and reflexive, relational networks relevant to desistance”( Weaver 2012).
Payment by results
But if prisoners and ex-prisoners could co-own their own rehabilitation services like this, shouldn’ t they also share in the rewards of their successful rehabilitation- rehabilitation which they have coproduced with their peers, community members and other criminal justice and social work professionals? With the present government promoting‘ Payment By Results’( PBR), all rehabilitation and resettlement services in Prisons and Probation will increasingly be paid for only according to the results they achieve. But if the process of desistance is co-produced by offenders and professionals and the Social Cooperative’ s rehabilitation service is co-owned by the offenders, professionals and other stakeholders, shouldn’ t offenders also be paid their fair share under PBR, according to the degree of their successful desistance? And wouldn’ t this payment further serve to reinforce and confirm their desistance from crime?“ Criminal justice policy and practice has to recognise and reward efforts to give up crime, so as to encourage and confirm positive change”( McNeill and Weaver 2010). In other words, why shouldn’ t offenders in social cooperatives be‘ paid to behave’?
' Promoting desistance from crime emphasises... co-ownership of the rehabilitation process and co-production of community justice '
But there are still more radical implications of prisoner-led social cooperatives for Prisons and Probation in the UK. If co-owned social cooperatives successfully co-produce desistance, shouldn’ t Prisons and Probation themselves be run as co-owned Social Cooperatives? Offender Supervision and management would then move from the supervisors office and into the offender’ s workplace, which would also become the supervisor’ s work place because both supervisor and supervised would be members of the same Social Cooperative – a cooperative business which derives it’ s income from whatever the products and services it sells. And the one service that all social cooperatives would sell is desistance and rehabilitation, purchased by the State on a PBR basis.
So prisoner-led social cooperatives like this would provide employment for their members, but they would all also gain an additional income stream by providing wider resettlement services and offender management services for their members through PBR. That’ s what a real‘ Working Prison’ would look like: a social cooperative employing both offenders and offender managers to co-produce desistance – in a custodial context in a‘ Cooperative Prison’ and in a community context in a‘ Mutual Probation Trust’.
References
McNeill, F. and Weaver, B.( 2010) Changing Lives? Desistance Research and Offender Management. Glasgow School of Social Work and The Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research.
Weaver, B.( 2011) Co-Producing Community Justice: The Transformative Potential of Personalisation for Penal Sanctions. British Journal of Social Work. Feb. 2011. 1-20.
Weaver, B.( 2012) The Relational Context of Desistance: Some Implications and Opportunities for Social Policy. Social Policy and Administration. Vol. 46. No. 4. 2012.
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