Lena Dominelli - Anti-Racist Probation Practice

To all black and white people who are working together to end racism and to all those who are on the receiving end of racism because it is not being addressed.

Lena Dominelli Lennie Jeffers Graham Jones Sakhile Sibanda Brian Williams

First published 1995

by Ashgate Publishing

Published 2016

by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright 1995 Lena Dominelli, Lennie Jeffers, Graham Jones, Skhile Sibanda and Brian Williams

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Dominelli, Lena
Anti-racist Probation
Practice
I. Title
364.630941

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 95-78940

ISBN 9781857422801 (pbk)
ISBN 9781857423280 (hbk)

Typeset in 10pt Palatino by Raven Typesetters, Chester.

Transfered to Digital Printing in 2009

Lena Dominelli holds the Chair in Social Administration at the University of Sheffield. She is author of various books, including: Women in Focus: Female Offenders and Community Service Orders (1983); Love and Wages (1986); Anti-Racist Social Work (1988); Feminist Social Work (1989) (with E McLeod); Women and Community Action (1990); Women Across Continents: Feminist Comparative Social Policy (1991); Gender, Sex Offenders and Probation Practice (1991); and 'Contaminating Knowledge': Sociological Social Work (forthcoming). In addition to being a teacher, author and researcher, she has worked as a community worker, probation officer and social worker.

Lennie Jeffers was born in the West Indies and came to live in the UK at the age of 6. He grew up in Cleckheaton, a small town in the industrial West Riding of Yorkshire, until he moved away to London in pursuit of higher education in 1978. He started as a volunteer with the Probation Service in Leeds in 1982, and has worked as a qualified probation officer in that city since 1986. He has always had a strong interest and commitment to anti racism and justice. In 1987, he co-edited the West Yorkshire Probation Service Branch of NAPO's booklet, Racism and Probation. He has also taught social work students at the University of Sheffield.

Graham Jones completed his social work studies at the University of Sheffield and went on to work for the South Yorkshire Probation Service, where he developed his interests in anti-racist social work, focusing primarily on addressing the issues of working in anti-racist ways with both black and white workers and 'clients'. Prior to this, he had been actively involved in anti-racist initiatives in London.

Sakhile Sibanda has had a varied life experience. Born in a British colony, she was involved in the liberation struggle from colonial rule in Zimbabwe from the age of 17. She has worked as a fund-raiser and administrator with a national charity in Zimbabwe. She has also been involved with a community programme for the long-term unemployed in the UK. She has worked as a probation officer with the South Yorkshire Probation Service which also seconded her to become a practice teacher and Practice Teaching Development Worker for the South Yorkshire Diploma in Social Work Programme. She is currently lecturing at the University of Sheffield and is Co-director of the Practice Teaching Evaluation Project there.

Brian Williams is currently teaching at the University of Keele. He has held a joint post as Lecturer at Sheffield University and probation officer with the South Yorkshire Probation Service. His previous posts included Lecturer in Social Work at Teesside Polytechnic and probation officer for the Warwickshire Probation Service and Durham Probation Service. He has a number of publications, which include the following: 'Caring Professionals or Street-Level Bureaucrats? The Case of Probation Officers' Work with Prisoners' in Howard Journal of Criminal Justice (November 1992); Work with Prisoners (1991); Bail Information Schemes (1992); Probation Values (1995); and The Probation Service and Victims of Crime (with Mike Kosh, 1995).

Many people have helped us with this book, and not all of them can be named. We would like to thank everyone who helped us to develop the initial idea. In particular, we would like to mention Mary Mustoe, Jane Watt and Gini Whitehead. We are also indebted to everyone who took the trouble to discuss our ideas with us while we were writing it. These include: Barbara Godfrey, Steve Johnson, Cordell Pillay, Annette Thomstone and all those who helped with the research for . Their contribution has been enormous.

The way in which we chose to write the book as a collective venture was time-consuming but rewarding. We have learnt a great deal from each other in the process. Our experience together has been a stimulating and valuable one, and it will feel strange when we stop meeting to discuss drafts and deadlines. We all owe a great deal to Sue Baldock in the Department of Sociological Studies at Sheffield University for her secretarial support and the patient and efficient way in which she has co-ordinated the massive amount of paperwork involved in the project.

We would each like to thank our institutions and colleagues for making it possible for us to get on with our task. We are also grateful to our colleagues, and to the students we work with, for the stimulus and the case materials they have provided.

Finally, we thank our families for tolerating our absences and supporting us in the writing of the book. Many thanks are due to: Nicholas and David; Joan, Helen and Nathan; Jill, Lily and Stephen; Musa; and Sue and Jess.

Lena, Lennie, Graham, Sakhile and Brian
Sheffield
October 1995

'Race', racism and anti-racism continue to be highly emotive and controversial topics, notwithstanding the attempts that black and white people have made in establishing more egalitarian social relationships in social work. Despite the promulgation of anti-racist or equal opportunities policies, neither the criminal justice system in general nor the Probation Service in particular have been immune from charges of their perpetuating racism in the course of administering justice; heated debates about what ought to be done to eradicate racism from their midst, and lamentations about the slow progress in responding to these criticisms. We believe this issue will not go away of its own accord. Nor will racism disappear if there isn't a full understanding of what is happening and what needs to be done to realise anti-racist practice at all levels of the criminal justice system and including all of its agencies such as the Probation Service.

Despite the space limitations of this book, we intend to provide an analysis of what is going wrong in the Probation Service and make concrete suggestions for improving practice in anti-racist directions. Although we concentrate on the Probation Service as one element of the criminal justice system, we think that the analysis and ways of moving forward that we propose offer models which can, with the appropriate modifications, be emulated in other parts of the criminal justice system. We feel that this book is timely because anti-racist social work is under attack from the highest political levels. At the bleakest moments of despair, it is important that there remain rays of hope in moving forward on this front. We hope that our book, with its proposals for improving current practice, will play a role in this regard. Certainly, we have found that writing this book together has been an important source of optimistic hope when many of our colleagues have been gloomy about the prospects of safeguarding anti-racist social work.