Whose confidence? Regional leaders’ perspectives on building confidence in a reconfigured probation service
Whose confidence? Regional leaders’ perspectives on building confidence in a reconfigured probation service
The idea that the institutions of criminal justice should command the confidence of the public and other stakeholders is a taken for granted ‘good’, but one which has rarely been considered from the perspectives of operational leaders within those institutions. We also know little about what happens at times of crisis, when claims are made about the erosion of confidence and leaders are charged with rebuilding it. In this article, we seek to engage critically with the idea of confidence in one criminal justice institution – the Probation Service in England & Wales – at just such a time. Drawing on original empirical research with the 12 leaders of the recently unified service, this article focuses on the question of whose confidence matters and considers some of the challenges associated with confidence-building work from the perspectives of these leaders. Our research revealed that the stakeholder groups whose confidence most concerned them were sentencers and other partner agencies; government ministers; and their own staff within the unified service. We introduce the idea of ‘domains of confidence’ to highlight the importance of understanding perspectives on confidence (and efforts to strengthen or rebuild it) in a relational space in which the particular positionality of actors in the criminal justice field must be understood.
Confidence, legitimacy, positionality, probation, sentencers
Robinson, Gwen
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Annison, Harry
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Burke, Lol
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Carr, Nicola
7839561e-ad73-47f3-b4d8-c4cd3cff65ee
Millings, Matthew
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Surridge, Eleanor
2ef5e04e-f2ed-41dd-9744-28e2abd5f7d4
Robinson, Gwen
3339b746-9dfe-4fa5-ae1b-027bc4d3cb7f
Annison, Harry
91ee5a4a-811e-4b57-9fd4-df643465b2a1
Burke, Lol
13f713c6-8d0e-482c-a8bd-719cdbcdc023
Carr, Nicola
7839561e-ad73-47f3-b4d8-c4cd3cff65ee
Millings, Matthew
400f075f-c21a-4855-865e-b99363e5df8e
Surridge, Eleanor
2ef5e04e-f2ed-41dd-9744-28e2abd5f7d4
Robinson, Gwen, Annison, Harry, Burke, Lol, Carr, Nicola, Millings, Matthew and Surridge, Eleanor
(2023)
Whose confidence? Regional leaders’ perspectives on building confidence in a reconfigured probation service.
Criminology & Criminal Justice.
(doi:10.1177/17488958231218571).
Abstract
The idea that the institutions of criminal justice should command the confidence of the public and other stakeholders is a taken for granted ‘good’, but one which has rarely been considered from the perspectives of operational leaders within those institutions. We also know little about what happens at times of crisis, when claims are made about the erosion of confidence and leaders are charged with rebuilding it. In this article, we seek to engage critically with the idea of confidence in one criminal justice institution – the Probation Service in England & Wales – at just such a time. Drawing on original empirical research with the 12 leaders of the recently unified service, this article focuses on the question of whose confidence matters and considers some of the challenges associated with confidence-building work from the perspectives of these leaders. Our research revealed that the stakeholder groups whose confidence most concerned them were sentencers and other partner agencies; government ministers; and their own staff within the unified service. We introduce the idea of ‘domains of confidence’ to highlight the importance of understanding perspectives on confidence (and efforts to strengthen or rebuild it) in a relational space in which the particular positionality of actors in the criminal justice field must be understood.
Text
robinson-et-al-2023-whose-confidence-regional-leaders-perspectives-on-building-confidence-in-a-reconfigured-probation
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More information
Accepted/In Press date: 24 December 2023
e-pub ahead of print date: 24 December 2023
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Project title ‘Rehabilitation Probation: Rebuilding culture, identity and legitimacy in a reformed public service’ (grant number ES/W001101/1).
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2023.
Keywords:
Confidence, legitimacy, positionality, probation, sentencers
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 486184
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/486184
ISSN: 1748-8958
PURE UUID: 7ffb44f9-3210-4447-a296-60ab2f392fdc
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Date deposited: 12 Jan 2024 17:37
Last modified: 18 Mar 2024 03:26
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Contributors
Author:
Gwen Robinson
Author:
Lol Burke
Author:
Nicola Carr
Author:
Matthew Millings
Author:
Eleanor Surridge
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