Probation and the Media: 19072007

1
Probation and the Media 1907-2007

• Shadd Maruna
• Queens University Belfast
• Probation Centenary
• May 2007

2
Probation in the News 2005-2007

• 100 Murders in Two Years by Prisoners Out on
  ProbationThe Mirror, 6 December 2006
• Murders blamed on probation service blundersThe
  Express, 21 April 2006
• Leader Probations Fatal FailureThe Mirror, 1
  March 2006
• Probation service blunders that killed top city
  bankerThe Evening Standard  28 February 2006
• Probation service blunders left tagged cocaine
  addict free to murder jewellerThe Daily
  Telegraph 19 September 2005

3
The Times 19 July 1894 pg. 13 (buried in the
corner)
4
The Times 25 Sept 1912 pg. 3
5
The Times 10 March 1924 pg. 10 (same page as
article titled 25 Years of the Cinema)
6
What Works in Probation

• Mr. Brown, the City probation officer, replying
  to the Lord Mayor, said after six years
  experience he was able to estimate that 95 per
  cent. of those placed under probation had made
  good (The Times, 30 Dec 1927).
• Sir Montagu Sharpe (Chairman of Middlesex
  Sessions) said that 75 per cent. Of the cases
  assisted turned out well (The Times, 10 May
  1930).

7
Prison Work Ideals

• Speaking as Home Secretary, he was desirous that
  the victim of crime should be lifted up and
  given a new part in life, so that socially and
  economically he might become a decent citizen
  again. But there was something far higher and
  nobler he wanted them to deal with the souls of
  those people. rescue the perishing, raise up
  the fallen, and take a human soul and bring it
  back to God

8
The Power of Science

• Probation was not sentimentalism but true
  psychology, and, from the point of view of
  citizenship, good business (The Times, 29 April
  1937)
• Sir Herbert Samuel, Home Secretary I think we
  may claim that we have fully kept up with America
  in methods relating to the repression and
  prevention of crime (The Times, 4 May 1932).

9
Saving the YoungFrom Prison

• I cannot express the strength of the view that I
  hold that the real hope is to save the young
  offender. I have not sufficient words of praise
  for the devotion of probation officers (The
  Times, 29 April 1937).
• Before the War, sentences of imprisonment were
  imposed each year on about 150,000 people. The
  figure for 1928 was only 54,000. The daily
  average before the War was about 20,000 to-day
  it was nearly one-half that number (The Times,
  10 March 1930).
• no hesitation in saying that probation offered,
  prima facie, a much more hopeful method than
  imprisonment.

10
The Times 5 Mar 1935 pg. 13
11
    The Times 4 May 1937 pg. 11
12
The Times 4 Oct, 1949 pg. 2
13
The Times, 1 Feb 1947 pg. 2
14
The Times, 13 Apr 1966 pg. 15
15
The Times, 27 Sep 1974 pg. 12
16
Probation Mythology

• The Probation service is to some extent
  sustained and protected by its own myths
  whatever the statistics may or may not reveal
  about success rates, they are after all only
  statistics and it is generally assumed that they
  must lack any real significance in the complex
  field of human relationships

17
It Will Take a Scandal

• Indeed, one suspects that only a major scandal
  in the probation service could set in motion any
  valid reassessment of the narrative of a
  profession that is doing a wonderful job even
  though its staff are overworked and underpaid

18
Blasting Away at Probation Myths

• Jargon is always readily available, gleaned from
  psychiatry, sociology, law, modern business
  management (for the ambitious) and Marxism (for
  the rebellious) it is invariably ludicrous when
  it is not meaningless or dull.

19
Need for a Narrative

• One of the primary tasks of an institution that
  exercises the power to punish is to provide a
  plausible account of what it does and how it does
  what it does.
• Bullets kill and bars constrain, but the
  practice of supervision inevitably involves the
  construction of a set of narratives which allows
  the kept, the keepers, and the public to believe
  in a capacity to control that cannot afford to be
  tested too frequently.
• -- Jonathan Simon (1993) Poor Discipline Parole
  and the Social Control of the Underclass

20
Probation in the News 2005-2007

• 100 Murders in Two Years by Prisoners Out on
  ProbationThe Mirror, 6 December 2006
• Murders blamed on probation service blundersThe
  Express, 21 April 2006
• Leader Probations Fatal FailureThe Mirror, 1
  March 2006
• Probation service blunders that killed top city
  bankerThe Evening Standard  28 February 2006
• Probation service blunders left tagged cocaine
  addict free to murder jewellerThe Daily
  Telegraph 19 September 2005

21
Negativity Bias

• Good news is no news
• This is the tendency to regard immoral behaviours
  as more informative or diagnostic about an
  individuals personal traits than positive,
  prosocial behaviours.
• Researchers have recorded the electrical activity
  of the brains cerebral cortex as a reflection of
  the magnitude of information processing taking
  place and consistently find that our brains
  respond quicker and more dramatically to negative
  stimuli than positive stimuli.

22
Stalin Was Right

• A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is
  a statistic.
• Analytic/rational
• vs.
• Intuitive/experiential
• Slovic, P. (2007). "If I Look at the Mass I Will
  Never Act Psychic Numbing and Genocide"

23
From effective to affective justice (or why
prison works)

• Anyone who wants to improve public debate about
  crime needs to be attuned to the emotional
  dimension of these issues.
• (Indermauer and Hough, 2002 210)
• The public holds a deeply entrenched view that
  equates punishment and control with
  incarceration, and that accepts alternatives as
  suitable only in cases where neither punishment
  nor control is thought necessary (Smith 1984
  171).

24
What Works in Selling Probation?

• 86 agree that Most offenders can go on to lead
  productive lives with help and hard work
• 77 agree that Even the worst offenders can grow
  out of criminal behaviour.
• 68 disagree that Most offenders really have
  little hope of changing for the better (R)
• Maruna, S. and King, A. (2004). Public Opinion
  and Community Penalties. In Bottoms, T., Rex, S.
  and Robinson, G. (Eds.) Alternatives to Prison
  Options for an Insecure Society. Cullompton
  Willan.

25
Redeemability A Narrative that Works

• New York Times
• There is no public narrative more potent today
  -- or throughout history -- than the one about
  redemption (Kakutani, 2001).
• Let me put it this way, if the public knew that
  when you commit some wrongdoing, you're held
  accountable in constructive ways and you've got
  to earn your way back through these kinds of good
  works, the probation service wouldn't be in
  the rut were in right now with the public
  (Dickey and Smith, 1998 6).