DOING PROBATION WORK: IDENTITY IN A CRIMINAL JUSTICE OCCUPATION

Rob C. Mawby and Anne Worrall

Doing probation work ‘Doing probation work’ is demanding

physically, mentally and emotionally How do probation workers and managers

make sense of these demands? Under what conditions do they feel they

do their best – and worst – work? What sustains/ rewards and what

debilitates?

The study• ESRC funded, 20 months, 2010-2011• Supported by Probation Chiefs Association• Small scale and reflective• 60 interviews completed:

26 current PSOs, POs, SPOs (PWs) 10 Trainee Probation Officers (TPOs) 16 Chief Officer Grades (COs) 8 former & retired probation workers (FPWs) North and South-East England locations

What it was not

Evaluation of the effectiveness of probation work in general or programmes in particular

Observation of what probation officers do (as opposed to what they say they do)

The square of probation work

Source: Mawby and Worrall (2013) Doing Probation Work, London: Routledge

Backgrounds and motivations Lifers

Peter – public school educated with a strong sense of duty and a structural understanding of society

Second careerists Bill – a former merchant seaman with

transferable skills and a strong desire to ‘make a difference’ at a personal level

Offender managers Gemma – with a degree in law and criminology

and a strong sense of victim empathy

Time and place Daily routines

Tyranny of the computer Typical days

Buildings – swamps, crocodiles and barricades

Home visits Different places

Prisons Approved premises Unpaid work

Changing relationships Courts - from federation to co-ordination

Prisons - from co-operation to merger

Police - from mutually suspicious communication to federation

Media - (mis)perceptions and (mis)representations

Responses to turbulent conditions

Diversity and different voices Religion Union Ethnic diversity Feminisation

Cultures, nostalgia and the future Features of cultures

Motivations, artefacts, job satisfactions, meanings and (re)presentations

Nostalgia and the narrative of decline Not hankering after a golden age but

making sense of the present Search for stability, predictability and

reassurance at times when one’s own values are being challenged by change

Implications for offender management