Balancing Public Safety and Social Work: An Analysis of Probation Officers' Frontline Practices in Belgium

Sommaire

General introduction ____________________________________ 21
Framework of the research ______________________________________ 25
Structure of the manuscript ______________________________________ 26
Chapter 1 – Street-level bureaucrats supervising offenders in
probation services ______________________________________ 29
Introduction ______________________________________________ 29
Section I – Street-level bureaucracy: an overview ________________ 30
A – Street-level bureaucrats: who are they, and why do they matter? ____ 30
B – Discretion at the frontlines ___________________________________ 35
C – The nature and conditions of frontline workers' coping mechanisms __ 40
D – SLB research in probation services _____________________________ 46
Section II – Probation practice: a criminological perspective _______ 49
A – Probation? Definition and related concepts ______________________ 49
1 – Probation, restorative justice, and the notion of rehabilitation ____ 49
2 – Risk management and the rise of the new penology _____________ 55
B – What is effective practice in offender supervision? ________________ 58
1 – Explaining and predicting desistance _________________________ 58
2 – Effective practice in promoting rehabilitation and preventing reoffense___ 61
C – Officers’ actual practices of supervision _________________________ 64
1 – Evidence-based tools and technologies in offender supervision ____ 65
2 – POs’ professional identities, role orientations, and attitudes ______ 68
3 – The delivery and practice of offender supervision _______________ 72
Conclusion of the first chapter _______________________________ 76
Chapter 2 – Officer-offender interactions in the correctional sector:
a systematic literature review ____________________________ 79
Introduction ______________________________________________ 79
Section I – Dealing with conflicting agencies at the frontline _______ 82
Section II – Method and scope of the review ____________________ 84
Section III – Results of the review _____________________________ 89
A – Discretion and frontline agency ________________________________ 89
B – Coping mechanisms and frontline agency ________________________ 93
Conclusion of the second chapter _____________________________ 97
A – Discretion, coping, and agency logics at the frontlines of the correctional sector ___ 97
B – Empirical, methodological, and practical considerations ___________ 100
C – Final thoughts on officer-offender interactions __________________ 101
Chapter 3 – Analytical framework and context of the research _ 105
Introduction _____________________________________________ 105
Section I – Research question and analytical framework _________ 106
A – Trust and trustworthiness ___________________________________ 107
B – Uncertainties about frontline workers’ reliance on trustworthiness assessments _ 109
C – The need for more PA research on officer-offender interactions in probation services_ 111
D – Research question and analytical framework: two studies to fill the gaps _ 113
1 – First empirical study: how do POs cope during public service delivery? _ 114
2 – Second empirical study: the assessment of offenders’ trustworthiness _ 115
3 – Bringing the two studies together ___________________________ 116
Section II – Context: the Belgian Houses of Justice ______________ 119
A – A short history of the Belgian Houses of Justice __________________ 120
B – What is probation and how is it performed in Belgium? ___________ 122
C – The managerialization of probation work (and the rise of punitiveness?) _ 126
D – A critical and atypical case ___________________________________ 129
Conclusion of the third chapter _____________________________ 131
Chapter 4 – Approach and methods _______________________ 133
Introduction _____________________________________________ 133
Section I – Epistemological and ontological approach ____________ 134
Section II – First study: data collection through semi-structured interviews _ 136
A – Semi-structured interviews __________________________________ 137
B – With whom and where? _____________________________________ 138
1 – With whom? French-speaking judicial assistants _______________ 139
2 – Where? The Houses of Justice of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation 140
C – Empirical objective _________________________________________ 144
Section III – Second study: an online survey questionnaire to collect the data_ 149
A – An online survey questionnaire _______________________________ 149
B – Construction of the questionnaire _____________________________ 151
C – The implementation of the survey _____________________________ 154
D – Managing the collected data _________________________________ 157
Section IV – Data analysis __________________________________ 159
A – First study: analyzing the qualitative data _______________________ 160
1 – A thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews _____________ 160
2 – In practice ______________________________________________ 161
B – Second study: analyzing the quantitative data ___________________ 165
1 – Structural equation modeling of the collected data _____________ 165
2 – In practice ______________________________________________ 167
Conclusion of the fourth chapter ____________________________ 168
Chapter 5 – Frontline practices in probation: how do Belgian
probation officers cope during public service delivery? ________ 171
Introduction _____________________________________________ 171
Section I – Conceptual framework and hypotheses ______________ 173
A – The nature and conditions of coping ___________________________ 174
B – Picturing the nature and conditions of POs’ coping behaviors _______ 177
1 – Organizational factors: a lack of organizational resources ________ 177
2 – Individual factors: a lack of personal resources ________________ 180
Section II – Thematization process report _____________________ 182
A – Characteristics of the participants _____________________________ 183
B – Organizational conditions ___________________________________ 183
C – Implementing offender supervision ___________________________ 188
D – Offender profiles and supervision dynamics _____________________ 195
E – Administrative tools and instruments __________________________ 201
F – Changes in institutional philosophy ____________________________ 203
Section III – Analysis results: overcoming the challenges of offender supervision _ 205
A – A coping florilegium ________________________________________ 205
1 – Rationing: privileging quantity over quality ___________________ 205
2 – Prioritization: picking the most demanding cases ______________ 206
3 – Routinization and simplification: narrowing supervision efforts to monitoring _ 208
4 – Instrumental actions: long-lasting solutions to ease supervision __ 209
5 – Rule breaking: non-compliance with work instructions __________ 212
B – A matter of survival ________________________________________ 214
1 – The common denominator: increasing workloads and time scarcity 214
2 – Walking on thin ice: the weight of accountability ______________ 221
3 – The (muffled) virtues of circumstantial professionalism _________ 224
Main findings and conclusion of the fifth chapter _______________ 227
1 – Supervising offenders amidst time shortages and managerialism _ 227
2 – Weighty responsibilities and the swan song of professionalism ___ 232
3 – Under severe pressure, yet still benevolent? __________________ 233
4 – Conclusive note _________________________________________ 235
Chapter 6 – Accounting for officers’ benevolent practices: the role of
individual and organizational factors in the assessment of
offenders’ trustworthiness ______________________________ 239
Introduction _____________________________________________ 239
Section I - Conceptual framework and hypotheses ______________ 241
A – POs’ reliance on trustworthiness assessments when using their discretion _ 241
B – Organizational factors and the importance given to trustworthiness assessments _ 243
1 – The amount of perceived workload _________________________ 243
2 – Perceived managerial support _____________________________ 245
C – Individual factors and the importance given to trustworthiness
assessments _________________________________________________ 247
1 – POs’ subjective role perceptions ____________________________ 247
2 – POs’ general propensity to trust others ______________________ 250
D – Operationalization and measurement synthesis__________________ 252
Section II – Descriptive statistics _____________________________ 256
A – Age, gender, and educational level ____________________________ 256
B – General propensity to trust, subjective role, workload perceptions, and
perceived managerial support ___________________________________ 260
C – Dependent variable: importance POs attach to their trustworthiness assessments _ 270
D – Synthesis and brief discussion: one job, contrasting profiles ________ 273
1 – Control variables ________________________________________ 274
2 – Independent variables ____________________________________ 275
Section III – Conducting the SEM analysis______________________ 278
A – Confirmatory factor analysis _________________________________ 278
B – Descriptives and correlations _________________________________ 282
C – Structural model ___________________________________________ 286
Main findings and conclusion of the sixth chapter_______________ 290
A – Mixed evidence supporting the hypotheses _____________________ 291
B – Predominance of individual factors ____________________________ 295
Chapter 7 – Results, discussion, and implications ____________ 297
Section I – Main results ____________________________________ 297
A – Altruistic caseworkers and the two-step assessment of offenders ___ 297
B – Discussion of the results _____________________________________ 303
1 – Finding the deserving offender: balancing risks, social urgency, and
trustworthiness ____________________________________________ 304
2 – Assessing probationers’ trustworthiness: different officer profiles 306
3 – Managerialism and frontline practices _______________________ 309
Section II – Theoretical implications __________________________ 311
A – Citizen-agency at the frontlines of probation ____________________ 311
B – Articulating self-interests and a selfless desire to help others _______ 314
C – Multiple accountabilities ____________________________________ 316
D – From client’s trustworthiness to clients’ deservingness ____________ 318
E – The managerial revision of the Belgian correctional system ________ 321
F – The digitalization of probation work ___________________________ 323
Section III –Practical implications ____________________________ 325
A – Handling a variety of PO profiles ______________________________ 326
1 – Recruitment ____________________________________________ 327
2 – Trainings _______________________________________________ 328
3 – Taking advantage of profile diversity ________________________ 330
B – Officers’ need for transparency and the key role of managers ______ 331
General conclusion ____________________________________ 335
A – Research problem, question, and approach ________________ 337
B – Synthesis of the results _________________________________ 343
1 – Results of the first study: still benevolent under pressure __________ 343
2 – Results of the second study: the predominance of individual factors _ 346
3 – General results of the research _______________________________ 348
A two-step assessment of offenders ____________________________ 348
An assessment process geared in favor of deserving individuals _____ 351
Frontline probation officers and trustworthiness: a typology ________ 352
C – Theoretical, methodological, and practical implications _______ 353
Theoretical implications _____________________________________ 353
Methodological implications __________________________________ 355
Practical implications ________________________________________ 357
References ___________________________________________ 359
Appendices ___________________________________________ 439
Appendix 1 – Results of the literature review __________________ 440
Appendix 2 – Data collection methods in the reviewed articles ____ 446
Appendix 3 – Full thematic tree _____________________________ 448
Appendix 4 – Invitation and follow-up emails __________________ 452
Appendix 5 – Survey questions and items _____________________ 455
Appendix 6 – Case summaries _______________________________ 461
Appendix 7 – Non-parametric tests reports (Kruskal-Wallis) ______ 467
Appendix 8 – One-way ANOVA test reports ____________________ 472
Appendix 9 – CFA and measurement model reports _____________ 478
Appendix 10 – SEM reports _________________________________ 485