Ms Anne Burrell

I qualified as a Probation Officer in the 1970's, and much of my working life has been in Probation (apart from a short period teaching at an FE College). Currently I am employed as a Practice Teacher Assessor with the Probation Service, working with trainee probation officers.  I am a Director of the Probation Institute, which is a centre of excellence for probation practice. The Institute actively supports research in the Probation Service, alongside professional training and development for practitioners. During the period of my involvement with the Institute, I have been involved in the work of the research and the training committees, including assisting in the organisation of professional conferences. I am on the editorial board of the Probation Quarterly, the journal of the Probation Institute. 

Institute for Research in Criminology and Community and Social Justice

• Probation Quarterly: Communities of Practice and Transforming Rehabilitation. Issue 10, December 2018.
• Probation Quarterly: The architecture of Probation Offices. Issue19, March 2021.
• British Society of Criminology Blog post: The Probation Service reintegrated; aspirations, expectations and anxieties. 4 August 2021.
• British Society of Criminology Blog post: The Probation Service reunified; a return to traditional values? 10 January 2022.
• Probation Journal online: The reflective practitioner in transition: Probation work during reintegration of probation services in England and Wales. 8 August 2022. 
• A smarter approach to sentencing? Aspirations, challenges, and implications for probation practice in England and Wales. July 2023.
  
• Reimagining Probation Practice – Re-forming rehabilitation in an age of penal excess. The editors Burke L, Carr N; Cluley E; Collett S and McNeill F; and it was published in 2023 by Routledge, Abingdon. (Chapter 10: Burrell A and Petrillo M: Education and training: delivering the four forms of rehabilitation: training and developing practitioners).
• Probation work – The politics of professional identity Burrell A, 2024

I am interested in all aspects of criminology and criminal justice. My probation background means that this is my main area of interest and expertise, and I am particularly interested in professional identity in probation practitioners; assessment in probation practice; sentencing and the role of probation in supervision; and the experiences of people subject to probation supervision.

• MA in Applied Social Studies/ Certificate of Qualification in Social Work, University of Warwick, 1976.
• Post Graduate Certificate in Education, Oxford Brookes University, 1999.
• MA in Education, The Open University, 2003.

Title

Probation work: the politics of professional identity

PhD project abstract

The project aims to research the nature of professional identity in probation practitioners. The research will start from a social constructivist approach, based on the premises that identity issocially constructed, and that identity generates meanings and purpose for the participants. A key feature of the project is an exploration of the longstanding failure for Probation work to be recognised as a profession, both in an official capacity – for instance, there is no current professional registration process for probation workers; and similarly in the perceptions of the public, for whom probation work remains opaque. The project will seek to evaluate the extent to which practitioners see themselves as professionals; and the factors which shape their perceptions, and their professional identities.

Kath Wilson, Associate Professor, Deputy Programme Leader
Professor Rob Canton
Roz Morrison, Programme Leader, Professional Qualification in Probation