an over-descriptive overview dr. david hayeslecturer in law, university of...
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Factors Influencing the Severity of the Pains of
(Supervised) Community Punishment in England and Wales
An Over-Descriptive Overview
Dr. David Hayes Lecturer in Law, University of Sheffield [email protected]
Overview
1. A Brief Overview of the Pains of (Some) Supervised Community Penalties (PSCPs) in England and Wales
2. Experienced Severity of PSCPs3. Factors Affecting Experienced
Severity4. Implications for (European) Practice
1. The Pains of Supervised Community Penalties
Two research questions:
1. What impact does (supervised) community punishment have upon the lives of those subjected to it; and
2. To what extent is that impact affected by the relationship between the offender and her supervising probation officer?
1. The Pains of Supervised Community Penalties
From ‘impact’ to ‘pain’? Sykes (1958: 64); Christie (1981: 9-11); Durnescu (2011).
Pain as: Pluralistic; Subjective; Inductive.
1. The Pains of Supervised Community Penalties
20 interviewees (9 offenders, 11 staff) across two Probation Centres in one Trust area.
July 2013 – January 2014. Methodology:
Preliminary Case-File Analysis; Primary Interview; Preliminary (Thematic) Analysis; Group Interview; Substantive (Thematic) Analysis
1. The Pains of Supervised Community Penalties
Pain Category Specific Examples
Effect of Superviso
ry Relations
hip
Pains of Rehabilitation
Shame, Lifestyle Change, Wellbeing
IntensifiedPains of Liberty
DeprivationLoss of Freedom; Loss of Time; Loss of Money
Penal Welfare Issues
Accommodation; Employment and Job-Seeking; Family Relationships; Finances; Wellbeing. Reduced
External Agencies
Increased Intrusion; Increased Hostility
Process Pains Pains at Trial; (Perceived) Procedural Unfairness; Police Oversight.
UnaffectedStigma From Third Parties; From Friends and
Family; In Job-Seeking* - More details on methods and pains in a forthcoming EJProb article (subject to minor corrections)!
2. Experienced Severity of the Pains of Supervised Community Penalties
Most severe Least severe
Shame
Family Relationships
Loss of Time
Loss of Money
Loss of Freedom
Stigma (Friends &
Family)
WellbeingWellbeing
Stigma (Job-seeking)
Lifestyle Change
Housing
Employment
External Agencies
Stigma(Third Parties)
Financial Issues
Process Pains
Individual severity of pains for offenders varies with:
- Offender Attitudes; - Offender Capital;- Community Reactions; - Penal/Welfare Complex;- Impact of Supervisory Relationship; and - Order/Requirements Imposed.
2. Experienced Severity of the Pains of Supervised Community Penalties
Preliminary Notes: Liberty deprivation, compliance and the
threat of breach; The consistent importance of shame
and family; and Severity effects tended to group around
three clusters of pains:▪ Pains of Rehabilitation;▪ Pains of Liberty Deprivation; and▪ Penal Welfare Issues.
3. Factors Affecting Experienced Severity
Pains of Rehabilitation Offender Attitudes towards Engagement
Fully Engaged; Partially Engaged; Engagement-Resistant.
Staff Approaches to Supervision What Works determinism vs. agentic
desistance; Role of criminogenic factors.
Shame
Wellbeing
Lifestyle Change
3. Factors Affecting Experienced Severity
Pains of Liberty Deprivation Orders/Requirements Imposed
Number and onerousness of Requirements; Interaction with external agencies and community ties.
Offender Capital Employment; Social and cultural marginalisation.
Loss of Time
Loss of Money
Loss of Freedom
External Agencies
3. Factors Affecting Experienced Severity
Penal Welfare Issues Offender Capital
Employment; Community, Family and Friendship Ties.
Socio-Penal Complex Welfare State arrangements (unemployment and
sickness benefits, etc.); Relationship between State and external agencies.
Community Reactions Shaming and Stigma.
FamilyStigma
WellbeingHousing
Employment
Finances
Process Pains
3. Factors Affecting Experienced Severity
…[L]ooking at people I supervise... I would say prison's a softer option. Because you get up in the morning, you know what you're doing, you have a regime. You have guarantees, which when you're in the community, you have no guarantees. Oh, except that you're gonna be breached if you don't comply with your order! But there's no guarantee that you'll actually get sent to prison[…] In the community you have to be at the behest of your taskmaster, who's the DWP, be at the behest, because of your offending behaviour, of your other taskmaster, which is probation... be at the behest of your partner. Be at the behest... because you're a father. Be at the behest because you're the only child, or your parents are disabled and when you're not in prison you've got that responsibility. And be at the behest of yourself, because you're fragmented in so many different directions. ‘Who am I?’ And some of those directions never go away… [O]nce you commit a crime, you've been handed a bouquet of barbed wire.
-- Selma (Probation Officer, IC)
4. Implications for (European) Practice
The punitive value of CSMs is vulnerable to understatement if only expressed in terms of liberty deprivation (cf. McNeill 2011: 16-17; Hudson 1993, 2000) .
Role of community forces in shaping the pains of imprisonment – consequences for proportionality/parsimony? (cf. Kolber 2009; Ryberg 2010).
Probation-based rehabilitation as a cause of (and solution to) pains of punishment!
Bibliography
Nils Christie (1981), Limits to Pain (Oxford: Martin Robertson). Ioan Durnescu (2011) ‘Pains of Probation: Effective Practice and Human
Rights’ 55(4) International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 530-545.
Barbara Hudson (1993) Penal Policy and Social Justice (Basingstoke: Macmillan).
Barbara Hudson (2000) ‘Punishing the Poor: Dilemmas of Justice and Difference’. In: William C Heffernan and John Kleinig (eds.) From Social Justice to Criminal Justice: Poverty and the Administration of Criminal Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Adam Kolber (2009) ‘The Subjective Experience of Punishment’ 109(1) Columbia Law Review 182-236.
Fergus McNeill (2011) ‘Probation, Credibility and Justice’ 58(1) Probation Journal 3-26.
Jesper Ryberg (2010), ‘Punishment and the Measurement of Severity’, in Ryberg, J., and Corlett, J. A., Punishment and Ethics: New Perspectives (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan).
Gresham M. Sykes (1958), The Society of Captives: A Study of a Maximum Security Prison (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).