Is constructive practice still possible in a competitive environment? Findings from a case study of a community rehabilitation company in England and Wales

The Transforming Rehabilitation policy in England and Wales, involving the separation of the Probation Trusts into a publically National Probation Service (NPS) and 21 privately financed Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRC), was promoted as being an opportunity to stimulate innovation and develop new working practices within probation. Drawing on an ethnographic case study of the implementation of Transforming Rehabilitation the authors will consider some of the key challenges and opportunities for staff working in a Community Rehabilitation Company and what they might suggest in terms of the longer-term impact upon the working practices of probation staff as they move into a more competitively structured environment. Using Gorman et al’s (2006:21) assertion that constructive probation practice is ‘more artistic than technical, more creative than procedural, more collaborative than instrumental’, the authors explore what skills, qualities and values will be required in this new practice environment and whether or not it will lead to further deprofessionalisation?