ABSTRACT
Compared with police and prison officers, there are very few studies of the ways in which probation or community corrections officers construct their working identities. Drawing on our own pioneering research in England and Wales, updated with more recent studies, we examine three specific areas of probation worker identity that may resonate beyond the geographical and socio-political context of the UK. We argue, first, that probation work is socially ‘dirty work’, since it involves work with people who are generally considered to be undeserving of society’s help and support. Second, we examine the characteristics and motivations of probation workers, constructing three ‘ideal types’, and, third, we explore individual probation worker responses to change and turbulence in organizational structures and working conditions. In particular, we propose that some aspects of probation work can be described as being ‘edgework’ because they involve workers in consciously taking risks by using their skills to control the boundaries between order and chaos in the context of both criminal and social justice in the community.
