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French third sector participation in probation and reentry: Complementary or competitive?

Martine Herzog-Evans European Journal of Probation 2014 6: 42 DOI: 10.1177/2066220314523228 The online version of this article can be found at: http://ejp.sagepub.com/content/6/1/42

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EJP0010.1177/2066220314523228European Journal of ProbationHerzog-Evans

Article

French third sector participation in probation and reentry: Complementary or competitive?

Martine Herzog-Evans
University of Rheims, France

European Journal of Probation 2014, Vol. 6(1) 4256 The Author(s) 2014 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/2066220314523228 ejp.sagepub.com

Abstract In France, the third sector is virtually in sole charge of pre-sentence reports, prisoners resettlement, and prisoners families and victims support. It is increasingly in charge of supporting offenders reentry and rehabilitation in the community, of community work, of Frances equivalent of approved premises or half-way houses, of treatment programmes, and, in certain cases, of supervision itself. Unlike in England and Wales, there has not been a deliberate privatisation agenda in this jurisdiction; the third sector has simply gradually been forced to undertake the social work that state probation services have progressively forsaken. The French third sector today has little in common with its 19th century origins: it has become much more professionalised. However, it has kept its deep-seated community roots intact and is more innovative and flexible than the prison-imbedded state probation services. For these reasons, it is a much appreciated partner for the judiciary and local authorities. However, on a par with state probation, the third sector is yet to undergo an evidence-based practices revolution and policy-makers do not seem to be concerned by the outcome of their actions. Keywords French associations, French third sector, privatisation, probation service, occupational resistance

Introduction
It is not unusual to hear that every French citizen is a member of at least one, and often several associations. In fact, no less than 14 million French people are members of
Corresponding author: Martine Herzog-Evans, University of Reims, law faculty, 9 boulevard de la paix, Champagne Ardenne, Reims 51097, France. Email: martineevans@ymail.com

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associations (Simonet, 2010). Associations can be charities or non-profit secular organisations. Their objectives are twofold. First, to cooperate and, second, to solve a specific problem (Laville and Sainsaulieu, 1997: 17). The status of associations in France was established by legislation introduced in 1901 which created the right for any person living on French soil to associate, in order to network, engage in organised sport, undertake cultural activities, do charity work or any other possible activity. The 1901 law was labelled the Freedom of Association Act because being easily allowed to network and constitute associations was deemed as being an essential freedom (for a comparative presentation, see Doucin, 2000). As most French people will be aware, establishing an association only requires a common decision, a draft of the statutes and a registering at the Prfecture of the Dpartment (local administrative subdivision; there are 97 departments in France). Associations can be local and small, volunteer based and modest in their goal; they can be national, extremely powerful and comprise volunteers (23.4% of the population in 1996: Bernardeau-Moreau and Hly, 2007) and permanents, that is, paid employees (1.5 million, according to Larose, 2003). As has been the case in other jurisdictions, associations have been essential to the development of French offender supervision. They were virtually in sole charge of supervisory practices and offender care in the 19th and during the first half of the 20th century before being marginalised by state probation (Perrier, 2013). As in other countries, the economic crisis is now making them very attractive all over again. The status of the associations has profoundly changed and they are now very different from their volunteer good-Samaritan charity origins, and this is particularly the case with those who are involved in the criminal justice system (CJS). Indeed, some experts have noted that the landscape shaping the associations is changing and that volunteers are gradually losing power within associations and being replaced by paid employees and managers. This movement has been labelled the professionalisation of associations (Horeau etal., 2008; Larose, 2003; Matthieu, 2009). As a result, associations can thus best be defined as non-profit organisations. Instead of offering a complementary contribution, associations are increasingly doing the work that many would suggest state probation should but is unable or unwilling to do. As such, associations have once again become vital to the French CJS and are in charge of a host of activities (FNARS, 2011) including: a release measure called placement in the community (PC see below); community work; and, more generally, all or part of offenders supervision. Without associations, prisoner reentry support would be non-existent as there is no state reentry policy. Associations offer housing, shelters, food stamps and soup kitchens, clothes and so on. The third sector is also involved in social street work, restorative justice, addiction prevention and treatment and victims support. They equally work with adults or juveniles. Other charities do prison work and, inter alia: health, addiction treatment, culture, education, sports, vocational training, literacy education, support to isolated inmates, children of inmates or prisoners families support and so forth. Lastly, they are in charge of pre-sentence reports. The French reentry judge (juge de lapplication des peines, JAP) can also ask them to do an investigation pertaining to a probationer circumstances, although this would normally be the task of state probation services. Because of the sheer range of the functions they can undertake, and because they do not exclusively depend on state funding, associations appear to be cheaper than state

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employees and services. Contrary to the latter, they can also easily be laid off. All this makes them particularly attractive for the state (Perlo, 2009) in a time of economic crisis where each penny counts. In other words, and perhaps even more so than in England and Wales, French associations have become vital to the CJS and are rapidly taking over some of state probations responsibilities. However, behind this evolution one will find no hidden probation privatisation agenda, nor any belief in the economic superiority of private over public sector. What has happened is the result of a much more complex and deeper disengagement of probation services themselves from supervision and social work (Herzog-Evans, 2013e) and their very unstable identity (Herzog-Evans, 2011a; 2013e); it is also the result of extreme lack of resources of the CJS in general and the extreme overload of its state-funded practitioners (judges and probation staff alike). However, a more in-depth examination of the existing literature suggests that very little is known about the evolution of associations work in supervision and CJS (but see for a description, FNARS, 2011).

The research
There have been few French studies on probation officers (hereafter POs). However, a burgeoning new wave of literature is currently emerging. Clearly the message that most of these young authors convey is that social work is now becoming a thing of the past in France (Dindo, 2011; de Larminat, 2012; Rintaud, 2008). A study into the practices of supporting desistance amongst French POs and what desisters thought about them sadly confirmed that actively supporting desistance or addressing offenders needs was, in general, not part and parcel of French probation work (Herzog-Evans, 2011b). It was clear from the POs discourse that a lot of them had lost touch with their original social work ethos and identity (Perrier, 2013) and that this identity was now shifting towards, on the one hand, a rather distant and more often than not loose control, and, on the other hand, judicial clerk-like work consisting in the preparation of decisions for and acting as a gobetween with the JAP and community agencies and resources (Herzog-Evans, 2013 b). This can first be explained by the fact that over the last two decades, the great majority of POs have been lawyers (Larminat, 2012) and, second, as a result of a decade (20022012) of punitive CJS policies (Danet, 2006) that have gone as far as considering that social work was antinomic to the prevention of reoffending (Herzog-Evans, 2013e). This evolution has nevertheless not been accompanied by an evidence-based policy agenda, with the result that French probation comprises an odd mix of past, present, and modern traits (Herzog-Evans, 2011a). In the course of the aforementioned research into desistance la franaise, several desisters mentioned that the only concrete support they had had was from associations. Pursuing my line of research into Who Works? in French probation, I decided to focus next on associations. Three concomitant research projects allowed me to learn more and test desisters assertions. In 2012, I launched a study with three 5th-year students (Mathilde Fau, Anne-Charlotte Fauchet and Jean-Marc Thiblet), whereby we tried to map the associations participation in supervision and reentry in two large urban regions (Paris and Nantes/Vende region on the west coast), to determine how they were structured, organised and managed, and lastly, who worked in associations and what their

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background was. We also wanted to know how they were funded and how they perceived their mission and future. Parallel to this, I was asked to conduct two other research projects. First, a probation service in Brittany asked me to do a qualitative audit-like evaluation of two of their placement in the community facilities (placements lextrieur hereafter PC) a community measure similar to half-way houses. This study was conducted with the help of two 5th-year students (Florence Stricot and Lise van Cleven) and my report was handed to the probation service in August 2013. I was also asked to evaluate a re-enforced probation programme in Cambrai (north of France) and Beauvais (north east) and during the first year, I conducted a qualitative study with four 5th year students (Marie-Charlotte Breurec, Sabrina Picard, Amlie Toussaint and Ambre Tavares). The three research projects involved semi-structured interviews that were recorded and transcribed verbatim (total practitioners: n=24; total offenders: n=32) and on-site observation, along with access to files. In the following sections, I shall draw upon these three studies. I shall draw upon the first one in order to describe the rather complicated CJS associations landscape. I shall then draw upon the three research projects and describe the difficulties associations encounter with state probation services. Finally, I shall draw upon the last two innovative partnership programmes that were studied, and discuss their strengths and weaknesses.

French third sector landscape

The French third sector landscape comprises a considerable number of small associations, which either co-exist with or are members of Federations, that is, huge networks of associations, which are increasingly organised and managed like private firms (e.g. Le Rest, 2009), but for the important caveat that they are non-profit oriented. The number of associations is so large that my students who were in charge of mapping the two aforementioned regions eventually had to abandon this, as there was no exhaustive official database anywhere that would have provided them with the precise list of each and every one. On site research also kept revealing the existence of other ones and the task seemed endless. A public report by the national Council for Statistical Information (Archambault etal., 2010) thus pointed to the urgent need of developing reliable databases pertaining to associations. However, four federations seem to dominate the association landscape. Firstly, the Federations Citoyen et Justice (citizens and justice) that provides a network for associations in charge of pre-sentence reports, the supervision of offenders serving community sentences or release measures, reoffending prevention, education, social work and insertion of offenders (http://www.citoyens-justice.fr). Secondly, the Fdration Nationale des Associations dAccueil et de Rinsertion Sociale (National Federation of support, care and social rehabilitation associations FNARS that essentially does social work by providing housing, employment or access to employment, and so on (http:// www.fnars.org). Thirdly, the Federation Addictions (http://www.federationaddiction.fr) is a network of practitioners and associations dealing with prevention, treatment, risk reduction and care of addicted persons. Lastly, the Federation des Association Rflexion Action Prison et Justice (Federation of Analysis and Action for Prison and Justice Associations FARAPEJ) is in charge of prisoners and their families support and

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prisoner reentry (http://www.farapej.fr). Each Federation provides support to its members, produces research reports, organises conferences, workshops or training sessions. If in England and Wales there is a perceived risk of payment by result seeing small associations disappear and be replaced by much bigger structures (Burke and McNeill, 2013), there is clearly no such immediate risk in France. Federations may be sizeable organisations; but they only endeavour to network willing members looking for support and help who are nonetheless fully autonomous. As a result, the creative and local-based nature of French third sector is still intact. However, the sustainability of smaller associations is not guaranteed. Often they face uncertainty from one year to the next in terms of their financial viability. If associations seem to cost less than state agencies, it is because their funding is diverse. It comprises state money (in this case from the Ministry of Justice, tribunals and the prison services), European social funds, local public funds (from municipalities, region, etc.), and private contributions (donations, patronage and sponsorship, subscriptions, offenders participation in the payment of rents, and so on). In general, associations appear to be satisfied with their financial situation as a recent national report highlighted. Only 33 per cent admitted to being sometimes in financial trouble and only 6 per cent declared facing financial difficulties (Bazin and Malet, 2010). However, my study pertaining to CJS associations in two big urban regions suggested that managers were very worried about their sustainability. Indeed, another national research project exposed a more pessimistic picture in that associations managers and staff were globally worried about their financial future (Confrence permanente des coordinations associatives, 2008). However, associations are still largely funded by the state and this is, as our research confirmed, particularly the case with CJS associations. Interviewees explained that state funding ranged from 60 per cent to 90 per cent. In contrast, one of them received 95 per cent of its resources from the region. Relying on the state in times of economic crisis is bound to be stressful. Moreover, European funds have consistently decreased (Schuyt, 2013: 2952). In Brittany, the director of the probation service was extremely worried as he had learnt that his PC might not receive any money from the European social funds in the years to come, which would jeopardise them entirely. For these reasons, CJS associations as other associations (Perlo, 2009) are increasingly looking for more diverse, and especially for more private, funding. Overall, even though associations and in particular smaller ones were worried, the vast majority of our interviewees did not specifically experience a decrease in public funding. However, they all mentioned that they had to do increasingly more work with the same volume of resources. Indeed, the state repeatedly asked them to take over new tasks (e.g. pre-sentence reports) and to do the work that probation services were no longer in a position to embrace (see below). Those who depended on finance from the tribunals were often in greater trouble, as it is notorious that French tribunals usually run out of money around the middle of the fiscal year. Far from experiencing the payment by results agenda as in England and Wales, French associations are not held accountable in terms of the outcomes achieved. The reason is quite simple: there is no culture of evaluation in France and this in turn has resulted in a lack of social scientists and criminologists who would be able to evaluate and analyse results (Cario etal., 2012). Still, our interviewees all pointed to their legal obligation to justify to their funders what their results were. However, in reality this only meant two

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things. First, they had to produce reports describing what the funds had been used for and why. Second, they had to write self-evaluation reports. In other words, associations were not asked to prove that they have an impact in terms of reducing crime nor that they save money. This haphazard form of organisation and management is, however, contradicted by the rising professionalism of French associations. Even if a growing number of French people become associations volunteers, gradually, in all types of associations, volunteers are being replaced by paid professionals. Some authors have noted that volunteers are increasingly professionals themselves whether they are retired or not (Bernardeau-Moreau and Hly, 2007: 4). Indeed, the state relies more and more on associations and, as a public report aptly put it: an increasing number of missions require an expertise which necessitates quasi-professional know how (Ferry and Conseil dAnalyse de la Socit, 2010: 7). This is undoubtedly the case with CJS associations. The associations my students and I interviewed employed more paid staff than volunteers. Only a third comprised more volunteers. Professionalisation is such that some interviewees mentioned that they did not want volunteers amongst them, as they would get in the way and did not have the required knowledge. As one practitioner put it: the required skills in order to do the increasingly complicated tasks attributed to them by the state cannot be summed up in terms of good will and empathy (FNARS, 2011: 19). Increasingly the professionals, and at times the volunteers that associations recruit are highly qualified social workers or psychologists, with degrees, and more often than not at Masters level (in some cases PhD) and experience. Recruiting procedures are modelled on the private sector in terms of curriculum vitae, and diploma checking, background checking, interview, and so on. Interestingly, the research showed that the background of most practitioners was in various social work trades (social assistants, educators, social and family economy, etc.) or in psychology. These trades used to be over-represented in probation services. However, over the last 20 years and in particular since the status of CPIP (penitentiary probation and reinsertion councillors see Herzog-Evans, 2013a) was created in 1993 and POs were to be recruited via a national exam comprising to a great extent of lawyerfriendly tests, it is essentially lawyers who, as was mentioned earlier, have been recruited. One aspect of the rise of association work in supervision and reentry may well be that they do employ people who are now lacking in probation services. Increased professionalism and private sector like recruitment and management may according to some of our interviewees, have had a detrimental impact on associations in that they appear to be losing touch with their volunteer origins. Although they may still be community based they are no longer community embedded. In a sense, they are just another type of probation service, with which they are therefore at higher risk of competing with.

Third sector and probation services: Leftovers and competition

The relationship between state probation and associations has never been an easy one. However, associations are often complementary (also see Laheyne, 2012) rather than competing agencies. In the following paragraphs I shall draw upon Deschamps (1994)

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typology. Deschamps argued that associations either occupy territories left out or ignored by public services or compete with public services on their turf or, more interestingly, are pioneers that innovate and experiment. In the next paragraph, I shall address the first two points; I shall then elaborate on the third in the next section.

Leftovers
Associations have increasingly been delegated tasks which traditionally have been undertaken by probation services. They are responsible for numerous activities at the pre-trial phase of the penal process. For instance, in a great number of cases, they are assigned penal mediation or composition (Grunvald and Danet, 2004), two out of court settlement procedures theoretically managed by public prosecutors, but in practice delegated to associations. A 2012 Act has also transferred pre-sentence reports (PSRs) to associations. In France, PSRs are unfortunately not systematic (Brizais, 2006), leaving correctional courts with little, if any, information on offenders background and circumstances (Danet, 2013). Indeed, due to their extreme case overload, probation services are unable to take on all PSRs, and have increasingly left this task to associations. However, it is doubtful that this will result in more PSRs being completed because, as mentioned, no additional funding has been allocated to these new tasks. Associations are also involved in services that probation services do not take on, either by choice or culture (Herzog-Evans, 2011b), such as working with families, victims, addiction, health, education or vocational training. Importantly, associations are increasingly in charge of social work, which probation services have essentially abandoned in the recent years. The desertion of social work by French probation services is multi-causal. First, as we saw earlier, todays probation staff tend to have a legal background and no training, nor any experience in social work. Second, their own administration has made clear that their objectives and mission do not comprise social work, but control and supervision, in order to prevent reoffending. In turn, this is to a great extent supported by the increased embedding of probation services into the prison service (Herzog-Evans, 2013e). Indeed, a 2008 prison service circular affirmed that preventing reoffending was their sole goal (DAP Circular n 113/MPJ1 of March 19, 2008, NOR: JUSK0840001C). Later on, in 2010, a decree drafted by the prison services painstakingly deleted every single mention of the word social worker from the Penal procedure code (Herzog-Evans, 2011c, 2013a and 2014). Lastly, reference to articles 13246 of the penal code that states that probation services should provide concrete help and support to offender reinsertion process, has virtually disappeared from all the special legal rules governing community sentences and measures. The same norms now only refer to articles 13244 and 13245, which list obligations and prohibitions which can be imposed on offenders (Herzog-Evans, 20122013: ch. 616). Taken together these changes have progressively acculturated a great number of POs. As one of them put it bluntly in my aforementioned desistance study, it is not our job to help. In the course of my PC audit, the probation service and its staff unanimously took the view that their role consisted in, on the one hand, being the overall supervisor of the programme and, on the other hand, acting as a shield or an interface a term that was used by a great number of them between the JAP and the associations. For instance,

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they would strictly forbid the association to have any contact with the JAP and they insisted they wanted to do the legal and administrative paperwork that this entailed. Similarly, the other programme (re-enforced supervision) had precisely been created by the judiciary because the probation service did not have the capacity, nor wanted, to do social work. Today, most POs are not resentful of this evolution. Only those who were recruited before the aforementioned 1993 reform and have a social work background deplore it; in their mind associations are taking up the noble work. If probation services are reluctant to do social work any longer and if they are replaced by the third sector; if POs now essentially see themselves as being in charge of distant, essentially administrative supervision, and become, as a result, social-legal clerks of a sort, one might wonder why should probation services actually be maintained? Why not place taxpayers money into associations instead, especially as associations are also competing with them on their own turf?

Competition
The official stance of the associations is that they want to be complementary to, rather than competing with, probation services (LHour and Lebhot, 2013). However, my three studies show that they are eager to do more providing they are funded to do so. If they are publicly cautious, it is also because in many cases, as probation services represent the state, they can eliminate their competitors by terminating their contract which does not mean that they will take over their tasks. In other words, as Virginie Gautron (2006: 284) synthetises: the authorities tend to perceive associations as being mere service providers and not partners. Our research on Brittany PC fully confirmed this general statement. Associations did not take part in the decision-making process, had no say in the design and management of the projects they were nonetheless in sole charge of, and their fate from one year to the next depended on how strictly and closely they complied with probation services orders, guidelines and bureaucratic controls. What was also clear was that other than administrative supervision occasionally, since probation services were in fact totally removed by choice from actual desistance or programmatic work with offenders, the very criteria they used to judge their service providers were criminologically inept and inadequate. For instance, in our research into Brittany PC one of the associations that, in my opinion, was doing the best quality work with high-risk offenders (mostly drug addicts) was threatened with closure because the probation service only focused on offenders formal compliance and the associations strict compliance with their regulations. However, because they have removed themselves from the very core of supervision work, the professional identity of the probation service is now very uncertain, which, in turn, fuels their fear of competition and their constant focus on turf wars with the judiciary that has dramatically increased in the recent years (Herzog-Evans, 2014). The judiciary tends to view associations as being better partners than probation services. JAPs and prosecutors often consider the quality of their work as being superior, in particular when it comes to writing reports and doing investigations. For instance, in the course of a research study on French JAP, I observed that whenever the case was serious and involved high risk of harm, JAP tended to either refer the investigation and report to the police

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(especially with sex offenders) or to associations (in particular with domestic violence) whenever they thought their probation service did not have the capacity to do a thorough job (Herzog-Evans, 2014). JAPs also tended to see associations as being more reliable, less annoying, more flexible and more innovative. As probation services have become more aligned to prison services, hierarchical and rigid thinking has come to prevail. For instance, when prosecutors and JAP created re-inforced supervision in Cambrai and Beauvais, they found it easy to work in collaboration with a network of associations and other agencies, but had to contend with probation services opposition based on a desire to protect their positions. To this day, Beauvais prison-based probation staff still refuse to collaborate. Their main concern is they are being sidetracked by this project, even though its creators keep trying to reassure them it is only complementary and have, for instance, relabelled it from re-enforced probation to re-enforced support. Other examples of competitive work are with so-called programmes. Risk-NeedResponsivity programmes relying on Cognitive Behavioural Therapies methods are yet to be seen in France. Nonetheless, probation services were forced to launch socalled PPRs (programme de prevention de la rcidive: prevention of reoffending programmes) for sex offenders, road traffic and domestic violent offences, which, other than their name, had nothing in common with RNR programmes. As two descriptive reports acutely revealed (Brillet, 2009; Moulin, 2012), they were not accredited in the scientific sense of the term, nor were they evaluated in terms of their outcomes. Notwithstanding these rather typical French traits, what is clear is that in this pretend programme endeavour probation services are not alone. A host of pretend programmes have also been created by associations in a number of regions, in particular in order to deal with road traffic offences and domestic violence. Probation services and associations are thus clearly occupying the same territory. Associations run the risk of being increasingly perceived as being competitors since they are frequently put in charge of community work and Frances equivalent of probation orders (Sueur, 2013); in other words, one of the most frequently used alternative sentences. If this trend continues, they will be in charge of the greatest part of community sentences supervision in France. Would this necessarily be a bad thing, given that their community and local base along with their greater flexibility allows them to be innovative pioneers?

Third sector and probation services: Complementary pioneers

Complementarity requires collaboration. The general research on associations showed that associations collaborate remarkably well together, know each other well, are aware of what each others competence is, and do not seem to compete or be protective of turf when it comes to their relationships. This and the local rooting of associations allow them to be creative and flexible. They can respond to local agencies, prison services or judiciary bids to participate in, and in a number of cases solely take charge of, innovative programmes, and are usually accommodating enough to meet the needs and demands of their bidders. In the next paragraphs, I shall draw upon the two aforementioned studies that pertained to two programmes of this kind.

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In one form or another, PCs have existed since the origins of French sentences implementation (Lavielle, 1988). Placement in the community is a sentence, and more frequently a release or bifurcation decision whereby the JAP replaces a custody sentence with a community measure. Like in US or Canadian half-way houses, or in UK approved premises, offenders are offered housing, vocational training and/or sheltered or adapted work. They are also prepared for real life work and real life housing, offered various forms of treatment (in particular addiction treatment) and, in many cases, a host of other activities. In the case of Brittanys PC, the list of intervention and activities was so long it filled a whole A4 page of my report. It ranged from the aforementioned risks and needs basics to 24/7 availability, and to family counselling, budget managing, couples relationships, and other problem-solving interventions. If none of these activities efficiency has to this day been evaluated, the sheer abundance of them is truly remarkable. The association that managed the site, offered 24/7 counselling and support, was in charge of vocational training, work and part of the drug treatment, but networked with a host of other associations and agencies in order to provide other services and activities. The POs only involvement was to come once in a while to supervise whether its demands were met and to see offenders in order to check whether they complied with their obligations. Most offenders perceived them as being useless gendarmes and in the course of their interviews made it clear that they were only helped by association staff and did not trust POs. As was mentioned above the probation service also liaised with the JAP, and acting as the representative of prison services had the right to hire or fire the main association in charge of PC. PCs require a high level of collaboration that is not always present on site. Typically, one of the partners is often not willing to contribute (Castel, 2001). In Brittany, this was particularly the case of medical doctors and the French equivalent of Job Centre Plus (Ple Emploi). Reasons for not contributing were threefold. Firstly, the position of PO as gendarmes of the project meant they did not consider other agencies as being partners but as being service-providers or employees that, in turn, meant none felt committed to the project. Secondly, the project also met the strong opposition of part of the prison services staff, who considered that PC invested too much effort in offenders who would reoffend anyway and who perceived POs as being bleeding heart do-gooders. A third reason comprised of protective turf wars mixed with legal issues pertaining to professional secrecy. In particular, medical staff in charge of drug treatment, who are by tradition very protective of medical confidentiality, refused to act as partners in fear of violating it but were also very protective because they were not treated as such. Equally, POs refused to communicate information to their partners pertaining to the offence, the sentence and even its exact duration information they themselves struggled to obtain from the prison guards clerk service that put associations in a very difficult position with their work with probationers. The only partners who were made but were also willing to circulate information were associations and, to a degree, the judiciary. In the case of Brittanys PC, associations were indispensable, enthusiastic, admired by the judiciary including, which is no small wonder, by the prosecutors and praised by probationers, and yet their efforts and value were clearly not seen by the probation service, which was seriously considering replacing them in search of ever more compliant and disciplined associations.

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My students and I observed strong opposition to the re-inforced support programme from the probation services. The developer of this programme was the prosecutor of Cambrai (north of France), who was worried about the poor quality of the supervision and risks and needs assessments provided for by the probation services, due to a mixture of extreme case overload and, as was seen above, of professional identity and prison services policies. In collaboration with the local JAP, he decided to create a re-inforced probation programme where what was no longer delivered by the probation service would be achieved by associations and local agencies. His project was funded by the city of Cambrai, which allowed his team to hire a coordinator, a professional with a Masters level degree in psychology. When the prosecutor was later transferred to Beauvais, he created a similar project, whilst the Cambrai re-inforced probation scheme was still running. Re-inforced probation later relabelled as we have seen re-inforced support should not be confused with US or UK intensive supervision (Worrall etal., forthcoming). Its aim is not to intensify supervision and control, which is the sole property of probation services; but to meet offenders needs more efficiently and more fully. Put simply, it is to do what probation officers are not doing any longer, and as the prosecutor puts it: to place offenders with higher needs on a par with offenders with lower needs. As a matter of fact, sanctions for non-compliance or attendance are downgraded to state probation only, not recall. Again, the outcome of this programme is yet to be evaluated. However, my students and I did a qualitative assessment of this project and noted a number of positive elements. First, offenders needs were being really met in a rather hands-on and concrete manner, something they all mentioned in their interviews. Second, there was a one-stop shop for most of their administrative procedures and the support they needed in the coordinators office. Last, but not least, probationers all understood that they were supported and helped and that they did need it. On a more negative note, however, partners still struggled to fully collaborate. First, probation services were very oppositional and viewed this project as being an intolerable violation of their own responsibilities. Second, because the collaborative dimension of the project had not been thought of and planned, the various agencies that had taken part in the partnership arrangements did not meet often enough and did not exchange information unfortunately deeply ingrained French issue (Herzog-Evans, 2013c). However, the existence of a coordinator smoothed over part of these difficulties. There are currently plans to export re-inforced support to other French jurisdictions. To sum up, these two innovative projects have several things in common. They endeavour to: meet offenders risks and needs; adopt a problem-solving approach; do qualitative social work and truly support the desistance process. Probationers are significantly more satisfied with associations work than with state probations and in the two sites the quality of their relationship with association staff was notably more qualitative and enjoyable. It was also plain that the judiciary was equally more satisfied with their competence and dedication and the depth of the services they could deliver.

Conclusion
Throughout this article we have seen that associations are increasingly indispensable to the French CJS. This is both the result and a reflection of current difficulties with French

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state probation services that have forsaken social work, but have yet to embrace an evidence-based agenda. Following changes in their recruitment procedures, increased alignment with prison services and recent policies, probation staff tend to perceive their job as being lawyerly and controlling albeit in a rather loose administrative sense. Associations are thus increasingly filling the gaps of offender care, support and problem-solving. To paraphrase contemporary England and Wales probation changes, whereas associations advise, assist and befriend, state probation services increasingly manage and control. Associations are trusted by a judiciary that deplores that probation services do not have the capacity to deliver in-depth work and by legislators and policy-makers who increasingly transfer state probation missions to associations. In each of the three studies presented here, along with the aforementioned research on desistance, virtually all the probationers seemed to be satisfied with the quality of the associations work and the support provided, and with the quality of their relationship with them. It is impossible to know whether associations are more efficient than state services as no research has ever measured their respective outcome and economic value. However, there are several indicators that point in favour of associations: they respond better to criminogenic needs some might argue that they simply do respond to these needs; they do more quality work with probationers with whom they have better relationships; they work more collaboratively with other associations and agencies and the judiciary; and they are more flexible, more innovative and more embedded in the community. In view of this, one might wonder why French policy-makers have not yet embraced a privatisation agenda. The main reason is probably that the prison services to which probation services belong is an extremely powerful administration, fully capable of imposing its decision onto the Ministry of Justice. Its unions are equally powerful and would probably vigorously oppose the adoption of such an agenda. No politician in their right mind would dream of emulating the current government of England and Wales privatisation scheme, even though he or she would have much more convincing reasons to do so. Perhaps, more positively, French state probation services could still be saved from a gloomy future. The way forward, as I have argued at the recent national conference of consensus on reoffending prevention (http://conference-consensus.justice.gouv.fr/ Herzog-Evans, 2013d), would be to, inter alia: Stop neglecting social work and offenders support needs; Change PO recruitment and, in particular, recruit social workers and psychologists rather than lawyers; Forget turf issues and focus on getting the job done; Embrace evidence-based practices as its first motto; Embrace, develop and systematise collaborative work as its second motto. In other words, and particularly with regard to the last two points and I am aware this might raise eyebrows in England and Wales what France needs is another Tony Blair, with a clear vision of what French probation so acutely needs and the political strength to implement it. If this does not happen, it will commit collective suicide by gradually abandoning the core of supervision work to associations, which, being more adaptable and flexible might well precede them on the path to scientific progress.

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54 Declaration of conflicting interest

The author declares that there is no conflict of interest.

European Journal of Probation 6(1)

Funding
Two of the research studies here received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. The third was funded by the probation service of Morbihan.

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Worrall A, Mawby RC and Herzog-Evans M (forthcoming) La probation intensive des condamns adultes en Angleterre et au Pays-de-Galles: Leons et comparaison avec la France. Presentation at the conference, Lefficacit de lexcution des peines, CEJESCO, Universit de Reims, facult de droit, 11 December 2012. Paris: Mare et Martin.

Author biography
Martine Herzog-Evans teaches law and criminology at University of Reims, France. She has published extensively (http://herzog-evans.com). Her latest books are French Reentry Courts and Rehabilitation: Mister Jourdain of Desistance (lHarmattan, 2014, in French and English) and Moderniser la probation franaise [Modernising French Probation] (lHarmattan, 2013, in French).

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