RT Article
T1 Delivering McJustice? The probation factory at the Magistrates’ court
JF Criminology & criminal justice
VO 19
IS 5
SP 605
OP 621
A1 Robinson, Gwen 1969-
LA English
YR 2019
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1741687713
AB Despite playing a pivotal role in thousands of defendants’ experiences of criminal justice every year, the role of probation workers in the English and Welsh Magistrates’ courts has been neglected by researchers for several decades. This article presents the findings of an ethnographic study of the work of probation staff in two such courts. The study suggests that probation work in this context is being squeezed into an operating model which bears all the hallmarks of a process described by Ritzer as ‘McDonaldization’. It is argued that the proximate causes of McDonaldization in this sub-field of probation work lie at the intersection of parallel Government-led reform programmes - Transforming Rehabilitation and Transforming Justice - which have respectively focused on creating a market for probation services and enhancing the administrative efficiency of criminal proceedings. Until now, almost no attention has been paid, either by researchers or policy-makers, to the intersection of these programmes of reform in the probation suites at the Magistrates’ courts.
K1 McDonaldization
K1 Magistrates’ courts
K1 Pre-sentence reports
K1 Probation
K1 Transforming Justice
K1 Transforming Rehabilitation
DO 10.1177/1748895818786997