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Probation practice in a velvet cage? Specialist court work after probation privatisation in England and Wales

This article presents findings of a study of pre-sentence probation work in Magistrates’ courts in England and Wales in the wake of a process of partial privatisation of probation services in that jurisdiction. Specifically it addresses the subjective experiences of probation workers in two court teams and seeks to make sense of the finding that, despite clear evidence of a process of McDonaldization in the court setting, probation practitioners in this study experienced their work in terms that were largely positive. Using a Weberian analytical framework, it is argued that this finding can only be fully understood with reference to the recent history of unprecedented rupture in the probation arena, and to a generalised perception of the court team as a ‘place of safety’ in an otherwise hostile and turbulent field. Thus, whilst confined in Weber’s metaphorical cage, practitioners experienced this less as a cage of iron than of rubber and velvet.