Learning Together: forging belonging among students with experience of the criminal justice system

The Learning Together methodology at Liverpool John Moores University attempts to open up higher education for people with criminal convictions.  Applied in a criminal justice course, Learning Together aims to create a safe space for criminal justice academics, students, service users and practitioners to come together and form a unique community of practice whereby scholarly activity, life events and professional experience are recognised, applied and practiced within and beyond the classroom.  As the initiative has grown and developed, course co-creators have recognised how community engagement as a pedagogical framework holds the ability to reduce cultural distance between academic researchers and the communities in which they work whilst at the same time enriching learning and strengthening communities.  This paper provides an insight into the initiative and reflects on how belonging can be embedded via a connected curriculum framework.&nbsp

Developing a creative pedagogy to understand the university experience of non-traditional students

Despite the presence of a widening participation agenda, people with criminal convictions face a number of barriers accessing and participating in higher education (Office for Students, 2019). This may be due to unspent criminal convictions (Unlock, 2018), limited confidence and self-esteem (Champion and Noble, 2016), a lack of previous educational attainment (Prison Reform Trust, 2017) and/or presence of risk-adverse, bureaucratic, university admission processes (Bhattacharya et al., 2013). As a result, people with criminal convictions are not only under-represented throughout the sector (Unlock, 2018) but completely overlooked when it comes to understanding their university experience. To address this longstanding issue, the authors have developed an educational opportunity (utilising the Learning Together programme) for criminal justice academics, students, practitioners and service users to come together and learn from one another through lived experience, professional practice and Creative Pedagogy. Learning Together was originally developed and implemented by Dr Amy Ludlow and Dr Ruth Armstrong at the University of Cambridge to provide opportunities for university students to learn alongside people serving a custodial sentence (Armstrong and Ludlow, 2016). &nbsp

Developing a creative pedagogy to understand the university experience of non-traditional students

Despite the presence of a widening participation agenda, people with criminal convictions face a number of barriers accessing and participating in higher education (Office for Students, 2019). This may be due to unspent criminal convictions (Unlock, 2018), limited confidence and self-esteem (Champion and Noble, 2016), a lack of previous educational attainment (Prison Reform Trust, 2017) and/or presence of risk-adverse, bureaucratic, university admission processes (Bhattacharya et al., 2013). As a result, people with criminal convictions are not only under-represented throughout the sector (Unlock, 2018) but completely overlooked when it comes to understanding their university experience. To address this longstanding issue, the authors have developed an educational opportunity (utilising the Learning Together programme) for criminal justice academics, students, practitioners and service users to come together and learn from one another through lived experience, professional practice and Creative Pedagogy. Learning Together was originally developed and implemented by Dr Amy Ludlow and Dr Ruth Armstrong at the University of Cambridge to provide opportunities for university students to learn alongside people serving a custodial sentence (Armstrong and Ludlow, 2016).

Lost in transition? The personal and professional challenges for probation leaders engaged in delivering public sector reform

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

Probation migration(s): Examining occupational culture in a turbulent field

In June 2014 approx. 54 per cent of the total probation service workforce in England and Wales were transferred to the newly created Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) as part of the government’s plans to establish a market for offender management services. This marked the beginning of one of the largest and most significant migrations of criminal justice staff from the public to the private sector in England and Wales. This article presents findings from an ethnographic study of the formation of one of these CRCs through to the period immediately following the transfer into private ownership. The authors discuss the key features of this migration which are identified as ‘splitting and fracturing’, ‘adapting and forming’ and ‘exiting or accommodation’. It is contended that this development not only has significant implications for the future of probation services but also provides a unique example of the impact on an occupational culture of migration from the public to the private sector

Delivering rehabilitation : the politics, governance and control of probation/ Burke

xi, 200 hal.; 23 cm

Delivering rehabilitation : the politics, governance and control of probation/ Burke

xi, 200 hal.; 23 cm

Redemption, Rehabilitation and Risk Management: A History of Probation

Redemption, Rehabilitation and Risk Management provides the most accessible and up-to-date account of the origins and development of the Probation Service in England and Wales. The book explores and explains the changes that have taken place in the service, the pressures and tensions that have shaped change, and the role played by government, research, NAPO, and key individuals from its origins in the nineteenth century up to the plans for the service outlined by the Conservative/Liberal Democrat government. The probation service is a key agency in dealing with offenders; providing reports for the courts that assist sentencing decisions; supervizing released prisoners in the community and working with the victims of crime. Yet despite dealing with more offenders than the prison service, at lower cost and with reconviction rates that are lower than those associated with prisons, the Probation Service has been ignored, misrepresented, taken for granted and marginalized, and probation staff have been sneered at as ‘do-gooders’. The service as a whole is currently under serious threat as a result of budget cuts, organizational restructuring, changes in training, and increasingly punitive policies. This book details how probation has come to such a pass. By tracing the evolution of the probation service, Redemption, Rehabilitation and Risk Management not only sheds invaluable light on a much misunderstood criminal justice agency, but offers a unique examination of twentieth century criminal justice policy. It will be essential reading for students and academics in criminal justice and criminology