1. Partnership-working and relationships
between criminal justice and third sector
staff: Accommodating each other’s agendas
Alice Mills
Third Sector Research Centre, UK
University of Auckland, NZ
Funded by:
Hosted by:

2. TSO and criminal justice staff
• Challenges of working in prison environment and
relationships between TSO and prison staff
• Different priorities and working cultures
• Naïve ‘do-gooders’ or amateurs
• May be viewed with suspicion
• Fears they will be used instead of paid labour (Gill and
Mawby 1990; Neuberger 2009)
• Traditional prison officer culture – ‘them and us’
• Staff can affect offender access to TSOs and their
services

3. Stage 1
• There has been over the years quite a cultural shift in
the prison service where the voluntary sector is no
longer seen as the threat. Either a threat in terms of
just leaving POs to turn keys, or a threat to the Prison
Service’s main aim which is managing risk to public
safety…levels of cooperation between probation
services and the voluntary sector… are near the all
time low. Because of the resources for probation
service but also there’s fear of potential competition
and bidding for each other’s business. (TSO
stakeholder)

4. Stage 2 - Methods
• Semi-structured interviews with service users,
criminal justice staff and TSO staff at 8
prisons, and in 1 probation area
• 74 members of prison staff and 78 TSO
representatives
• 6 probation officers, 7 TSO representatives
• Lasted between 20 mins and an hour

5. Good relations
We have a really good rapport with them. We organise
an open evening when organisations are invited to come
in and have a look, both voluntary sector and private
organisations. They’re invited to chat to staff and chat to
residents and mingle. (Staff)
I think it works pretty well. We’ve got good connections
with staff here… especially on our wing, the SOs and
everything. The staff really look after us. (TSO)

6. Value and expertise
The majority of staff see it [TSOs in prison] as a positive move.
They understand the impact it has and the positives that come
out of that… everyone can see that if a prisoner is dealing with
someone that’s helping to keep them calm, then at the end of
the day they’re much better to work with on the wings. (Staff)
It’s their expertise, they have a breadth of knowledge like, for
example, SOVA who do a lot of job searching for women or
benefits people… we don’t have this sort of knowledge or
resources to deal with these issues and they are invaluable.
(Staff)

7. People, not offenders
• It’s good because it shows a lot of our lads as
well that not everyone thinks that they’re all
toe rags out there. (Staff)
• I think sometimes the offender feels a little bit
less like an offender if they can go somewhere
that hasn’t got Probation written all over it.
(Staff)

8. The need for partnership working
I think the penny dropped actually quite a long time ago that
the partnerships were important, were vital. …I think suddenly
it’s gone way up the agenda the realisation that so much now
has got be done in partnership with outside agencies that they
have got to be given time and consideration. (Staff)
What I like about working with prisons is that most prisons
accept that they’re not really very good at it. They’re good at
locking people up, they’re good at making sure they don’t
escape and so on but they know they’re not very good at
rehabilitation … Lots of them [officers] call us care bears and
fluffy and all the rest of it, but they know they can’t do it, they
really know that. (TSO)

9. Clash of agendas? Security
and risk management
You tend to get some who don’t see why certain rules
exist.[ …] I fortunately caught a letter being taken out by a
volunteer. I said, ‘Where are you going with that, you’ve
been told you can’t…?’ ‘But he only wants me to post it.’ I
said, ‘You don’t know what’s in that letter, we don’t do
that.’ (Staff)
I think sometimes they don’t always realise the
constraints or recognise our strategy obligations, which
sometimes can be put in conflict. Whereas they can often
see what would be purely in the best interests of a young
offender, we can say, “Yeah, I can see that, but we also
need to protect the public.” (Staff)

10. Security and risk management
•Risks and tensions where professional staff are under
statutory obligations and volunteers are not
(Neuberger 2009)
•Need to offer TSOs guidance and support
But I feel that in general because prisons are getting
much more savvy about working with voluntary sector
organisations there will be much less of that, ‘oh, they’re
a volunteer and therefore they can't really be trusted
with anything’. (Staff)

11. ‘Institutional inconvenience’
• Guests in a host environment
Until recently we used to see them [prisoners]
between eight and nine in the morning. We got down
at eight o’clock in the morning and they were like ‘No,
you can’t have them. Your slot was half past seven till
eight’, so it’s like ‘Urr’. You’re quite aware that you’re in
a host environment and you’ve got to fit around them.
(TSO)
• Importance of not being part of the prison/probation
• Lack of awareness of TSOs among staff

12. Lingering cynicism
I think depending on how long some operational staff
have been here, they [TSOs] might be seen as a
negative because they just think that rehabilitation
and resettlement is a waste of time, which I find quite
limiting because I think if the prison is changing they
have to change with it. (Staff)
• Positive attitudes in one prison despite the
historical context (Liebling et al. 2005; HM Chief
Inspector of 2007)

13. Voluntary sector
co-ordinators/ Partnership managers
I don’t know what the definition of the word partnership is but
for me it’s really getting these people on board and giving them
ownership of what they do and supporting them within the
prison environment so they actually can come in and be
productive in what they do. (Staff)
The prison’s got a lot of fantastic third sector groups coming in to
do work, but there was never any coordination, no one knew
what anyone else was doing. But now [name] is onboard…
binding us all together, it’s a lot better. (TSO)

14. Voluntary sector
co-ordinators/ Partnership managers
We have a particular pilot that is looking at working
with older offenders, and she has been instrumental in
making that pilot get off the ground, because it needed
the buy-in from Probation, and Probation, as
individuals, may be absolutely great but the reality is
they’re run off their feet and they need somebody else
to put it all together. (TSO)

15. Conclusion
• Context of partnership working
• Prison officers traditionally hostile to
outsiders concerned with the welfare of
prisoners?
• Rare professional rivalries and hostility
• Cultural shift - effects of professionalization?
• Need for good hosts
• Effects of increased competition

16. Panel members
Sonya Cullerton & Kate Murray
HMP Leeds
Funded by:
Hosted by: