The role of storylines in penal policy change
| Date | 01 July 2022 |
| Published date | 01 July 2022 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1462474521989533 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
The role of storylines
in penal policy change
Harry Annison
Southampton University, UK
Abstract
Bringing policy reform to fruition is an enterprise fraught with difficulty; penal policy
is no different. This paper argues that the concept of ‘storylines’, developed within
policy studies, is capable of generating valuable insights into the internal dynamics of
penal policy change and particularly the ‘commmunicative miracle’ whereby policy
participants sufficiently align to achieve reform. I utilize the part-privatization and
part-marketization of probation services in England and Wales (‘Transforming
Rehabilitation’) as a pertinent case study: a policy disaster foretold, but nonetheless
inaugurated at breakneck speed. Drawing on interviews with policy makers, I demon-
strate the means by which the ‘rehabilitation revolution’ storyline resolved (at least
temporarily) the tensions and problems inherent in the reform project; without which
it would have struggled to succeed. We see that storylines play at least threeimpor tant
roles for policy makers: they enable specific policies to ‘make sense’, to ‘fit’ in line with
their pre-existing beliefs. They provide a sense of meaning, moral mission and self-
legitimacy. And they deflect contestation. In closing, I consider the implications for
scholars of penal policy change.
Keywords
interpretive political analysis, neoliberalism, penal policy, policy studies, probation
Introduction
This article has two central objectives: substantively, it represents an effort
better to understand the internal policymaking dynamics that resulted in the
Corresponding author:
Harry Annison, Southampton Law School, Southampton University, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK.
Email: H.Annison@soton.ac.uk
Punishment & Society
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DOI: 10.1177/1462474521989533
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2022, Vol. 24(3) 387–409
part-privatization and marketization of probation in England and Wales known as
Transforming Rehabilitation; a policy disaster (Annison, 2019) with important
implications for our understanding of the relationship between neoliberalism
and penal policy (see for example Burke et al., 2019; Robinson et al., 2017).
Theoretically, the article examines, and argues for, the interpretive policy studies
notion of ‘storylines’ and its related conceptual apparatus as a valuable means by
which to explain the internal dynamics of penal policymaking: the manner in which
specific policy proposals are able to take hold, become compelling and (thereby)
achieve dominance amongst policy makers.
I argue that the policy studies literature on the role of ‘storylines’, and in par-
ticular the work of Maarten Hajer (Hajer, 1997), holds value for scholars of penal
policy and penal change. Building on existing insights on the internal dynamics of
penal change, I identify a motivating problematique: that the successful bringing
about of substantive (penal) policy change is a puzzle that requires explanation.
I thus examine the internal role of storylines: their ability to act as a kind of
‘discursive cement’ (Hajer, 1997: 63) for ‘elite’ policy makers, enabling them
both to act in common purpose and to negotiate their way through the muddle
and disorder of politics.
Scholars have drawn on these methods to examine areas including environmen-
tal policy (Hajer, 1997), agency reform (Smullen, 2010), educational policy
(Rickinson et al., 2019), organisational change (Gabriel, 2000) and the everyday
life of government activity (Rhodes, 2011). But not, to date, penal policy.
This article has three component parts, which collectively elaborate this argu-
ment. First, I survey scholarly debates regarding the explanation of penal change.
In order to focus the discussion, I concentrate in particular on debates regarding
marketization and privatization in criminal justice: the rise of ‘neoliberalism’. We
see that dominant approaches, including those operating within a political econ-
omy or social theory framework, have been subject to a range of perceptive
criticisms regarding the need to examine more carefully the specific dynamics of
particular localities and the relationship between structural factors and political
agency therein.
Second, I set out the concept of the ‘storyline’ and its related conceptual appa-
ratus. I locate it within the broader context of literature on the role of narratives
for meaning-making. Specifically, I focus on the role of storylines in the internal
dynamics of penal policy change. I argue that the storyline concept has an explan-
atory role, in that it is a causal element of substantive developments; and an
explicatory role, in that it provides us with a means by which to deepen and
nuance our understandings of a specific locality and the narratives in circulation
in a particular era.
Third, I provide an account of a pertinent case study, the part-marketization
and part-privatizion of probation in England and Wales, known as ‘Transforming
Rehabilitation’ (TR). It was a radical reform project requiring legislation and
significant organizational change, driven through at breakneck speed. It required
a range of key policy makers to be ‘on board’. It took place within a period of
388 Punishment & Society 24(3)
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