Knowledge production and the punishment ethic: The demise of the probation service

Abstract

In the past decade the probation service has experienced significant change. A new ‘knowledge’ has emerged, known as ‘what works’, which aims to use the ‘best available evidence-base’ for planning and implementing effective interventions with offenders. Simultaneously, there has been an embracing of ‘punishment’, as opposed to ‘welfarism’, as the appropriate milieu of the probation service. When deconstructed these two features share some common elements, within which a hegemonic masculinist approach to crime control and offender management can be discerned.