Rehabilitating probation : strategies for re-legitimation after policy failure

This article draws on insights from the organizational studies literature to make sense of the recent history of probation in England & Wales in the aftermath of the failed Transforming Rehabilitation reform programme. It considers that recent history as a crisis of legitimacy, necessitating active strategies of re-legitimation aimed at recovering from reputational damage. It argues that top-down plans to restructure the service will only go so far in this endeavour: the expanded National Probation Service must also be prepared to engage in legitimation work on its own behalf. However, this is likely to be challenging for a number of reasons that include the mixed constituency of external stakeholders whom probation seeks to satisfy, and important questions of identity, agency and voice.