Guest Speaker: Professor Harry Annison, University of Southampton

Title: Making Good? 'Reflections on purpose, values and penal policy’

Abstract: In this seminar, I present findings from the ‘Rehabilitating Probation’ ESRC research project. This seminar will focus on the findings published recently as ‘Making Good?’, which examined national policy makers’ reasoning relating to the wholesale nationalisation of probation in England and Wales, dramatically reversing privatization policies enacted only a few years prior. In so doing, I explore questions of narrative, purpose and values. I argue that the story of English probation’s renationalization resists simple categorization, containing elements of both heroic and tragic narratives, for reasons that I will explain. In closing, I will suggest ways in which this particular story connects with wider questions of purpose and values in relation to penal policy, at this present moment.