interactions and relations within those spaces,
and how the meanings attributed to those places reflect on the individual’s
self-concept. It follows, thus, Hunter and Farrall (2015) conclude, that:
An understanding of the way in which places can be managed so as to facilitate de-
sistance is therefore crucial to further unpacking the process associated with moving
away from offending. Places are not just the locations within which desistance takes
place. Understanding what certain places mean underpins efforts to desist. (p.964)
The limited available criminological literature outlined here on the mean-
ing of space and place to offenders focuses on the public spatial domain:
it assumes that offenders can choose their spaces. This is, of course, not
the case within criminal justice settings. Settings that are, at least in part,
devoted to supporting offenders to desist and move away from their past
offending locations, networks and identities. Research on space within
carceral settings has tended to focus on either the way the institutional
space is used (for example, for control or conformity; Foucault (1977)) or
the way in which space is experienced. This latter often highlights the na-
ture of the prison environment and prison culture, particularly in terms of
prison social relations, the pains of imprisonment, exclusion, violence and
aggression (Reeves 2016). The existent literature on space within crim-
inal justice institutions has, thus, tended to neglect what the emergent
literature on space and desistance has highlighted as most significant: the
meanings the places have for offenders and their personal narratives and
identities, and the interplay between place and identity which can facilitate
desistance.
In a previous article (Reeves 2013b), I explored how the social life of
sex offenders and other residents of a Probation Approved Premises in
England and Wales (informally known as a hostel or PAP) was structured
by social group identities founded on key gating characteristics such as age
and, of course, offence histories. These social groups were of varying per-
meabilities, with boundaries based on offence (between sex offenders and
non-sex offenders predominantly) being largely static and impermeable,
despite some efforts to mask these key characteristics. These social groups
were found to be highly significant to how offenders conceptualised them-
selves and their social identities. That these identities were so enmeshed
with their offence category was argued to likely inhibit individuals’ desis-
tance processes by hindering their ability to move past their offending label
and identity. In exploring this social landscape of the hostel environment
I noted that these groups tended to occupy particular spaces within the
hostel: making visible the boundaries of the residents’ social world. In this
article I develop on these observations of space and place within the hostel;
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2016 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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