Funding awarded to examine probation officers’ role
Fri, 01 May 2015 12:20:00 BST
Dr Gráinne McMahon Senior Lecturer in Criminology, has been awarded funding to lead a research project that will explore the role of the probation officer amid changes in probation and community rehabilitation practices. Dr McMahon secured a grant of £11,500 from the West Yorkshire Community Rehabilitation Company for the project, which runs from November 2014 until April 2015.
The probation service has always been integral to reducing reoffending and has historically, worked in the community with offenders of all risk categories. Recent developments, brought about by the Transforming Rehabilitation programme, have changed the ways in which offenders are managed in the community. One of the main shifts in the management of offenders is the creation of a new public sector National Probation Service (NPS) to work with the most high-risk offenders and the formation of Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) to work with medium and low-risk offenders. CRCs will also have the responsibility of supervising short-sentence prisoners (those sentenced to less than 12 months in prison) after their release.
Work with offenders, in custody and the community, is embedded in evidence-based practice to address offending behaviour. Research has found that desistance from crime is characterised by the long-term movement away from offending behaviour to a non-offending lifestyle and that rehabilitation work in the community is central to the process of desistance. The probation officer serves a key role in this process. The moving of high-risk offenders to the NPS has, however, brought about a change of role for probation officers within CRCs who previously worked with high-risk groups. Day-to-day working practices have changed and early, anecdotal evidence suggests that the probation officer identity is in flux. Dr McMahon’s research project will examine the changing role of the probation officer, and the ways in which probation officers construct and reconstruct their role and identities, in the new community rehabilitation arrangements.
