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Professional Legitimacy, Identity, and Practice: Towards a Sociology of Professionalism in Probation

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  • Matt Tidmarsh

Abstract

This paper draws from Foucauldian understandings of the sociology of the professions to explore legitimacy, identity, and practice in probation after the Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) reforms to services in England and Wales. A discourse of ‘professionalism’ was crucial to the Coalition Government’s mobilization of TR; however, the contested nature of the term is rarely acknowledged in a probation context. Based on an ethnographic study of a privately-owned Community Rehabilitation Company, the paper demonstrates how professionalism in probation has been reshaped by punitive, managerial, and rehabilitative ‘adaptations’. It argues that professionalism has been detached from its ideal-typical groundings, becoming a malleable practice of (self-)government which is integral to how probation professionals demonstrate their legitimacy to multiple (and competing) actors in a network of accountability – the state, the public, offenders, adjacent organizations, and, additionally, private providers. Accordingly, appeals to a discourse of professionalism are a source of meaning for staff and a disciplinary mechanism that governs their conduct ‘at a distance’.

Suggested Citation

  • Matt Tidmarsh, 2022. "Professional Legitimacy, Identity, and Practice: Towards a Sociology of Professionalism in Probation," The British Journal of Criminology, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, vol. 62(1), pages 165-183.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:crimin:v:62:y:2022:i:1:p:165-183.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/bjc/azab045
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Gill Kirton & Cécile Guillaume, 2019. "When Welfare Professionals Encounter Restructuring and Privatization: The Inside Story of the Probation Service of England and Wales," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 33(6), pages 929-947, December.
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