Myopia and misrecognition: The impact of managerialism on the management of compliance

Abstract

This article explores the construction of a particular form of compliance in probation practice during a period in which policy shifted from enforcement towards compliance. The article uses four concepts from Bourdieu’s field theory (habitus, field, misrecognition and symbolic violence) to highlight the way in which the shift in policy was attuned to the subjective structure of probation practitioners’ habitus but resulted in a form of compliance which was myopic in nature and thus did not adhere to what we know about habitus in probation from other research. The article explores this phenomenon through Bourdieu’s notion of misrecognition, suggesting that whilst the policy change was regarded generally positively, it is an example of ‘symbolic violence’. In turn, this tells us about practitioners’ position in the field, which is useful in terms of future analyses of how changes to the delivery of community sanctions will manifest in the coming years.

Keywords

Probation ethnography habitus field Bourdieu compliance managerialism

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Annison

Eadie

Knight

(2008) People first: Probation officer perspectives on probation work. Probation Journal 55(3): 259–271.

Bottoms

(2001) Compliance and community penalties. In: Bottoms

Gelsthorpe

Rex

(eds) Community Penalties: Change and Challenges. Cullompton, Willan, pp.87–116.

Bottoms

(2013) Learning from Odysseus: Self-applied situational crime prevention as an aid to compliance. In: Ugwudike

Raynor

(eds) What Works in Offender Compliance: International Perspectives and Evidence-Based Practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.67–89.

Bourdieu

(1990) The Logic of Practice. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Bourdieu

(2000) Pascalian Meditations. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Bourdieu

Wacquant

LJD

(1992) An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Burawoy

(2012) The roots of domination: Beyond Bourdieu and Gramsci. Sociology 46(2): 187–206.

Burke

Collett

(2014) Delivering Rehabilitation: The Politics, Governance and Control of Probation. Abingdon: Routledge.

Canton

(2012) The point of probation: On effectiveness, human rights and the virtues of obliquity. Criminology and Criminal Justice 13(5): 577–593.

10.

Crawford

Hucklesby

(2013) Introduction: Compliance and legitimacy in criminal justice. In: Crawford A and Hucklesby A (eds) Legitimacy and Compliance in Criminal Justice. Abingdon: Routledge, pp.8–28.

11.

Cumbria Probation Trust (2011) Annual Plan 2011–12. Cumbria: Cumbria Probation.

12.

Davies

(2009) Time and the probation practitioner. British Journal of Community Justice 17(3): 47–59.

13.

Deering

(2010) Attitudes and beliefs of trainee probation officers: A ‘new breed’? Probation Journal 57(1): 9–26.

14.

Deering

(2011) Probation Practice and the New Penology. Farnham: Ashgate.

15.

Farrall

Calverley

(2006) Understanding Desistance from Crime. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

16.

Farrall

Hunter

Sharpe

. (2014) Criminal Careers in Transition: The Social Context of Desistance from Crime. Oxford: Clarendon Studies in Criminology.

17.

Fitzgibbon

(2012) Probation and Social Work on Trial: Violent Offenders and Child Abusers. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

18.

Garland

(2001) The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society. Oxford: Clarendon.

19.

Grant

McNeill

(2014) What matters in practice? Understanding ‘quality’ in the routine supervision of offenders in Scotland. British Journal of Social Work. Available at: http://bjsw.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/05/25/bjsw.bcu056 (accessed 4 June 2014).

20.

Hedderman

Hearnden

(2001) To discipline or punish? Enforcement under National Standards 2000. Vista: Perspectives on Probation 6(3): 215–224.

21.

Home Office (1992) National Standards for the Supervision of Offenders in the Community. London: Home Office.

22.

Home Office (1995) National Standards for the Supervision of Offenders in the Community. London: Home Office.

23.

Home Office (2000) National Standards for the Supervision of Offenders in the Community. London: Home Office.

24.

Home Office (2005) National Standards for the Supervision of Offenders in the Community. London: Home Office.

25.

Humphrey

Pease

(1992) Effectiveness measurement in probation: A view from the troops’. Howard Journal of Criminal Justice 31(1): 31–52.

26.

London Probation Trust (2011) Annual Report 2010/11. London: London Probation Trust.

27.

Maruna

(2007) The probation story: One hundred years of probation in the media. Vista: Perspectives on Probation 11(2).

28.

Maton

(2008) Habitus. In: Grenfell

(ed) Pierre Bourdieu: Key Concepts. Abingdon: Routledge, pp.49–65.

29.

Mawby

Worrall

(2013) Doing Probation Work: Identity in a Criminal Justice Occupation. Abingdon: Routledge.

30.

McCulloch

(2012) Giving compliance back: Re-analysing and re-orientating the debate. Euro Vista: Probation and Community Justice 2(1): 27–30.

31.

McCulloch

(2013) Reanalysing the compliance dynamic: Toward a co-productive strategy and practice. In: Ugwudike

Raynor

(eds) What Works in Offender Compliance: International Perspectives and Evidence-Based Practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.44–65.

32.

McNeill

Burns

Halliday

. (2009) Risk, responsibility and reconfiguration. Punishment & Society 11(4): 419–442.

33.

McWilliams

(1985) The mission transformed: Professionalisation of probation between the wars. The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice 24(4): 257–274.

34.

Ministry of Justice (2007) National Standards for the Supervision of Offenders in the Community. London: Ministry of Justice.

35.

Ministry of Justice (2011) National Standards for the Management of Offenders. London: Ministry of Justice.

36.

NOMS (2011) NOMS Commissioning Intentions 2012-13: Discussion Document. London: National Offender Management Service.

37.

Page

(2011) The Toughest Beat: Politics, Punishment, and the Prison Officers Union in California. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

38.

Phillips

(2013) Understanding ‘the relationship’ in English probation practice. In: Durnescu

McNeill

(eds) Understanding Penal Practice. Abingdon: Routledge, pp.122–138.

39.

Pollner

Emerson

(2007) Ethnomethodology and ethnography. In: Atkinson

Coffey

Delamont

. (eds) Handbook of Ethnography. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Ltd, pp.118–135.

40.

Raine

Willson

(1997) Beyond managerialism in criminal justice. The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice 36(1): 80–95.

41.

Raynor

Vanstone

(2007) Towards a correctional service. In: Gelsthorpe

Morgan

(eds) Handbook of Probation. Cullompton: Willan, pp.59–89.

42.

Robinson

(2014) Enforcement and compliance Critical practices for Community Rehabilitation Companies and the new NPS? Probation Journal 61(3): 265–277.

43.

Robinson

(2013) What counts? Community sanctions and constructions of compliance. In: Ugwudike

Raynor

(eds) What Works in Offender Compliance: International Perspectives and Evidence-Based Practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.26–43.

44.

Robinson

McNeill

(2004) Purposes matter: Examining the ‘ends’ of probation. In: Mair

(ed) What Matters in Probation. Cullompton: Willan, pp.277–304.

45.

Robinson

McNeill

(2008) Exploring the dynamics of compliance with community penalties. Theoretical Criminology 12(4): 431–449.

46.

Robinson

Svensson

(2013) Practising offender supervision. In: McNeill

Beyens

(eds) Offender Supervision in Europe. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.97–124.

47.

Robinson

Ugwudike

(2012) Investing in ‘toughness’: Probation, enforcement and legitimacy. The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice 51(3): 300–316.

48.

Robinson

Priede

Farrall

. (2013) Understanding ‘quality’ in probation practice: Frontline perspectives in England & Wales. Criminology and Criminal Justice 123–142.

49.

Thomson

(2012) Field. In: Grenfell

(ed) Pierre Bourdieu: Key Concepts. Durham: Acumen Publishing, pp.67–81.

50.

Ugwudike

(2010) Compliance with community penalties: The importance of interactional dynamics. In: McNeill

Raynor

Trotter

(eds) Offender Supervision: New Directions in Theory, Research and Practice. Cullompton: Willan, pp.325–434.

51.

Ugwudike

(2011) Mapping the interface between contemporary risk-focused policy and frontline enforcement practice. Criminology and Criminal Justice 11(3): 242–258.

52.

Vanstone

(2004) Supervising Offenders in the Community: A History of Probation Theory and Practice. Aldershot: Ashgate.

53.

Wacquant

(2013) Symbolic power and group-making: On Pierre Bourdieu’s reframing of class. Journal of Classical Sociology 13(2): 274–291.

54.

Williams

(ed) (1995) Probation Values. Birmingham: Venture Press.