NCJ Number
214904
Journal
Howard Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 45 Issue: 2 Dated: May 2006 Pages: 171-190
Date Published
May 2006
Length
20 pages
Annotation
This article examines the implications for anti-racist practice in probation and prisons of the development of the National Offender Management Service (NOMS).
Abstract
Anti-discriminatory practice is not something that can be taught separately from its professional and organizational context. In order to have genuine end-to-end offender management that recognizes and appropriately responds to racism in the different agencies working under the auspices of the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), a review of the comparative race relations journeys of the probation and prison services would be useful. There is an emerging system in which the professional realities include staff already struggling to manage and respond to the challenges of racism and inter-ethnic understanding in two distinct services, probation and prison, with differing histories of race problems. Today, staff is expected to make the prison and probation systems work within a context of racial disproportionately in the criminal justice system. NOMS is intended to break down inter-organizational barriers and build a sense of common purpose. This article explores four basic propositions: (1) there has been a problematic but upwards journey towards the outcome of anti-racist practice in the probation service; (2) despite good strategic oversight and management of race issues in prisons, progress has been slow and hampered by some characteristics of prison work and culture; (3) managerialism has had a complex and sometimes positive impact on progress towards anti-racist practice; and (4) as NOMS takes shape, the destabilizing effect of this change could fatally undermine a positive probation culture and identity and the anti-racist outcomes that flow from it.