Walking on Thin Ice: How and Why Frontline Officers Cope With Managerialism, Accountability, and Risk in Probation Services

Published date01 May 2021
AuthorStéphane Moyson,Nathalie Schiffino,Mathias Sabbe
Date01 May 2021
DOI10.1177/0095399720970899
Subject MatterArticles
https://doi.org/10.1177/0095399720970899
Administration & Society
2021, Vol. 53(5) 760 –786
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0095399720970899
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Article
Walking on Thin Ice:
How and Why Frontline
Officers Cope With
Managerialism,
Accountability, and Risk
in Probation Services
Mathias Sabbe1, Nathalie Schiffino1,
and Stéphane Moyson1
Abstract
Probation officers (POs) operate in a high-risk environment. They are
vulnerable to mediatic and political backlash and are confronted with
managerial innovations that can conflict with their values. A thematic analysis
of 29 interviews with Belgian POs reveals that classical coping mechanisms
caused by time shortages, such as rationing and prioritization, are amplified
by managerialism. POs also break rules which present limited meaningfulness
and routinize offender control to alleviate pressure from accountabilities
to both managers and the general public. The study demonstrates that
managerialism and accountabilities to the managers, the public, and the
politicians model coping mechanisms in high-risk environments.
Keywords
coping mechanisms, street-level bureaucracy, probation officers, managerial
innovations
1Université catholique de Louvain, Mons, Belgium
Corresponding Author:
Mathias Sabbe, Université catholique de Louvain, Chaussée de Binche, 151 box M1.01.01,
Mons 7000, Belgium.
Email: mathias.sabbe@uclouvain.be
970899AAS0010.1177/0095399720970899Administration & SocietySabbe et al.
research-article2020
Sabbe et al. 761
Introduction
Every country has its stories about a convicted felon who committed a crime
while on probation. In this case, media attention is immediate. Politicians
are quick to demand accountability to the probation officers (POs). Did POs
miss something during supervision? Should measures be adopted to regulate
more closely POs’ monitoring of offenders? Should officers act as policing
agents more than social workers? Should they be allowed to avoid contact
with the police to gain offenders’ trust? POs operate in a challenging work
environment.
POs are street-level bureaucrats (SLBs; Hupe et al., 2015; Lipsky, 2010).
They face constraints such as high caseloads with limited time and resources
to make quick yet consequential decisions about offenders’ futures and the
community’s safety (e.g., Ahlin et al., 2016; Kerbs et al., 2009). Compared
with other SLBs such as tax officials (Raaphorst, 2018) or schoolteachers
(e.g., Baviskar, 2019), POs run a greater risk of mediatic and political back-
lash (Kemshall, 2008). They are expected to manage risk via their interac-
tions with offenders. In doing so, they supposedly ensure the society’s safety.
To assist POs in doing so, new managerial practices, regulations, and tools
have been adopted in the wake of new penology. But such managerial novel-
ties increasingly conflict with POs’ preferences about frontline work (e.g.,
Grant, 2015; Persson & Svensson, 2012). The new public management has
challenged established practices in street-level organizations (Brodkin, 2011,
2012). Likewise, new penology—and its emphasis on system management
and risk-based actuarial penal strategies—has undermined the traditional
social work values of probation systems since the 1980s (Feeley & Simon,
1992; Pratt et al., 2013). Given all these constraints, POs essentially walk on
thin ice when supervising offenders.
Considerable research has examined how SLBs implement coping mecha-
nisms (Lipsky, 2010) when exposed to constraints and changes at the front-
line (e.g., Baviskar, 2019; Brodkin, 2011; Maynard-Moody & Musheno,
2003; Thorén, 2008; Tummers et al., 2015). Yet, empirical evidence remains
limited for probation work as most of the existing knowledge derives from
criminology without addressing coping. By extension, the impact of new
penology reforms on POs’ coping mechanisms also remain under-docu-
mented. The public administration (PA) literature provides limited insights
regarding how SLBs, and especially POs, deal with constraints from beyond
their organization. POs’ risk management efforts are not infallible, which
exposes them to multiple public accountabilities besides their managers. As
such, it remains unclear how POs’ mechanisms are affected by a diffuse pres-
sure from the medias and political authorities.

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