Travelling in the wrong direction? A critical commentary on the consultation paper Strengthening Probation, Building Confidence
| Published date | 01 December 2018 |
| Date | 01 December 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0264550518809876 |
| Author | Peter Murray,Lol Burke,Steve Collett,John Stafford |
| Subject Matter | Comments |
Comment
The Journal of Community and Criminal Justice
Probation Journal
Travelling in the wrong
2018, Vol. 65(4) 439–446
ª The Author(s) 2018
direction? A critical
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DOI: 10.1177/0264550518809876
commentary on the
journals.sagepub.com/home/prb
consultation paper
Strengthening Probation,
Building Confidence
Lol Burke
Liverpool John Moores University, UK
Steve Collett
Cheshire Probation Trust, UK (Retired)
John Stafford and Peter Murray
Merseyside Probation Trust, UK (Retired)
Abstract
The Ministry of Justice’s Consultation Paper – Strengthening Probation, Building
Confidence – launched by Justice Secretary David Gauke in July 2018, represents a
revisionist view of the recent history of the probation service in which many of its
assertions are incoherent, disingenuous and disconnected from the lived realities of
both those who offend and local communities having to deal with the impact of aus-
terity on local services. In addition, the consultation process itself is disingenuous in
that it presents the failure of the Transforming Rehabilitation initiative as one of
technical oversights and misjudgements that can be put right through a series of rel-
atively minor adjustments. Answers to the 17 consultation questions, however
insightful and helpful they may be, will do nothing to deal with the underlying diffi-
culties of Transforming Rehabilitation.
Corresponding Author:
Lol Burke, Liverpool John Moores University, 98 Mount Pleasant, Liverpool, L3 5UZ, UK.
Email: L.Burke@ljmu.ac.uk
440
Probation Journal 65(4)
Keywords
Transforming Rehabilitation, probation service, Payment by Results, markets, desis-
tance, community rehabilitation companies, local governance, voluntary and commu-
nity sector
An accident waiting to happen
If there was a prize for 21st-century organisational meddling and ineptitude, despite a
strong field, the Home Office and then Ministry of Justice would certainly make the
shortlist for their treatment of the Probation Service. (Allen, 2013: 12)
We do not believe in a golden age of probation as such (see Statham, 2014;
Collett, 2014) but there have been significant periods in the history of the probation
service when real progress has been made both in the effective supervision of those
who offend and in the efficient delivery of high-quality services. In fact, over the past
30 years or so the probation service has responded, sometimes reluctantly and
occasionally with resistance, to the requirements of government to move away from
its social work roots and embrace a correctional focus within the criminal justice
system. More recently, the focus of government attention has been on the inculca-
tion of probation within the wider neoliberal project of using the market to provide
public services and to create profit for the private sector. As we have argued
elsewhere, this has been a long-term project begun under New Labour from
2001, continued under the Coalition Government (2010–15) and reaching its
apotheosis under Justice Secretary Grayling’s Transforming Rehabilitation reforms,
introduced in early 2015 (Burke and Collett, 2015, 2016).
What we find incredulous in these recent developments is that just when the
service, nationally and locally, was being lauded for its delivery against govern-
ment targets as well as its business excellence, the move towards Transforming
Rehabilitation and its subsequent implementation has literally brought probation to
its knees in the space of three years. This parlous situation was foreseeable and it
gives us no pleasure whatsoever that we predicted the organisational and profes-
sional mess that Transforming Rehabilitation would deliver. Writing just before the
implementation of the new arrangements, we outlined our concerns, under the
heading, ‘Why Transforming Rehabilitation will fail’ (Burke and Collett, 2015:
183–6) in the following way.
Firstly, it would not lead to improved rehabilitative outcomes. We were clear that
the notion of a local service designed and delivered locally by agencies that are
fully integrated, publicly accountable and responsive to local needs is the most
effective means of delivering rehabilitative services. The alternative vision of
national commissioning and an outcome-based Payment by Results (PbR) system that
ultimately benefits the shareholders of large (most probably multi-national) corpo-
rations rather than the individuals subject to community supervision or the commu-
nities in which they reside was simply not plausible.
Burke et al.
441
Secondly, there was no existing evidence that PbR as a mechanism for com-
missioning scarce resources was likely to be effective. The binary reoffending out-
come measures are useful but only to a limited extent. Desistance is a process that
may take time and involve many players, including those who are linked through
kinship, family and informal ties rather than employment contracts. How,...
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