ABSTRACT
This chapter stems from an exploratory ethnographic study into the daily lived experiences of people accommodated and working in Probation Approved Premises focusing on those inmates convicted or charged with sexual offences. It explores the informal mechanisms of power and control are explored using Foucault's work on disciplinary power as a framework coupled with Goffman's work on secondary adjustments to understand the nature of forms of resistance. It reports on explored a UK probation approved hostel as a site of state control for sex offenders in the community. The chapter explores each of these in turn to consider how the environment and structures of hostel life utilised these techniques. In England and Wales the National Probation Service is the government organisation that has statutory responsibility to ensure the safe re-entry of high risk offenders being released from prison into the community.
