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It is widely accepted that individuals with criminal convictions experience multiple disadvantage and deprivation, and, as a result, are considered least likely to progress to higher education (Unlock, 2018). The risk-adverse nature of higher education application processes further compound such disadvantage, even though there is no evidence to suggest that screening for criminal convictions increase campus safety (Centre for Community Alternatives, 2010). Drawing upon ethnographic data, the discussion critically reflects upon the development of one situated Learning Together initiative based within a University in the north-west of England. In doing so, the discussion highlights a series of emerging opportunities and competing contradictions that span over three key developmental areas: creation, progress and maintenance. We anticipate that the findings will go some way in opening up a wider debate about the sustainability of initiatives that seek to create dynamic educational partnerships between the higher education sector and criminal justice system more broadly.

In 2021, HM Inspectorate of Probation published a long awaited and highly critical report – Race equality in probation: the experience of black, Asian and minority ethnic probation service users and staff. The inspection upon which it was based was conducted in the Autumn of 2020 and was therefore set against the background of the death of George Floyd in the United States, and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement worldwide. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement laid down a challenge on many levels, stating that black, Asian and minority ethnic people must be accepted and respected as equal citizens and nowhere is this more urgently needed than within the operation of the criminal justice system. However, its follow up report (HM Inspectorate of Probation 2023) reported being disappointed in the lack of progress made by the Probation Service in addressing the issues raised in its earlier report. The article seeks to move beyond the conclusions and recommendations of the Inspection report using the lens of Critical Race Theory to engage in a discussion of systemic racism in society. To do this we have used three levels of analysis – macro, meso and micro – to situate contemporary probation within the wider structures of a post-colonial society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides insights into the predominant styles of political reasoning in England and Wales that inform penal policy reform. It does so in relation to a particular development that constitutes a dramatic, perhaps even unique, wholesale reversal of a previously introduced market-based criminal justice delivery model. This is the 'unification' of probation services in England and Wales, which unwound the consequential privatization reforms introduced less than a decade earlier. This paper draws on in-depth interviews with senior policy makers to present a narrative reconstruction of the unification of probation services in England and Wales. Analogies with desistance literature are drawn upon in order to encapsulate the tensions posed for policy makers as they sought to enact this penal policy reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we present some initial findings from the first year of a longitudinal study of the experiences of unification by staff in one Probation Service region. Their reaction to unification is explored as well as their hopes and fears regarding the newly unified service. Despite working in what was often presented as an unsettled and fractured environment marked by on-going staff shortages – whilst at the same time having to respond to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic – amongst most participants there remained a high level of loyalty to the probation profession (or the idea of probation). However, while many expressed optimism regarding the longer-term prospects for the unified organisation, this was also overlaid with concerns about how unification would play out in the short to medium term. Their enduring sense of commitment and loyalty to their role was also being tested by what some saw as overbearing pressure to manage risk, coupled with the fear of being exposed if people whom they supervised committed a Serious Further Offence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outsourcing and transfer of labour in the contexts of policing, prisons and courts illustrate that, even in a national context, these transitions are not uniform. Rather, there are a diverse set of 'privatisation journeys' that can be taken and that need to be understood. Our focus in this article is on the experience of probation leaders who, under the Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) reform programme, were charged with stewarding their organisation from the public sector, through a 10-month transitional period, and into the full relinquishing of ownership to the private sector. It is an account of how, with no clear 'transition and transformation' precedent to follow, a locally-based senior management team from one probation trust engaged with the task of implementing organisational change during a period of great uncertainty. We explore managers' engagement with the language, working styles and vision of engineering transformational change and how they processed and began to articulate the challenges of new ownership, both for themselves (as individuals) and for their organisation (as a collective). We examine the resilience of the organisational culture at senior management level; the operational dynamism of leaders to embrace change; and the extent to which senior managers felt able to participate in, and take ownership of, the new Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) they were charged with forming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws upon research documenting the implementation, management and delivery of Through the Gate service provision in one case study area across an 18-month period. In referring to interviews and focus groups with professionals, male prisoners, and the families of these men, the paper provides a critical examination of the practice implications of administering Through the Gate provision in a resettlement prison. In doing so we reflect upon the changes in organisational structures, the evolution of occupational culture(s), and on the impact on multi-agency partnership working practice evident within this Transforming Rehabilitation led period of transitional change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]