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Probation and the Media: 1907-2007

Probation in the News: 2005-2007. 100 Murders in Two Years by Prisoners Out on Probation The Mirror, 6 December 2006 Murders blamed on probation service blunders The Express,?21 April 2006 Leader: Probation's Fatal Failure The Mirror,?1 March 2006Probation service blunders that killed top city

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Probation and the Media: 1907-2007

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    1. Probation and the Media: 1907-2007 Shadd Maruna Queen’s University Belfast Probation Centenary May 2007

    2. Probation in the News: 2005-2007 100 Murders in Two Years by Prisoners Out on Probation The Mirror, 6 December 2006 Murders blamed on probation service blunders The Express, 21 April 2006 Leader: Probation’s Fatal Failure The Mirror, 1 March 2006 Probation service blunders that killed top city banker The Evening Standard  28 February 2006 Probation service blunders left tagged cocaine addict free to murder jeweller The 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 Young…From 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 Probation The Mirror, 6 December 2006 Murders blamed on probation service blunders The Express, 21 April 2006 Leader: Probation’s Fatal Failure The Mirror, 1 March 2006 Probation service blunders that killed top city banker The Evening Standard  28 February 2006 Probation service blunders left tagged cocaine addict free to murder jeweller The 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 individual’s personal traits than positive, prosocial behaviours. Researchers have recorded the electrical activity of the brain’s 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 we’re in right now with the public” (Dickey and Smith, 1998: 6).

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