Probation workers, their
occupational cultures and offender
management
Rob Mawby, Leicester University
and
Anne Worrall, Keele University
Session 1:
Investigating probation cultures
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Background and context
The study
Occupational cultures
Preliminary findings
General
 The characteristics of probation cultures
 Implications for offender management
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Discussion
Background to the study
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Change and the Probation Service
Increased requirement to work with other CJ agencies
Little research on how change impacts on probation
staff themselves
Emerging interest in CJ occupational cultures
The study
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ESRC funded, April 2010 to November 2011
PCA supported
Small scale and reflective
60 interviews completed:
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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
Main question
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What are the characteristics of contemporary
probation cultures and how do probation officers and
their managers construct their occupational identities,
values and cultures?
Cultures
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‘Cultures are complex ensembles of values, attitudes, symbols,
rules, recipes, and practices, emerging as people react to the
exigencies and situations they confront, interpreted through the
cognitive frames and orientations they carry with them from
prior experiences. Cultures are shaped, but not determined, by
the structural pressures of actors’ environments.’ Robert
Reiner 2010:116
Organisational culture
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‘The deeper level of basic assumptions and beliefs that are
shared by members of an organisation, that operate
unconsciously and define in a basic taken-for-granted fashion
an organisation’s view of itself and its environment.’ Schein
1985
‘Culture is evidenced in the way the organisation actually
operates: it is the taken-for-granted assumptions about “how
you run an organisation like this” and “what really matters
around here.”’ Johnson and Scholes 1999
CJ agencies and culture
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Police: mission, action, cynicism, danger, suspicion,
isolation/solidarity, pragmatism, authority, machismo,
intolerance, prejudice, conservatism (Skolnick, Manning, Ericson,
Chan, Reiner, Waddington, Heidensohn, Punch, Loftus)
Prison: multiple, discretion, cynicism, suspicion, nostalgia,
physical and emotional strength, male-dominated, authority,
solidarity (Liebling & Price 2001/2010, Crawley 2004)
Probation: people first (Annison, Eadie and Knight),
demoralization and alienation (Robinson and Burnett),
traditional attitudes (Deering)
Lifers, second careerists and
offender managers
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‘Dad was a Dr, mum was a nurse. I wanted to work
with people, help them, help them to change.’ (CO 5)
‘I identified the probation service as somewhere
where I might be able to bring some of my life skills.’
(PW 12)
‘I’m not on a mission. Seemed like more pay for
shorter hours. Getting paid for being nice to people
and having public service holidays.’ (TPO 7)
Transformative nature of
training
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‘Training does change you. I tell this to all new staff – this
organisation is about changing. If you don’t change we haven’t
trained you properly.’ (CO 15)
‘I remember having a sort of crisis of faith, lack of confidence.’
(PW 6)
‘I lost my best friend because we fell out over values.’ (PW 2)
‘Before I would not have batted an eyelid [but] all I could think
about was, I’m gonna be a probation officer and [my friend’s]
smoking – not Benson and Hedges – suppose the police came.’
(TPO 9)
Yearning to be responsibly
creative
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‘So I’m just being sneaky really, I’m addressing the offence
without - not without them realising clearly – but without them
thinking “oh, we’re doing offence focused work”.’ (TPO 4)
‘If you haven’t got a rapport with somebody, if they don’t
wanna sit in a room with you, there’s very little you can do, no
matter how many times you bring ‘em in or what you do with
them because they’re not interested.’ (PW 15)
‘If you work at it, you’ve still got the autonomy…that still
manages to get me out of my bed in the morning and still
manages to drag me to work.’ (PW 8)
Multi-specialised workforce
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‘I’ve never worked in the same place on the same job for more
than four years at most… to have a sufficiently interesting,
stimulating, intellectually challenging career within one
organisation.’ (CO 8)
‘I’d done my five years [in prison]…I was being told I had to
move out. I was angry, because the idea was that…maybe
people are getting a bit sort of tired…[but] that wasn’t the
case.’ (FPW 5)
‘It might not necessarily be promotion but maybe
diversification, you know, branching off into different areas’.
(TPO 3)
Daughters of NOMS
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‘In 2001…50% of the chiefs left…so we had 50% new chiefs,
of which a large number were women and EW was the
national director [but] she bought in wholesale to the
Westminster high civil service culture. So she lost contact with
the operations and became a political animal…that enjoyed
the power.’ (CO 7)
‘The women who are coming in now are mostly 25ish, young
psychology, criminology graduates and they don’t have a
social work base…they’re not union minded…they’re
Thatcher’s children…they’re far more technologically
advanced than some of us dinosaurs and able to work better
than us in terms of speed.’ (PW 11)
Looking after our own
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‘I really need to do another weekend here to catch up – I’m
sometimes here until midnight. You have to be very committed.’
(PW 14)
‘My day starts at 4.00-5.00am…and when my family come up
about 6.00am we’ll all pray together.’ (TPO 3)
‘I used to find at 2.00am I’d wake up and…just work it out
then and be ready for the next day.’ (FPW 7)
‘We stick together, we form close friendships because we know
what it feels like…we do look after our own…it’s hard for a
partner or friend to understand that.’ (PW 7)
Partnership in turbulent times
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‘The Police are our natural partners, its a very close
relationship.’ (CO 9)
‘NOMS is a mess and probation isn’t understood,
everything is done the prison way.’ (CO 10)
‘I think that magistrates’ attitudes to probation
officers have changed and I think it’s because they
have a better understanding of what we do.’
(PW 21)
Probation as a socially tainted
occupation
‘There was an awkward moment…do I come out as a
probation officer?’ (TPO 4)
 ‘Nobody really knew we existed before [NPS]. The
downside of that is ministers got interested in what we
were doing…we got noticed and getting noticed was a
bad thing.’ (CO 7)
 ‘What upsets me and grieves me and makes me angry is
the fact that people are so negative about
probation…that’s kind of dirty, depressing [work], they
don’t wanna know that, let’s talk about something happy.’
(CO 5)
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NAPO and the Harry Fletcher
factor
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‘I don’t think it’s been particularly helpful in some of
its PR. In some ways, it’s been very good because
there’s been nobody else doing it, so they’ve filled
a vacuum. But it tends to be over alarmist, it doesn’t
provide public reassurance.’ (CO 4)
‘I really do believe it punches above its weight.
We’re a very small union. I think we’ve got a good
publicist who keeps us on the front page.’ (PW 11)
Perfect days don’t happen
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‘[On open plan offices] I’m a very private person. I just wanna
come in and get on with the work….and because of the time
constraints, I don’t like chitchat and noise…I just wanna get my
head down.’ (TPO 3)
‘I made intelligent decisions about whether I was safe to make a
home visit or not …[but now] if you don’t follow the procedures
and you get hurt, it’s your fault.’ (PW 8)
‘I can’t do anything without my diary – it’s really made me very,
very organised’. (TPO 3)
‘Perfect day – come in and everything goes as scheduled. I’ve
got my appointments, see them, no problems, update the system
and I leave on time [laughs].’ (TPO 2)
Identifying cultural characteristics
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Q1: Why do the job?
Q2: What are the ‘artefacts’ of the job?
Q3: How is the job made sense of?
Q4: How do PWs gain job satisfaction?
Q5: How do PWs cope with the external
environment?
The characteristics of probation cultures
Key findings & implications
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PWs are intelligent, motivated and multi-skilled
The cultural stereotype is disingenuous
Risk management and public protection are embedded
Feminisation implications are far-reaching
Liminality is central to probation work
Need to encourage and sanction ‘responsible creativity’
Cultures do not undermine offender management