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An Over-Descriptive Overview Dr. David HayesLecturer in Law, University of

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Presentation on theme: "An Over-Descriptive Overview Dr. David HayesLecturer in Law, University of"— Presentation transcript:

1 An Over-Descriptive Overview Dr. David HayesLecturer in Law, University of Sheffieldd.j.hayes@sheffield.ac.ukd.j.hayes@sheffield.ac.uk

2 1. A Brief Overview of the Pains of (Some) Supervised Community Penalties (PSCPs) in England and Wales 2. Experienced Severity of PSCPs 3. Factors Affecting Experienced Severity 4. Implications for (European) Practice

3  Two research questions: 1. What impact does (supervised) community punishment have upon the lives of those subjected to it; and 2. To what extent is that impact affected by the relationship between the offender and her supervising probation officer?

4  From ‘impact’ to ‘pain’?  Sykes (1958: 64);  Christie (1981: 9-11);  Durnescu (2011).  Pain as:  Pluralistic;  Subjective;  Inductive.

5  20 interviewees (9 offenders, 11 staff) across two Probation Centres in one Trust area.  July 2013 – January 2014.  Methodology:  Preliminary Case-File Analysis;  Primary Interview;  Preliminary (Thematic) Analysis;  Group Interview;  Substantive (Thematic) Analysis

6 Pain CategorySpecific Examples Effect of Supervisory Relationship Pains of Rehabilitation Shame, Lifestyle Change, Wellbeing Intensified Pains of Liberty Deprivation Loss of Freedom; Loss of Time; Loss of Money Penal Welfare Issues Accommodation; Employment and Job-Seeking; Family Relationships; Finances; Wellbeing. Reduced External Agencies Increased Intrusion; Increased Hostility Process Pains Pains at Trial; (Perceived) Procedural Unfairness; Police Oversight. Unaffected Stigma From Third Parties; From Friends and Family; In Job- Seeking * - More details on methods and pains in a forthcoming EJProb article (subject to minor corrections)!

7 Most severeLeast severe Shame Family Relationships Loss of Time Loss of Money Loss of Freedom Stigma (Friends & Family) Wellbeing Stigma (Job- seeking) Lifestyle Change Housing Employment External Agencies Stigma(Third Parties) Financial Issues Process Pains Individual severity of pains for offenders varies with: - Offender Attitudes;- Offender Capital; - Community Reactions; - Penal/Welfare Complex; - Impact of Supervisory Relationship; and - Order/Requirements Imposed.

8  Preliminary Notes:  Liberty deprivation, compliance and the threat of breach;  The consistent importance of shame and family; and  Severity effects tended to group around three clusters of pains: ▪ Pains of Rehabilitation; ▪ Pains of Liberty Deprivation; and ▪ Penal Welfare Issues.

9 Pains of Rehabilitation  Offender Attitudes towards Engagement  Fully Engaged;  Partially Engaged;  Engagement-Resistant.  Staff Approaches to Supervision  What Works determinism vs. agentic desistance;  Role of criminogenic factors. Shame Wellbeing Lifestyle Change

10 Pains of Liberty Deprivation  Orders/Requirements Imposed  Number and onerousness of Requirements;  Interaction with external agencies and community ties.  Offender Capital  Employment;  Social and cultural marginalisation. Loss of Time Loss of Money Loss of Freedom External Agencies

11 Penal Welfare Issues  Offender Capital  Employment;  Community, Family and Friendship Ties.  Socio-Penal Complex  Welfare State arrangements (unemployment and sickness benefits, etc.);  Relationship between State and external agencies.  Community Reactions  Shaming and Stigma. Family Stigma Wellbeing Housing Employment Finances Process Pains

12 …[L]ooking at people I supervise... I would say prison's a softer option. Because you get up in the morning, you know what you're doing, you have a regime. You have guarantees, which when you're in the community, you have no guarantees. Oh, except that you're gonna be breached if you don't comply with your order! But there's no guarantee that you'll actually get sent to prison[…] In the community you have to be at the behest of your taskmaster, who's the DWP, be at the behest, because of your offending behaviour, of your other taskmaster, which is probation... be at the behest of your partner. Be at the behest... because you're a father. Be at the behest because you're the only child, or your parents are disabled and when you're not in prison you've got that responsibility. And be at the behest of yourself, because you're fragmented in so many different directions. ‘Who am I?’ And some of those directions never go away… [O]nce you commit a crime, you've been handed a bouquet of barbed wire. -- Selma (Probation Officer, IC)

13  The punitive value of CSMs is vulnerable to understatement if only expressed in terms of liberty deprivation (cf. McNeill 2011: 16-17; Hudson 1993, 2000).  Role of community forces in shaping the pains of imprisonment – consequences for proportionality/parsimony? (cf. Kolber 2009; Ryberg 2010).  Probation-based rehabilitation as a cause of (and solution to) pains of punishment!

14  Nils Christie (1981), Limits to Pain (Oxford: Martin Robertson).  Ioan Durnescu (2011) ‘Pains of Probation: Effective Practice and Human Rights’ 55(4) International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 530- 545.  Barbara Hudson (1993) Penal Policy and Social Justice (Basingstoke: Macmillan).  Barbara Hudson (2000) ‘Punishing the Poor: Dilemmas of Justice and Difference’. In: William C Heffernan and John Kleinig (eds.) From Social Justice to Criminal Justice: Poverty and the Administration of Criminal Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press).  Adam Kolber (2009) ‘The Subjective Experience of Punishment’ 109(1) Columbia Law Review 182-236.  Fergus McNeill (2011) ‘Probation, Credibility and Justice’ 58(1) Probation Journal 3-26.  Jesper Ryberg (2010), ‘Punishment and the Measurement of Severity’, in Ryberg, J., and Corlett, J. A., Punishment and Ethics: New Perspectives (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan).  Gresham M. Sykes (1958), The Society of Captives: A Study of a Maximum Security Prison (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).


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