Here was an organisation reminiscent of my old locally-run Probation Service, trying to do its best to deliver quality services to ordinary people within an incredibly challenging political, economic and social policy environment, but with such care and thought. What really struck me was that such a process was only possible because it was not a monolithic, bureaucratic command and control structure. As is so often the case, it got me thinking about our predicament and how we must do something! This had been on my mind for several days:-
"Does anyone actually read those journals? They are so dry and so removed form day to day reality of the job I doubt many do, unless maybe they are retired and missing the stimulation of Probation World. On another note when I told my manager how I felt about the post CRC world and inability to keep up with everything I was pretty much told by him to look for another job. Demonstration of great management skills and motivational interviewing. Next time a POP tells me they are struggling to cope with their life I should maybe take a leaf from his book and say ' stop whingeing and get on with it or ship out you loser'. I'm sure as long as I put a load of twaddle on my Delius entry, smile inanely and get my OASYS in on time, not forgetting the 4 pillars I would get top marks from the performance Police!"
Abstract
Discussions of probation's values can be enriched by an appreciation of care ethics. This approach is explained with attention to its emphasis on relationships and individualisation. The implications for probation's work are explored, including its significance for the supervisory relationship, its challenges for the management of the organisation and the value of individualised approaches. Care ethics argues for practice shaped not by rules and processes, but by people and their circumstances in all their diversity. Care ethics offers a principled and effective approach to probation's work.
Care ethics and the work of probation
Since its early days, probation has explained itself in terms of help and support, has described itself as a caring profession and defined itself in contrast to other criminal justice agencies judged to be punitive; the founding aims of the probation service were to advise, assist and befriend (Vanstone, 2004). However, the responsibilities of probation practitioners also include public protection and the enforcement of court orders. While the notion that care and control are necessarily in opposition is unhelpful (Canton and Dominey, 2020), the idea the probation service should care for offenders sits uncomfortably with political rhetoric that has a focus on punishment, a reluctance to attribute crime to problems in society, and a desire to be on the side of the (ideal) victim.
Yet, as a moral grounding for probation practice, care ethics has much to offer. Probation is a relational activity requiring tough decisions and care ethics has a great deal to say about making moral choices in this context. Shapland et al. (2012), writing about quality in probation practice, make a clear link between ethical practice and the quality of supervision. They contrast utilitarian approaches (conceptualising good practice as that which leads to desired outcomes, often narrowly determined as reduced re-offending in the short term) with rights-based approaches with a focus on ‘commonly agreed good processes of interaction with service users’ (p.10). They then acknowledge the relevance of virtue ethics to probation practice, suggesting that quality practice might be linked to the virtues and character of the supervisor together with the exercise of practical wisdom. They do not explicitly consider the interplay between care ethics and the quality of supervision. Implicitly the link is there; one of their concluding points about factors important for quality prescribes ‘building genuine relationships that demonstrate “care” about the person being supervised, their desistance and their future, and not just control / monitoring /surveillance’ (p43).
However, while some insights from care ethics enrich thinking about probation, others challenge existing probation culture and practice in important ways. Three areas that merit further exploration are the nature of the supervisory relationship, the extent to which a caring organisation is necessary for caring practice, and the insistence on individualised (rather than rules-led) approaches to people and to decision making.
The supervisory relationship
Care ethics is about relationship. In some understandings of probation work relationships are at its heart too, and perhaps even constitute part of the definition of its practices (Canton and Dominey, 2017: Chapter 7 and especially 124ff.). The ability to develop ‘good working relationships’ was the first quality identified by the respondents in the study undertaken by Robinson and her colleagues (2014) - and indeed recognised as a precondition of many of the skills and characteristics that marked best probation practice.
There was some concern that probation's embrace of evidence-based practice (‘what works’) in the 1990s (Home Office, 1995), with its focus on process and programmes, might suppress the importance of relationship. Programme integrity requires that interventions are delivered in accordance with their intended aims and principles: it would otherwise be impossible to compare and evaluate outcomes. Yet a bureaucratic focus on a particular script might leave no room for emotionally literate and flexible practice, reducing the possibility of working in an engaging and responsive way and thus violating the responsivity principle. Proponents of ‘what works’ sought to resolve this tension, arguing that programmes should be delivered in ways that incorporated relational elements of practice alongside staff skills in areas like motivation, modelling and reinforcement. The importance of relationship factors in achieving positive programme outcomes was accordingly reaffirmed (Bonta and Andrews, 2010).
Empirical evidence also points to the importance of good supervisory relationships for outcomes including compliance and legitimacy (Robinson and McNeill, 2010; Ugwudike, 2010). McNeill and Robinson (2013) build on this evidence to argue that the supervisory relationship is central to and crucial for development of legitimacy in probation practice; they warn that this legitimacy, in the eyes of the supervisee, ‘is hard-won, easily lost, and almost impossible to recover’ (p133).
Policy documents and practice guidance for probation describe supervisory relationships as goal-achieving tools:
Relationships in probation are shaped by the power inherent in statutory supervision and by expectations about professional boundaries. Care ethics stress relational mutuality; something identified in the literature about quality probation practice (Shapland et al., 2012) but rarely discussed in policy. However, care does sometimes flow both ways, with service users feeling committed to their relationship with their supervisor (Lewis, 2014; Rex, 1999). Similarly, reporting on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on supervision, McNeill (2020) noted that, where there was a strong pre-existing relationship between individuals, supervision by telephone need not be perfunctory but allowed for mutual expression of concern about health and family.
Care ethics does not see the building of caring relationships with service users as a passive or infantilising process (Brown Coverdale, 2018). Rather, good supervisory relationships enable people to develop their capacity to treat others with care and respect. They can play a role in the identity shift associated with the process of desistance (Maruna, 2001). Brierley (2021), bringing together insights from professional practice and lived experience, argues that relationships comprising presence, attunement, connection and trust, have to be at the heart of work with young people with backgrounds shaped by neglect and trauma. Caring and consistent relationships create the space for change. In a similar way mentoring – including and perhaps especially peer mentoring (Nixon, 2019) - often has a decisive influence on the processes of desistance. And mentors do more than offer advice and support; they inspire and can act as a role model. The concept of modelling has been influential in modern probation practice with an awareness that acting ‘pro-socially’ can bring out the best in people (Cherry, 2017; Rex and Matravers, 1998). Yet certainly this is unlikely to ‘work’ unless there is this congruence of action, thought and feeling; without that, interactions will be - and will be felt to be - insincere, condescending and false. Care ethics, then, asserts that the supervisory relationship is morally, not merely practically, important.
Probation as a caring organisation
The quality of probation practice depends on more than the skill and approach of the practitioner: it is shaped by organisational culture. Tronto (2010) considers what it means for an institution to be caring and makes several observations that are relevant to the probation service. She argues that institutions are not caring well when there is evidence of commodification of care, when service users are excluded from decision-making, and when organisational structures hinder rather than help care-giving.
The commodification of probation is most clearly seen in the privatisation that followed the Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) reforms (Dominey and Gelsthorpe, 2020). However, the impact of commodification extends beyond the use of market mechanisms to procure services; it has consequences for the way that rehabilitation and care are conceptualised. Tronto (2010) argues that it is a mistake for organisations to think about care as a commodity rather than a process. Her view that care is not best managed by the market is in line with much criticism of recent probation reform (see, for example, Burke and Collett, 2020).
The TR reforms accelerated the commodification of probation, creating a system that depended on contracts, supply chains and the purchase of fragmented and discrete packages of intervention. The reforms diluted the thick network of relationships (Dominey, 2019) that provide help, support for desistance and the possibility of community integration. The shortcomings of the TR model have led to its further reform (Carr, 2020) and a reduction in the reliance on out-sourced provision. However, under the new operating model (HMPPS, 2021), rehabilitative interventions are still conceived as a product to be provided by and purchased from approved voluntary and private sector organisations.
The insistence from care ethics that caring is a reciprocal process, with importance attached to the voice and response of the care-receiver, may appear to sit uncomfortably in organisations like probation with clear demarcations between staff and service users. The organisation has the power to set the framework for supervision, constraining the actions of the supervisors and leaving little space for the preferences of the supervisees. There are indications, however, that service user involvement is being taken more seriously, while thoughtful commentators who have worked hard to incorporate co-production and participation into their practice highlight the complex and demanding nature of this work (Armstrong and Ludlow, 2020; Weaver et al., 2019). Care ethicists ask probation to move beyond asking service users to complete surveys and give feedback to take seriously the creation of an organisation which includes all stakeholders in the development, delivery and evaluation of services.
Tronto (2010) also asks whether senior managers are attentive to the needs of staff and service users, and whether they care sufficiently about the work to ensure that it is properly resourced and supported. Brown Coverdale (2020: 3), arguing for the applicability of care ethics to the practice of imprisonment, explains that decision making requires the people involved to 'to reason together about how to proceed in the context of other responsibilities and needs and almost always in the context of limited time, resources, and knowledge’ (emphasis in original). As a result of the twin assaults of public spending cuts and the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms, probation work has not been adequately resourced and supported over the past decade. Probation supervisors are not able to work at their best if their caseloads are too large (HMIP, 2021). Where practitioners are stretched too thinly, they are not able to create supervisory relationships that demonstrate care and build trust. Good practice requires more than the commitment and skill of staff; it cannot be achieved in organisations where people are being asked to do too much work with too few resources and where staff have no sense of being cared-for. Above all, the commitment to care should infuse the whole organisation: managers and practitioners should demonstrate this care to one another in support of the agency's commitment to care for those who use its services.
Individualised approaches
Finally, care ethics calls for a practice approach that is inherently individualised and responsive to the situation and distinctive circumstances of the service user. In this sense, it aligns comfortably with desistance-focused practice with its stress on the importance of individualising support for change, led by those striving to desist who will bring their own distinctive aspirations to this process (McNeill et al., 2012).
Current approaches to practice (shaped by standards and rules ostensibly intended to achieve consistent treatment for service users and uniform behaviour by staff) struggle with the notion of individualisation. Allowing practitioners to step outside guidelines appears to risk the possibility of inappropriate discrimination. Staff do have discretion to depart from the standards, but this discretion is subject to monitoring and managerial oversight. Individualisation is identified by practitioners as part of good quality probation practice (Robinson et al., 2014) and intrinsic to approaches shaped by care ethics; it fits less well with rules-led practice models.
Care ethics also challenges the way that probation practice deals with the assessment of need. The care ethics perspective takes more account of needs than rights or abstract principles; it insists that the moral approach is to allow individuals to identify their own needs. Noddings (2015) acknowledges the complexity of this (needs are not the same as whims or preferences) but counsels against trying to define needs precisely. She warns care-givers against confusing their needs with those of the other and of making assumptions about needs. She identifies that needs arise together and not in sequence (someone can need both food and respect). Tronto (2010: 163) argues that ‘the process of determining needs is one of the foremost political struggles of any account of care’ (emphasis in original).
In the probation world, need is often defined by the organisation and squarely linked with the ‘criminogenic need’ associated with ‘what works’. Criminogenic needs are those factors assessed as underpinning offending behaviour. They are the targets of correctional interventions (including cognitive behaviour programmes and drug treatment interventions) and easily reconceptualised, not as needs but as dynamic risks (Ziv, 2020). Proponents of ‘what works’ do not argue that non-criminogenic needs should be ignored, but rather that criminogenic needs must be the focus of interventions intended to reduce recidivism. Yet this over-narrow definition of needs ignores the social injustice that underpins much crime, reframing disadvantages as dynamic risk factors, as well as ignoring issues of difference and diversity.
Probation practice makes assumptions about service user need and, in turn, service users have limited opportunity to identify their needs for themselves. The assessment process is shaped by tools that prioritise dynamic risk factors and is driven by timescales set in national standards. There is limited scope for individualised assessments in which service users are enabled and encouraged to explain how their period of supervision might be made most helpful. Among the insights of desistance theory is that change is best supported by attending to strengths and to aspirations which must not be set aside because of preconceived notions of problems and what would be a solution to them.
Care ethics argues for practice that is shaped not by rules and processes, but by people and their circumstances. The argument is not that current practice never permits staff to respond with latitude and discretion but rather that it is often too hard to depart from the rule or standard given that adherence to it will always be ‘defensible’, however wrongheaded. However, calling for increased opportunities for practitioners to respond to service users as individuals is not the same as advocating for practice that is unaccountable and without scrutiny (Eadie and Canton, 2002). Such practice does, though, require investment in and commitment to the systems that support the use of professional discretion. Wise and accountable use of discretion is most likely in situations where staff bring knowledge, skills and values to the professional dilemmas they face. Training (both for newly appointed staff and as part of continuing development) is important here, as are a reflective orientation to practice and a transparent approach to decision making. Practitioners benefit from opportunities to share practice dilemmas with colleagues and staff supervision arrangements that allow space for reflection alongside the management tasks of monitoring performance and adherence to targets (Coley, 2020).
Conclusion
The argument here is not that codes of ethics and practice guidance have no part to play in ensuring good quality probation practice, nor does it suggest that the probation service should pay no attention to the outcomes of its work. However, drawing on the principles of virtue ethics and care ethics, it does advocate an approach that takes seriously the relational element of practice, that considers the circumstances of each case, and that has an unapologetic focus on care.
Viewing probation practice through the lens of care ethics suggests that probation values emerge from principled people (at all levels in the organisations) trying to do the right thing in a caring way in difficult circumstances. Both care ethics and virtue ethics focus on the characteristics of the practitioner and, for care ethics, on the interaction between the practitioner and service user. Both approaches are sceptical that probation values could be understood simply as a set of prescriptions that simply need to be applied in each case and in each situation.
To put caring at the centre of probation practice does not produce easy answers to the ethical dilemmas faced by practitioners, which often involve not just the interests, rights and concerns of service users, but also those of past and potential victims of crime and of the wider community. Identifying the course of action that best communicates care and meets needs requires debate and reflection; different people may come to contrasting conclusions.
Care is as much about how work is undertaken as what is done or what outcome is achieved. For example, service users have been found to accept most probation interventions as legitimate. Even monitoring, which might be supposed to be a resented intrusion, can be perceived as an indication that you matter, that somebody cares about what you are doing, especially when it is acknowledged as a legitimate aspect of the role (Dominey, 2019). And a corollary of the acceptance of monitoring is that sometimes the service user will be found to have been in default and enforcement action taken.
There may be objections to the idea that caring is the ethical way to approach probation practice. Perhaps ‘offenders’ do not merit care; perhaps care has no place in punishment. The arguments from care ethics, and from this article, push in the opposite direction: care deserves consideration as a guiding virtue of probation. It is not the case that according more care to ‘offenders’ leaves less for ‘victims’; ethical practice is concerned about the needs of everyone in the community. Further, the victim/offender dichotomy is misleading; insights into the trauma and abuse that form part of the life stories of so many service users (Anderson, 2016) highlight the extent of the victim/offender overlap and demonstrate that probation practice should, drawing on Tronto’s (1993) framework, include caring about, caring for and care giving.
A signal advantage of a care ethics approach to the work of probation is its promise to align ethical practice, effective practice and the motivations that inspire so many probation staff. Although our main line of argument has insisted on the ethical merits of a care approach, we have also seen that it turns out to be effective in terms of the purposes that are often set for probation – in particular, compliance, reduced reoffending and even the management of risk. Any successes that probation might achieve in reducing reoffending and in public protection amply fulfil its responsibility to show care to everyone and not just those under its supervision.
Care ethics, like virtue ethics, insists on doing the right things for the right reasons. For all the political attempts to disavow caring, it remains the case that large numbers of people join the profession because of a commitment to help and care for vulnerable people (Cracknell, 2016; Deering, 2011; Mawby and Worrall, 2013). The principle of care engages these motives, aligning them with both effective and ethical practice, bringing a coherence and integrity to probation's work.
"Does anyone actually read those journals? They are so dry and so removed form day to day reality of the job I doubt many do, unless maybe they are retired and missing the stimulation of Probation World. On another note when I told my manager how I felt about the post CRC world and inability to keep up with everything I was pretty much told by him to look for another job. Demonstration of great management skills and motivational interviewing. Next time a POP tells me they are struggling to cope with their life I should maybe take a leaf from his book and say ' stop whingeing and get on with it or ship out you loser'. I'm sure as long as I put a load of twaddle on my Delius entry, smile inanely and get my OASYS in on time, not forgetting the 4 pillars I would get top marks from the performance Police!"
What on earth is happening to the probation culture? Well, this contributor has been reading a journal:-
"There's a great piece in the Napo Journal about values and ethics: stirred my soul and I recommend it, not least as the authors argue that doing the right thing, based on principles of social justice and basic decency within the all important professional/supervisory relationship is not only rewarding for all involved, but actually effective. I have become so polluted by the current culture that when I cast my mind back to better probation days, I pulled myself up on the basis that I was having a great time, I was having fun. I can predict the slough of irate criticism that might greet that observation, that it was fun. My lord, what have we come to, when the idea that work might be fun, that we could have a laugh, that we enjoyed our work, is anathema. If you can harness the bubbling optimism and creativity of people, you get stuff done. It would be an act of glorious rebellion to have fun in a probation office."
"There's a great piece in the Napo Journal about values and ethics: stirred my soul and I recommend it, not least as the authors argue that doing the right thing, based on principles of social justice and basic decency within the all important professional/supervisory relationship is not only rewarding for all involved, but actually effective. I have become so polluted by the current culture that when I cast my mind back to better probation days, I pulled myself up on the basis that I was having a great time, I was having fun. I can predict the slough of irate criticism that might greet that observation, that it was fun. My lord, what have we come to, when the idea that work might be fun, that we could have a laugh, that we enjoyed our work, is anathema. If you can harness the bubbling optimism and creativity of people, you get stuff done. It would be an act of glorious rebellion to have fun in a probation office."
It's probably heretical to admit, but I too find academic journals somewhat dense and no matter how well crafted and argued, unlikely to move the political dial nor focus of public opinion and media attention. To be honest it's why I've stuck to the blog as an attempt in this direction and in the somewhat naive belief that a charismatic probation champion of integrity and wisdom would emerge to make the compelling case to save our distinct ethos and before the flame is finally extinguished. But in the meantime, here is an extract from that article in the latest edition of the Probation Journal 'Probation and the ethics of care' by Jane Dominey and Rob Canton.
Abstract
Discussions of probation's values can be enriched by an appreciation of care ethics. This approach is explained with attention to its emphasis on relationships and individualisation. The implications for probation's work are explored, including its significance for the supervisory relationship, its challenges for the management of the organisation and the value of individualised approaches. Care ethics argues for practice shaped not by rules and processes, but by people and their circumstances in all their diversity. Care ethics offers a principled and effective approach to probation's work.
Care ethics and the work of probation
Since its early days, probation has explained itself in terms of help and support, has described itself as a caring profession and defined itself in contrast to other criminal justice agencies judged to be punitive; the founding aims of the probation service were to advise, assist and befriend (Vanstone, 2004). However, the responsibilities of probation practitioners also include public protection and the enforcement of court orders. While the notion that care and control are necessarily in opposition is unhelpful (Canton and Dominey, 2020), the idea the probation service should care for offenders sits uncomfortably with political rhetoric that has a focus on punishment, a reluctance to attribute crime to problems in society, and a desire to be on the side of the (ideal) victim.
Yet, as a moral grounding for probation practice, care ethics has much to offer. Probation is a relational activity requiring tough decisions and care ethics has a great deal to say about making moral choices in this context. Shapland et al. (2012), writing about quality in probation practice, make a clear link between ethical practice and the quality of supervision. They contrast utilitarian approaches (conceptualising good practice as that which leads to desired outcomes, often narrowly determined as reduced re-offending in the short term) with rights-based approaches with a focus on ‘commonly agreed good processes of interaction with service users’ (p.10). They then acknowledge the relevance of virtue ethics to probation practice, suggesting that quality practice might be linked to the virtues and character of the supervisor together with the exercise of practical wisdom. They do not explicitly consider the interplay between care ethics and the quality of supervision. Implicitly the link is there; one of their concluding points about factors important for quality prescribes ‘building genuine relationships that demonstrate “care” about the person being supervised, their desistance and their future, and not just control / monitoring /surveillance’ (p43).
However, while some insights from care ethics enrich thinking about probation, others challenge existing probation culture and practice in important ways. Three areas that merit further exploration are the nature of the supervisory relationship, the extent to which a caring organisation is necessary for caring practice, and the insistence on individualised (rather than rules-led) approaches to people and to decision making.
The supervisory relationship
Care ethics is about relationship. In some understandings of probation work relationships are at its heart too, and perhaps even constitute part of the definition of its practices (Canton and Dominey, 2017: Chapter 7 and especially 124ff.). The ability to develop ‘good working relationships’ was the first quality identified by the respondents in the study undertaken by Robinson and her colleagues (2014) - and indeed recognised as a precondition of many of the skills and characteristics that marked best probation practice.
There was some concern that probation's embrace of evidence-based practice (‘what works’) in the 1990s (Home Office, 1995), with its focus on process and programmes, might suppress the importance of relationship. Programme integrity requires that interventions are delivered in accordance with their intended aims and principles: it would otherwise be impossible to compare and evaluate outcomes. Yet a bureaucratic focus on a particular script might leave no room for emotionally literate and flexible practice, reducing the possibility of working in an engaging and responsive way and thus violating the responsivity principle. Proponents of ‘what works’ sought to resolve this tension, arguing that programmes should be delivered in ways that incorporated relational elements of practice alongside staff skills in areas like motivation, modelling and reinforcement. The importance of relationship factors in achieving positive programme outcomes was accordingly reaffirmed (Bonta and Andrews, 2010).
Empirical evidence also points to the importance of good supervisory relationships for outcomes including compliance and legitimacy (Robinson and McNeill, 2010; Ugwudike, 2010). McNeill and Robinson (2013) build on this evidence to argue that the supervisory relationship is central to and crucial for development of legitimacy in probation practice; they warn that this legitimacy, in the eyes of the supervisee, ‘is hard-won, easily lost, and almost impossible to recover’ (p133).
Policy documents and practice guidance for probation describe supervisory relationships as goal-achieving tools:
‘Our planned approach to Sentence Management is based on building strong, meaningful relationships with supervised individuals that provide them with comprehensive support throughout their probation journey, with the aim of achieving better outcomes for them and enhancing public protection.’ (HMPPS, 2021: 54)However, care ethics insist that trusting and respectful relationships are important not only because the supervisory relationship is an effective tool for achieving correctional outcomes, but because this is the moral way for practitioners and service users to work together. Unlike virtue ethics, which has a focus on the character of the individual actor, care ethics argues that moral choices are shaped in interactions. Ethical probation practice, therefore, requires practitioners to have caring and attentive relationships with the people they supervise.
Relationships in probation are shaped by the power inherent in statutory supervision and by expectations about professional boundaries. Care ethics stress relational mutuality; something identified in the literature about quality probation practice (Shapland et al., 2012) but rarely discussed in policy. However, care does sometimes flow both ways, with service users feeling committed to their relationship with their supervisor (Lewis, 2014; Rex, 1999). Similarly, reporting on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on supervision, McNeill (2020) noted that, where there was a strong pre-existing relationship between individuals, supervision by telephone need not be perfunctory but allowed for mutual expression of concern about health and family.
Care ethics does not see the building of caring relationships with service users as a passive or infantilising process (Brown Coverdale, 2018). Rather, good supervisory relationships enable people to develop their capacity to treat others with care and respect. They can play a role in the identity shift associated with the process of desistance (Maruna, 2001). Brierley (2021), bringing together insights from professional practice and lived experience, argues that relationships comprising presence, attunement, connection and trust, have to be at the heart of work with young people with backgrounds shaped by neglect and trauma. Caring and consistent relationships create the space for change. In a similar way mentoring – including and perhaps especially peer mentoring (Nixon, 2019) - often has a decisive influence on the processes of desistance. And mentors do more than offer advice and support; they inspire and can act as a role model. The concept of modelling has been influential in modern probation practice with an awareness that acting ‘pro-socially’ can bring out the best in people (Cherry, 2017; Rex and Matravers, 1998). Yet certainly this is unlikely to ‘work’ unless there is this congruence of action, thought and feeling; without that, interactions will be - and will be felt to be - insincere, condescending and false. Care ethics, then, asserts that the supervisory relationship is morally, not merely practically, important.
Probation as a caring organisation
The quality of probation practice depends on more than the skill and approach of the practitioner: it is shaped by organisational culture. Tronto (2010) considers what it means for an institution to be caring and makes several observations that are relevant to the probation service. She argues that institutions are not caring well when there is evidence of commodification of care, when service users are excluded from decision-making, and when organisational structures hinder rather than help care-giving.
The commodification of probation is most clearly seen in the privatisation that followed the Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) reforms (Dominey and Gelsthorpe, 2020). However, the impact of commodification extends beyond the use of market mechanisms to procure services; it has consequences for the way that rehabilitation and care are conceptualised. Tronto (2010) argues that it is a mistake for organisations to think about care as a commodity rather than a process. Her view that care is not best managed by the market is in line with much criticism of recent probation reform (see, for example, Burke and Collett, 2020).
The TR reforms accelerated the commodification of probation, creating a system that depended on contracts, supply chains and the purchase of fragmented and discrete packages of intervention. The reforms diluted the thick network of relationships (Dominey, 2019) that provide help, support for desistance and the possibility of community integration. The shortcomings of the TR model have led to its further reform (Carr, 2020) and a reduction in the reliance on out-sourced provision. However, under the new operating model (HMPPS, 2021), rehabilitative interventions are still conceived as a product to be provided by and purchased from approved voluntary and private sector organisations.
The insistence from care ethics that caring is a reciprocal process, with importance attached to the voice and response of the care-receiver, may appear to sit uncomfortably in organisations like probation with clear demarcations between staff and service users. The organisation has the power to set the framework for supervision, constraining the actions of the supervisors and leaving little space for the preferences of the supervisees. There are indications, however, that service user involvement is being taken more seriously, while thoughtful commentators who have worked hard to incorporate co-production and participation into their practice highlight the complex and demanding nature of this work (Armstrong and Ludlow, 2020; Weaver et al., 2019). Care ethicists ask probation to move beyond asking service users to complete surveys and give feedback to take seriously the creation of an organisation which includes all stakeholders in the development, delivery and evaluation of services.
Tronto (2010) also asks whether senior managers are attentive to the needs of staff and service users, and whether they care sufficiently about the work to ensure that it is properly resourced and supported. Brown Coverdale (2020: 3), arguing for the applicability of care ethics to the practice of imprisonment, explains that decision making requires the people involved to 'to reason together about how to proceed in the context of other responsibilities and needs and almost always in the context of limited time, resources, and knowledge’ (emphasis in original). As a result of the twin assaults of public spending cuts and the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms, probation work has not been adequately resourced and supported over the past decade. Probation supervisors are not able to work at their best if their caseloads are too large (HMIP, 2021). Where practitioners are stretched too thinly, they are not able to create supervisory relationships that demonstrate care and build trust. Good practice requires more than the commitment and skill of staff; it cannot be achieved in organisations where people are being asked to do too much work with too few resources and where staff have no sense of being cared-for. Above all, the commitment to care should infuse the whole organisation: managers and practitioners should demonstrate this care to one another in support of the agency's commitment to care for those who use its services.
Individualised approaches
Finally, care ethics calls for a practice approach that is inherently individualised and responsive to the situation and distinctive circumstances of the service user. In this sense, it aligns comfortably with desistance-focused practice with its stress on the importance of individualising support for change, led by those striving to desist who will bring their own distinctive aspirations to this process (McNeill et al., 2012).
Current approaches to practice (shaped by standards and rules ostensibly intended to achieve consistent treatment for service users and uniform behaviour by staff) struggle with the notion of individualisation. Allowing practitioners to step outside guidelines appears to risk the possibility of inappropriate discrimination. Staff do have discretion to depart from the standards, but this discretion is subject to monitoring and managerial oversight. Individualisation is identified by practitioners as part of good quality probation practice (Robinson et al., 2014) and intrinsic to approaches shaped by care ethics; it fits less well with rules-led practice models.
Care ethics also challenges the way that probation practice deals with the assessment of need. The care ethics perspective takes more account of needs than rights or abstract principles; it insists that the moral approach is to allow individuals to identify their own needs. Noddings (2015) acknowledges the complexity of this (needs are not the same as whims or preferences) but counsels against trying to define needs precisely. She warns care-givers against confusing their needs with those of the other and of making assumptions about needs. She identifies that needs arise together and not in sequence (someone can need both food and respect). Tronto (2010: 163) argues that ‘the process of determining needs is one of the foremost political struggles of any account of care’ (emphasis in original).
In the probation world, need is often defined by the organisation and squarely linked with the ‘criminogenic need’ associated with ‘what works’. Criminogenic needs are those factors assessed as underpinning offending behaviour. They are the targets of correctional interventions (including cognitive behaviour programmes and drug treatment interventions) and easily reconceptualised, not as needs but as dynamic risks (Ziv, 2020). Proponents of ‘what works’ do not argue that non-criminogenic needs should be ignored, but rather that criminogenic needs must be the focus of interventions intended to reduce recidivism. Yet this over-narrow definition of needs ignores the social injustice that underpins much crime, reframing disadvantages as dynamic risk factors, as well as ignoring issues of difference and diversity.
Probation practice makes assumptions about service user need and, in turn, service users have limited opportunity to identify their needs for themselves. The assessment process is shaped by tools that prioritise dynamic risk factors and is driven by timescales set in national standards. There is limited scope for individualised assessments in which service users are enabled and encouraged to explain how their period of supervision might be made most helpful. Among the insights of desistance theory is that change is best supported by attending to strengths and to aspirations which must not be set aside because of preconceived notions of problems and what would be a solution to them.
Care ethics argues for practice that is shaped not by rules and processes, but by people and their circumstances. The argument is not that current practice never permits staff to respond with latitude and discretion but rather that it is often too hard to depart from the rule or standard given that adherence to it will always be ‘defensible’, however wrongheaded. However, calling for increased opportunities for practitioners to respond to service users as individuals is not the same as advocating for practice that is unaccountable and without scrutiny (Eadie and Canton, 2002). Such practice does, though, require investment in and commitment to the systems that support the use of professional discretion. Wise and accountable use of discretion is most likely in situations where staff bring knowledge, skills and values to the professional dilemmas they face. Training (both for newly appointed staff and as part of continuing development) is important here, as are a reflective orientation to practice and a transparent approach to decision making. Practitioners benefit from opportunities to share practice dilemmas with colleagues and staff supervision arrangements that allow space for reflection alongside the management tasks of monitoring performance and adherence to targets (Coley, 2020).
Conclusion
The argument here is not that codes of ethics and practice guidance have no part to play in ensuring good quality probation practice, nor does it suggest that the probation service should pay no attention to the outcomes of its work. However, drawing on the principles of virtue ethics and care ethics, it does advocate an approach that takes seriously the relational element of practice, that considers the circumstances of each case, and that has an unapologetic focus on care.
Viewing probation practice through the lens of care ethics suggests that probation values emerge from principled people (at all levels in the organisations) trying to do the right thing in a caring way in difficult circumstances. Both care ethics and virtue ethics focus on the characteristics of the practitioner and, for care ethics, on the interaction between the practitioner and service user. Both approaches are sceptical that probation values could be understood simply as a set of prescriptions that simply need to be applied in each case and in each situation.
To put caring at the centre of probation practice does not produce easy answers to the ethical dilemmas faced by practitioners, which often involve not just the interests, rights and concerns of service users, but also those of past and potential victims of crime and of the wider community. Identifying the course of action that best communicates care and meets needs requires debate and reflection; different people may come to contrasting conclusions.
Care is as much about how work is undertaken as what is done or what outcome is achieved. For example, service users have been found to accept most probation interventions as legitimate. Even monitoring, which might be supposed to be a resented intrusion, can be perceived as an indication that you matter, that somebody cares about what you are doing, especially when it is acknowledged as a legitimate aspect of the role (Dominey, 2019). And a corollary of the acceptance of monitoring is that sometimes the service user will be found to have been in default and enforcement action taken.
There may be objections to the idea that caring is the ethical way to approach probation practice. Perhaps ‘offenders’ do not merit care; perhaps care has no place in punishment. The arguments from care ethics, and from this article, push in the opposite direction: care deserves consideration as a guiding virtue of probation. It is not the case that according more care to ‘offenders’ leaves less for ‘victims’; ethical practice is concerned about the needs of everyone in the community. Further, the victim/offender dichotomy is misleading; insights into the trauma and abuse that form part of the life stories of so many service users (Anderson, 2016) highlight the extent of the victim/offender overlap and demonstrate that probation practice should, drawing on Tronto’s (1993) framework, include caring about, caring for and care giving.
A signal advantage of a care ethics approach to the work of probation is its promise to align ethical practice, effective practice and the motivations that inspire so many probation staff. Although our main line of argument has insisted on the ethical merits of a care approach, we have also seen that it turns out to be effective in terms of the purposes that are often set for probation – in particular, compliance, reduced reoffending and even the management of risk. Any successes that probation might achieve in reducing reoffending and in public protection amply fulfil its responsibility to show care to everyone and not just those under its supervision.
Care ethics, like virtue ethics, insists on doing the right things for the right reasons. For all the political attempts to disavow caring, it remains the case that large numbers of people join the profession because of a commitment to help and care for vulnerable people (Cracknell, 2016; Deering, 2011; Mawby and Worrall, 2013). The principle of care engages these motives, aligning them with both effective and ethical practice, bringing a coherence and integrity to probation's work.
Jane Dominey and Rob Canton.
Very interesting post Jim.
ReplyDeleteI live in a housing association property. I've managed to keep it now for over two decades.
When I first secured the property it belonged to a small regional HA, and although the property itself was good, it was located on the edge of the city centre in what was considered a no go area where no-one really chose to live and ride with drugs, prostitution and any social problem you can think of.
The housing association however was great, supportive of its tenants, and had links with all kinds of local agencies, not least the probation service.
However, the city centre grew in my direction. Business made use of the cheaper rents. The local pubs that only the brave would frequent became real ale venues, coffee shops opened, independent shops of all nature began to spring up, and my HA in a no go area property became a desirable location to live.
Gentrification brought benefits. It Al's saw my original HA being swallowed up by a huge national housing provider and rents and service charges increased dramatically.
The current HA has no great links to local community agencies, many of the services have been outsourced to subcontractors, and the average time a housing officer sticks it out is 6mths.
I much prefer the older days as rough as they were. I wonder too, if the care the support the energy given by the local agencies back then didn't just pave the way for the profiteers to move in?
My housing association is now driven by expansion, it's too big to care. Ticking the box that meets their minimum obligations is their focus on tenants.
That's very, very much as I see todays probation service. Meet required obligations, sign off, job done.
I've previously said that I think there is too many people subjected to probation services.
I wonder if probation has become too big or too populated to care or too populated to care?
'Getafix
https://www-express-co-uk.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1627322/homeless-crime-prison-winter-philip-davies-minister-dominic-raab-justice-secretary-update/amp?amp_js_v=a6&_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQKKAFQArABIIACAw%3D%3D#aoh=16555583580124&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.express.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fpolitics%2F1627322%2Fhomeless-crime-prison-winter-philip-davies-minister-dominic-raab-justice-secretary-update
DeleteA FORMER justice minister has claimed thousands of homeless people each year are committing crimes so they can be locked up in a warm prison for Christmas.
DeleteDr Phillip Lee, who resigned as a Justice minister over Brexit from Theresa May’s government and later left the Tories to join the Lib Dems, was reacting to extraordinary figures which showed that last year there were 36,226 people in prison who were designated as "homeless or with housing problems." The information came in answer to a question from Shipley Conservative MP Philip Davies to Dominc Raab's Ministry of Justice (MoJ) on how many prisoners suffered from a range of mental health and social problems.
The answer by current justice minister Victoria Atkins concerned the number of people in prison on June 30 last year.
It showed that 34,705 men and 1,521 women in jail had "housing issues or were homeless" while 40,614 men and 1,841 had relationship problems.
Dr Lee, who now works as a GP again as well as a political consultant after failing to win the Wokingham seat for the Lib Dems in 2019, said that the problem of homeless people trying to go to prison in the winter was even more acute.
He said: "Prison is a relatively safe and warm place, especially for the winter. It’s well known some people commit crimes to have winter inside."
According to the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) statistics, two of the biggest social problems for people jailed for crimes were substance abuse (drug taking or alcoholism) with 31,267 mean and 1,341 women, and financial difficulties which impacted 35,680 men and 1,299 women in prison.
The figures also revealed that 47,050 of the 55,564 men suffering from the problems had two or more registered issues while 1,973 of the 2,090 women registers had two or more problems.
Issues included mental health, learning disabilities, physical disabilities, unemployment history, social isolation and physical or psychological trauma.
Probation works over-professionalized, which often means getting into the work requires a university degree. Unless your employer will finance this, its usually reserved for the middle classes, the opposite class of the majority of service users. Many approaches they use, like 'person centred counselling, mindfulness and cbt' are over-individualized, which strip people of social context and fit neatly with neoliberalism - you fail, its your own fault, try harder next time. Although that isnt to say theres anything wrong with promoting self-responsibility in itselft, just not easy in a capitalist society and is often used to legitimize harsh policies, like gutting public services. The overwhelming majority of service users I worked with in probation wanted help accessing housing, benefits, employment, and training.
DeleteI don’t believe that the front line probation staff have much more to give clients as a result of endless pen pushing (digital), obligations to meet endless and mostly pointless computer related targets and most of an average working day completing OASys that has truly defined the role of practitioners to little more than data entry clerks. Unless we become an independent agency, staff clients and victims alike will continue to suffer.
ReplyDeleteFrom Twitter:-
ReplyDelete"As a practitioner with 20+yrs service, I took the leap to become a PO. My PQUIP spo told me I HAD to refer someone into ETE, even tho he had a sick note to “provide purpose”. This was in stark contrast to the learning I’d just competed. I raised this and was overridden by an spo who had been in service just 3 years! I did as I was told, wasted ingenus time as they said what I had told my spo. Felt totally belittled that my decision, in the best interests of the pop were disregarded too also humiliated when explaining to the pop why he HAD to!!"
"I find saying ‘no’ very liberating. It will never win you any favours but they would be hard pressed to do anything about it!"
In response to the Twitter post, it baffles me why the powers that be haven’t applied a system whereby an NQO has to be in service for a set minimum time before they can apply to be an SPO, giving them a chance to gain experience! Even if they had a similar system to social services where there is an Advanced Practitioner grade (slightly higher pay to reflect knowledge and experience) which you have to achieve before you can apply for promotion. Just because you can get through a civil service interview, it doesn’t reflect on the experience of the person, it doesn’t mean you understand the intricacies of probation which only comes with experience - not knocking anyones ability to manage people but IMO to be a good SPO there has to be a depth of understanding of the practitioner role which can only come with years (more than 3, that’s for sure!) of hands on experience.
ReplyDeleteAnnon @11:54
DeleteYour comment is the voice of reason.
The complexities of probation work are extensive.
Obviously there will be differing theoretical view points and some process is required. However, the real learning, understanding and the honing of skills comes from being on the shop floor.
Time served on the shop floor must surely be a prerequisite to moving up the rungs of the ladder?
As an aside todays Telegraph has an article on the police. Kit Malthouse has announced that their 3 year training on their probationary period will be given degree status. Personally I don't think that's a good move.
Its paywall but here's a flavour.
Police officers to have degrees added to crime-fighting arsenal
New laws mean from March any officer completing their three-year probation will have gained a graduate-level qualification
ne 2022 • 9:00pm
All police officers will have degrees under new laws to bring the training of bobbies into the 21st century....
'Getafix