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Probation Partnerships, Voluntary Action and Community Justice
Author(s) -
Nellis Mike
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
social policy and administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.972
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1467-9515
pISSN - 0144-5596
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9515.1995.tb00456.x
Subject(s) - general partnership , punitive damages , ambivalence , criminal justice , economic justice , work (physics) , public administration , big society , action (physics) , service (business) , political science , public relations , sociology , criminology , law , business , politics , social psychology , psychology , marketing , mechanical engineering , physics , quantum mechanics , engineering
ABSTRACT Having been offered — and prepared to accept — a “centre‐stage”role in the operation of the criminal justice system as recently as 1991, the Probation Service in England and Wales seems increasingly to be marginalized by politicians who, in a more punitive climate, have changed their minds about what is expected of it. As a probation spokesperson has recently said: “the big vision has gone”. One strand of policy which the Probation Service was expected to develop in 1991 was increased partnership with voluntary organizations, but, although progress has been made, it is a policy about which the Service has been very ambivalent, fearing that it may lead in the longer term to privatization of their work. This paper will outline the origins and implications of the policy, note how some local Services have so far responded to it, and suggest that, if pursued in certain fields of activity, partnership could contain an alternative vision to the one that has been lost.