By Matthew Cracknell

Introduced under the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms, the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014 created a period of post-sentence supervision (PSS) after licence for individuals serving short custodial sentences. This empirical study features on the ground views and perspectives of practitioners and service users of PSS in one case-study area. Findings from this research suggest a number of issues and ambiguities with the enactment of the sentence. These include ambiguities regarding the correct use of enforcement procedures; the antagonistic relationship between third sector and Community Rehabilitation Company staff, primarily centred around transferring cases and concerns over the use of ‘light touch’ supervision and uncertainties over what the rehabilitative aims of this sentence mean in practice. These issues led to practitioners questioning the legitimacy of the third sector organisation involved in the management of PSS, while service users experienced PSS as a frustrating ‘pass-the-parcel’ experience, where resettlement support was constantly stalled and restarted at each juncture of the sentence. Before briefly discussing the potential future of PSS under the next iteration of probation policy, this article concludes by arguing that there is emerging evidence of a commonality of failures occurring at every juncture of the short sentence, undermining resettlement prospects for the long-neglected short sentence population.

Probation Journal Volume 67, Issue 4, December 2020, Pages 340-357

By Matt Cracknell

In 2021, 47,014 people were released from prison in England and Wales (Ministry of Justice, 2022), demonstrating the extent to which resettlement work is a core part of probation practice. However, the practitioners tasked to work with these individuals are often asked to fulfill a range of antagonistic and contradictory aims and approaches to resettlement (Canton, 2022) that can include:

• aftercare

• treatment

• the continuation of punishment

• risk management.

Indeed, there have been various policy and practice initiatives regarding how best to support people as they leave custody dating back to the birth of the modern prison in the early 19th century (Crow, 2006). These ambiguities reinforce concerns outlined by Maruna (2006) – that resettlement lacks an underlying theory or narrative for how it is supposed to work.

The uncertainty regarding how best to support people leaving custody is mirrored in ambiguities in the terminology used to describe this practice, with a set of interchangeable terms such as resettlement, re-entry, reintegration, and rehabilitation often used. However, there are a number of scholars who feel that the prefix ‘re’ for these terms is inappropriate and does not sufficiently capture the reality that many people leaving prison are perennially disadvantaged and had not previously been integrated or settled in society (Carlen and Tombs, 2006). In England and Wales, resettlement is the common terminology in official policy language, replacing the previous terms of ‘aftercare’ or ‘throughcare’, and is used to describe the process of leaving prison and returning to society. However, linked to its originations in official policy language, resettlement is also commonly used to refer to any prison and/or probation intervention used to address practical issues and criminogenic factors in order to reduce reoffending (Rubio Arnal, 2021).

Despite the longstanding ‘intractable problem’ (Crow, 2006: 3) in providing effective resettlement, there is a substantial evidence base that demonstrates how best to support people as they leave prison and transition back into the community. This Academic Insights paper will draw upon this literature in order to outline what best practice in this area might look like, outlining six key principles of effective resettlement support. The paper will then turn to outlining some potential barriers that need to be addressed in order to realise this approach, setting out the implications for resettlement policy.

Academic Insights 2023/01 ; Manchester, UK: HM Inspectorate of Probation, 2023. 13p.

By Matt Cracknell

Contemporary criminal justice policy in England and Wales has witnessed various resurgences of political interest in resettlement and the short sentence population. This intermittent attentiveness has been mirrored in the circular re-iterations of policy initiatives ostensibly designed to bring greater continuity to the services that administer ‘through the gate’ work. These efforts include the ‘seamless sentence’ of the 1991 Criminal Justice Act; ‘end-to-end offender management’, the creation of The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) and the introduction of custody plus under New Labour; and the current Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) ‘through the gate’ reforms. It is important to analyse these attempts in order to understand why resettlement policy consistently fails to deliver an improved continuity between prisons and probation. This paper argues that resettlement policy has a common thread of issues that inhibit effective resettlement practice. This article will firstly consider the ‘essence’ (Senior and Ward, 2016) of resettlement practice, outlining several key principles that should be central elements for resettlement policy and practice, before providing an overview of these various policy initiatives; examining a common thread of failures in their realisation. This article will then look ahead at the next possible iteration of resettlement policy, ‘offender management in custody’ (OMiC), concluding that despite key changes, this latest policy continues to repeat the errors of past resettlement policy failures.

British Journal of Community Justice ©2021 Vol. 17(2) 86–103 https://doi.org/10.48411/pfz6-ba61

By Zarek Khan

The literature on probation supervision has paid significant attention to prisoner reintegration into society. Many of these studies are based on retrospective samples of ex-prisoners as their primary analytical focus. Research studies on the early transitions from prison to the community have predominantly examined men’s experiences. This article explores the experiences of a small group of men and women serving their sentences in the community while under probation supervision. Drawing on interview extracts, it is argued that probation practices hinder, rather than support, post-release necessities for men and women seeking to reintegrate into society. The article highlights the implications for future research on probation supervision and re-entry.

Probation Journal 2023, Vol. 70(4) 350–366