£85.95

Description

Contents

About the Author xi Acknowledgements xii 1 Introduction: How Should We Treat Offenders and What Can We Learn from the Past? 1 Personal Experience 3 From Professional to Technical Skills 7 Fast-Track Punishment 8 What Works? 9 The Future of Professional Practice 10 Structure and Contents 11 2 The Early History of Punishing Offenders: Punishments and Help Offered to Those Incarcerated 15 The Role of Religion and Offenders 16 Techniques for Gaining Control of the Population 17 The Threat of the Destitute 19 The Growth of the Prison System 20 The Export of Offenders 20 Positive Custody? 22 Circumventing the Gallows 22 Ensuring Punishment 25 Dealing with the Children: Reformatories 27 Dealing with Adults: Prison and Punishment 28 Summary 31 3 The Probation Service from its Inception until 1984: From Rescuing the Fallen to a Centrally Managed Organization 33 From a Primitive to an Industrial Society 33 Making Offenders Productive 34 Issues of Power: From Control of the Body to Control of the Mind 35 The Early History of the Probation Service 37 From the Mission to Social Work with Offenders 41 The Middle Period of Probation 43 The Incompatibility of Breaching Orders with Traditional Notions of Casework 44 From the Pessimism of Nothing Works to What Works? 46 The Professional Identity of Probation Officers 47 The Home Office and Probation: Turning the Screw 49 Just Deserts and the Increase in Compulsory Supervision 51 Summary 53 4 The Probation Service after 1984: From Social Work to Social Control and Punishment 54 The Probation Task and Taylorism 54 Punishment in the Community 55 Control Over Probation: The Role of Her Majesty s Inspectorate of Probation and Themed Inspections 58 A New Report: Probation Services Working in Partnership: Increasing Value for Money 59 The Work of Prison Probation Departments Report 59 Exercising Constant Vigilance: The Role of the Probation Service in Protecting the Public from Sex Offenders, Report (1998) 60 Towards Race Equality (2000) 61 The Growth of Managerialism 62 From Casework to Corrections 63 Changes to the Influence of Probation in the Court Setting 65 Probation and New Labour 68 Just Deserts 70 Probation and the Punitive Tendency 71 Social Exclusion 72 Summary 83 5 Deconstructing National Standards for the Supervision of Offenders in the Community 84 Background to the Analysis 85 Context 87 The typographical layout of NS 1992 and NS 1995 88 The discursive levels of NS 1992 and NS 1995 88 Textual Cohesion in NS 1992 and NS 1995 93 Surface grammatical structure of NS 1992 and NS 1995 94 The narrative level of NS 1992 and NS 1995 96 The semiotic square of NS 1992 and NS 1995 97 Commentary 99 National Standards 2000 100 National Standards 2002 (A Revised Version of NS 2000) 101 Discursive level 101 Lexical fields in NS 2002 (Home Office, 2002) 102 The semiotic square of NS 2002 102 National Standards 2005 103 National Standards 2007 103 Lexical fields in NS 2007 105 The semiotic square of NS 2007 106 Discrimination and the semiotic square 107 Summary 108 6 Views of Front-Line Staff 111 Setting the Context: The Opinion of Probation Service Professionals 111 What Happens During a Period of Change? The Early 1990s 111 On the Cusp of Change: Life Before and After National Standards 1995 114 Changes in the bureaucratic tasks of the Probation Service 114 Processing offenders 115 Taking offenders back to court (breaching) 117 Coping with the changes 118 Recording contact with offenders 119 Contact with prisoners 122 Understanding the World of the Offender 123 Discrimination and Offenders 125 Discrimination and Staff 126 Advise, Assist and Befriend 127 Changes in the Skills Base of Probation Officers 128 Probation Officers: Case Managers, not Case Workers? 130 Engaging with a Different Type of Offender 132 The Organizational Response 134 Morale and Issues of Control 137 Where did this Leave the Probation Service? 138 Bureaucratic tasks 138 Control, therapeutic work and the value base 138 Changes in probation practice, and its skills base 140 Responses to the Changing Offender Profile and Effective Practice Initiatives 140 Why Staff Believed the Changes were Taking Place 141 Transitions and Change in Probation Practice 142 7 After-Care and Resettlement in the Inner London Probation Service (1965 1990) 147 The Professionalization of the ACU 151 Records 151 Finances 151 Clothing WRVS 152 Community Service Volunteers (CSVs) 152 The Beginning: the Operation of the ACU 152 Analysis of casual callers in 1966 153 The Early Years of the ACU 153 A Hostel Run by a Probation Officer 155 The Maintenance of the Voluntary Tradition in Probation 158 An Evaluation of the ACU by the Home Office Research Unit 161 The ACU from the 1970s Until its Closure 165 The ACU at the Time of the Home Office s SNOP Document 166 Work with casual callers 167 1986: the ACU After the Division into Specialisms 169 Changes to the work with casual callers 170 The Pressure on Staff to Move from Resettlement to Mainstream Work 171 The Senior Management View of the ACU 173 1987: The Year of Consolidation 175 Summary 177 8 Through-Care and After-Care of Offenders by the National Offender Management Service 179 Background 179 The Probation Service Takes Over Prison Welfare and Working with Prisoners 179 The Professionalization of Welfare Work with Prisoners and Ex-prisoners 182 Changes Since Probation Became Part of NOMS 186 National Standards (NS): PPU and OM Teams 188 Summary 193 9 Issues Around Rehabilitation 195 Using History as an Indicator of Future Social Problems 195 What does it Mean to be a Professional? 196 Life in the Community 197 Operating in the Criminal Justice System 199 Toughening up the System and Alternative Approaches 202 Supervision, NOMS and (in)Flexibility? 204 Risk and its Assessment 205 The Government, Probation and the Future 206 References 208 Further Reading 222 Index 227

Back