Room for reparation? An ethnographic study into the implementation of the Community Payback Order in a Scottish Criminal Justice Social Work Office

McGuinness, Paul (2014) Room for reparation? An ethnographic study into the implementation of the Community Payback Order in a Scottish Criminal Justice Social Work Office. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

With the introduction of the Criminal Justice and Licensing Act (Scotland) 2010, the Community Payback Order became the default non-custodial criminal justice sentence in Scotland as of February 1st 2011. The order’s focus upon reparation as a means to reintegrate offenders back into the community represented a shift away from retributive practices towards a relationally beneficent approach. The terms of the order, however, remain ambiguous. Lingering suspicions as to how this philosophical switch in policy manifests itself in practice remain. By ethnographically studying the working practices of Criminal Justice Social Workers’, this study presents CPO’s articulation of reparation as practiced.

In addition the role of the social worker is interrogated using a performative lens to understand how the tensions between reparation and retribution, care and control, the courts and their clients, are made coherent in their practices. As a result the barriers to enacting a reparationally oriented criminal justice response are articulated so that the Habermasian intersubjectivity that reparation requires can be more wholly understood in the context of criminal justice workplaces for future practice innovations.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Additional Information: Due to issues of confidentiality this thesis is not available for viewing.
• Keywords: Community Payback Order, Reparation, Habermas, Goffman.
• Subjects: H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
• Colleges/Schools: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences
• Supervisor's Name: McNeill, Professor Fergus and Burman, Professor Michele
• Date of Award: 2014
• Depositing User: Dr. Paul McGuinness
• Unique ID: glathesis:2014-5561
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 24 Oct 2014 10:37
• Last Modified: 25 Jul 2024 13:50
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.5561
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/5561