Probation Officer Training, Promotional Culture and the Public Sphere

Recent writing on the professions has given little consideration to the state’s potential for threatening a professional formation. This paper argues that the reorganization of probation officer training in England and Wales is an instance of stateled de‐professionalization. The process of problematizing the issue and the steps taken to try and mobilize public endorsement for radical policy change are traced, as are the counter‐moves of groups attempting to maintain the existing training arrangements. This illuminates two aspects of contemporary public debate in the UK. First, it demonstrates the impact of the requirement that public sector organizations and occupations show ‘enterprise’ by successful self‐promotion. Second, the episode is located within Habermas’s concept of the public sphere, in which participation itself – let alone any possibility of achieving the desired outcome – now appears to depend upon relative resources and on attracting the attention of influential news media