Bad news for probation? Analysing the newspaper coverage of Transforming Rehabilitation

Abstract

Opinion surveys routinely show that probation is neither well understood nor highly regarded by the general public. Media reporting may play a role in shaping public opinion, but studies which focus directly on the way the media report probation are very rare. The current study helps to address this gap by focusing on the way national newspapers covered probation during 2013, with a particular focus on how the Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) consultation and the subsequent strategy were reported. The level of privatization and scaling back of the National Probation Service, which the strategy embodies, is arguably the greatest change to the delivery of probation services since the Probation Act of 1907. However, the current study shows that most of the potential risks identified by probation professionals and academics received little attention. Moreover, such reporting as there was came from a few specialist criminal justice reporters and was largely concentrated in the broadsheets. The general lack of media interest cannot be said to have caused the country to unquestioningly accept the dismantling of the national public probation service, but it has contributed to it and suggests that there will be little public appetite for the upheaval and expense involved in reversing the process.