Nicola Carr
Biographic Data
| ID | 4419232 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nicola Carr |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nicola |
| FAMILY NAME | Carr |
| SIGNATURE | CARR N |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Nottingham |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9075-269X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 41 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 80 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 38 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 3 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
The reductionism of pedagogy in the online primary classrooms of Covid-19 lockdowns
COVID-19 lockdowns forced schools into extended periods of remote teaching, reshaping how teachers engaged with pedagogy and students in online contexts. The authors explore the experiences of three primary school teachers in Victorian government schools in Australia, analysed through the lens of the Victorian Teaching and Learning Model, including the nine Practice Principles and ten High Impact Teaching Strategies (HITS). Data were drawn from g…
Policing the partnership: Structural change, organisational legitimacy and police evaluations of probation in public protection
This article explores how police actors perceive the probation service in the wake of its outsourcing and reunification during a decade of profound structural reform, offering a unique perspective on multi-agency collaboration within criminal justice. Drawing on interviews with senior leaders, frontline officers and staff immersed within partnership arrangements, the study examines how probation’s organisational legitimacy is evaluated from outsi…
Parole Futures: Rationalities, Institutions and Practices
Does parole have a future? If it does, can we begin to imagine a different path? Is progressive penal reform possible, or has the time come to consider more radical alternatives in a context where there is little, if any, consensus on the underlying aims and techniques of contemporary prison release? What does this all mean for the prisoners, families, victims and publics upon whose confidence the parole system ultimately depends? This book bring…
A fork in the road: Probation unification in England and Wales two years on
This article presents findings from a major longitudinal research project of probation in England and Wales, arguing that the process of its ‘unification’ (re-nationalisation) continues to be a painful process whose end state remains elusive. Having previously articulated how practitioners experienced unification as ‘painful but necessary’, here, using the imagery of a journey, we argue that the speed and direction of travel have encountered a mo…
Indifference, resistance, possibility: Probation staff perspectives on the introduction of professional registration
Rehabilitating Probation is a three-year research project (2022–2025), exploring the most recent iteration of probation reform in England and Wales. This article takes as its focus the responses from interviews with a mixed sample of probation staff in one case study region (n = 56) to questions they were asked about their knowledge of the Professional Register and what implications they felt it would have for their careers. Our sweep of intervie…
Constrained voice and complicated loyalty: Understanding reasons to leave or stay working in the probation service
This article examines the complex reasons why staff choose to remain in or leave the Probation Service in England and Wales, using Hirschman’s Exit-Voice-Loyalty-Neglect (EVL-N) framework as an analytical lens. In the context of major systemic reforms, including the failed privatisation of services and subsequent reunification, the study explores the persistent staffing crisis and its impact on workforce morale, professional identity, and organis…
Anchors Through Change: Exploring Identity Work in the Unified Probation Service for England & Wales
The Probation Service for England & Wales offers an important case study for those who are interested in the impact(s) of organizational change on workers in criminal justice and, in particular, the identity work that they engage in as they move through frequent iterations of change. In this article, we draw on data from an ongoing longitudinal study of probation reform to explore identity work among a mixed sample of practitioner and management …
Probation and Parole in Europe
In this essay, we review uses of and developments in probation and parole in Europe, and consider the prospects for such sanctions. Our analysis reveals huge variation across European jurisdictions in the extent to which supervisory sanctions are used and in how their uses relate to the uses of imprisonment. We find evidence of very large expansions in the numbers of people under supervision in several European countries, but little or no evidenc…
Revise and reset
Sentencing review – Time to change direction
Probation service Identity crisis
Early release: More pressure – time for a fundamental rethink
Making Good: A Study of How Senior Penal Policy Makers Narrate Policy Reversal
This paper provides insights into the predominant styles of political reasoning in England and Wales that inform penal policy reform. It does so in relation to a particular development that constitutes a dramatic, perhaps even unique, wholesale reversal of a previously introduced market-based criminal justice delivery model. This is the ‘unification’ of probation services in England and Wales, which unwound the consequential privatization reforms…
Probation is not a panacea for the prison crisis
Politicisation of parole
Good afternoon and welcome to this sitting of the Justice Committee.Today, we have two panels of witnesses.Before we start with the evidence, there will be a few preliminaries.We are dealing today with evidence in relation to part 3 of the Victims and Prisoners Bill, which we think is shortly due to have its Second Reading in the House.We remember, for context, that we were asked to do pre-legislative scrutiny of the original part of the Bill rel…
A necessary but painful journey: Experiences of unification in a probation service region
In this article, we present some initial findings from the first year of a longitudinal study of the experiences of unification by staff in one Probation Service region. Their reaction to unification is explored as well as their hopes and fears regarding the newly unified service. Despite working in what was often presented as an unsettled and fractured environment marked by on-going staff shortages – whilst at the same time having to respond to …
Should I stay or should I go? What to do about the probation staffing crisis
Probation services in the spotlight
Whose confidence? Regional leaders’ perspectives on building confidence in a reconfigured probation service
The idea that the institutions of criminal justice should command the confidence of the public and other stakeholders is a taken for granted ‘good’, but one which has rarely been considered from the perspectives of operational leaders within those institutions. We also know little about what happens at times of crisis, when claims are made about the erosion of confidence and leaders are charged with rebuilding it. In this article, we seek to enga…
Time and Punishment: New Contexts and Perspectives
Reimagining Probation Practice: Re-forming Rehabilitation in an Age of Penal Excess
This chapter considers the nature of probation officer training over the last thirty years. It places the current model of training within the context of increasing politicisation of probation practice, the associated impact of New Public Management policies, shifts in understandings of rehabilitation, and the semi privatisation of Probation in 2013. The chapter examines the value of the four forms of rehabilitation as a model that can inform the…
Speaking with one voice? Probation as a profession and One HMPPS
Plus ça change? Women and the criminal justice system
Race equality and probation – a view from the frontline
Reimagining Probation Practice: Re-Forming Rehabilitation in an Age of Penal Excess
Like walking on eggshells’: Service user views and expectations of the child protection system
This paper reports on a study of service users' views on Irish child protection services. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 67 service users, including young people between 13 and 23. The findings showed that despite refocusing and public service management reforms, service users still experience involvement with the services as intimidating and stressful and while they acknowledged opportunities to participate in the child protection pr…
Residential child care workers: Relationship based practice in a culture of fear
In a contemporary context dominated by reports of the historical institutional abuse of children and young people in residential children's homes, and where the voice of workers is largely absent, this study explores the views and experiences of 26 workers in the Republic of Ireland regarding relationship‐based practice. Using an exploratory, qualitative approach and informed by ‘appreciative inquiry’; semi‐structured interviews were undertaken w…
Like waking up in a Franz Kafka novel’: Service users' experiences of the child protection system when domestic violence and acrimonious separations are involved
Gender, violence and cultures of silence: Young women and paramilitary violence
Despite a growth in analysis of women and conflict, this has tended to overlook the specific experiences of young women. Likewise, in research on youth, conflict and peace, the term ‘youth’ is often short-hand for young men. Young women’s experiences are regularly absent from research and policy discourse, and as a consequence, also absent from public understanding and practice responses. In this paper, we prioritise the views of and on young wom…
Invisible from View: Leaving and Aftercare Provision in the Republic Of Ireland
The adequacy of provisions for young people leaving care and in aftercare in the Republic of Ireland has been the subject of recent policy attention. A landmark report, the Ryan Report (2009), into historic abuse in state institutions recommended strengthening provisions in this area. However, the legislative basis for aftercare remains relatively weak and services for young people leaving care remain ad hoc and regionally variable. This article …
Sexual deviance in prison: Queering identity and intimacy in prison research
Recent years have seen increased attention in both research and policy towards lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender prisoners as a group with distinct needs. This has been driven by wider political recognition of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights and research suggesting that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender prisoners are particularly ‘vulnerable’ to bullying and abuse within prison settings. Much of this research, and the poli…
Probation and Parole in Europe
In this essay, we review uses of and developments in probation and parole in Europe, and consider the prospects for such sanctions. Our analysis reveals huge variation across European jurisdictions in the extent to which supervisory sanctions are used and in how their uses relate to the uses of imprisonment. We find evidence of very large expansions in the numbers of people under supervision in several European countries, but little or no evidenc…
Making Good: A Study of How Senior Penal Policy Makers Narrate Policy Reversal
This paper provides insights into the predominant styles of political reasoning in England and Wales that inform penal policy reform. It does so in relation to a particular development that constitutes a dramatic, perhaps even unique, wholesale reversal of a previously introduced market-based criminal justice delivery model. This is the ‘unification’ of probation services in England and Wales, which unwound the consequential privatization reforms…
Whose confidence? Regional leaders’ perspectives on building confidence in a reconfigured probation service
The idea that the institutions of criminal justice should command the confidence of the public and other stakeholders is a taken for granted ‘good’, but one which has rarely been considered from the perspectives of operational leaders within those institutions. We also know little about what happens at times of crisis, when claims are made about the erosion of confidence and leaders are charged with rebuilding it. In this article, we seek to enga…
A legitimate business? Representations of privatised probation in England and Wales
The Transforming Rehabilitation reforms implemented in England & Wales in 2014 witnessed the transfer of responsibility for a large proportion of the work of the public sector probation service to 21 newly created Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs), which were contracted out to a range of providers dominated by private sector interests. This part-privatisation of probation services has raised important questions about the legitimacy of the…
Anti-Social Behaviour Orders
Like walking on eggshells’: Service user views and expectations of the child protection system
This paper reports on a study of service users' views on Irish child protection services. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 67 service users, including young people between 13 and 23. The findings showed that despite refocusing and public service management reforms, service users still experience involvement with the services as intimidating and stressful and while they acknowledged opportunities to participate in the child protection pr…
Like waking up in a Franz Kafka novel’: Service users' experiences of the child protection system when domestic violence and acrimonious separations are involved
Legitimacy Through Neutrality: Probation and Conflict in N orthern I reland
The conflict in N orthern I reland known as the Troubles presented numerous challenges for the administration of traditional forms of criminal justice and has led to a variety of adaptations that have been widely discussed in the literature in criminology and transitional justice. The role of N orthern I reland's probation service is often forgotten or ignored in such analyses. This brief article is intended to begin to fill this gap by exploring…
Invisible from View: Leaving and Aftercare Provision in the Republic Of Ireland
The adequacy of provisions for young people leaving care and in aftercare in the Republic of Ireland has been the subject of recent policy attention. A landmark report, the Ryan Report (2009), into historic abuse in state institutions recommended strengthening provisions in this area. However, the legislative basis for aftercare remains relatively weak and services for young people leaving care remain ad hoc and regionally variable. This article …
Residential child care workers: Relationship based practice in a culture of fear
In a contemporary context dominated by reports of the historical institutional abuse of children and young people in residential children's homes, and where the voice of workers is largely absent, this study explores the views and experiences of 26 workers in the Republic of Ireland regarding relationship‐based practice. Using an exploratory, qualitative approach and informed by ‘appreciative inquiry’; semi‐structured interviews were undertaken w…
Community supervision and Covid
Probation renationalised: Another twist in the tale for the ‘national service of second chances’
A new decade, some old debates
Research & reports
Sexual deviance in prison: Queering identity and intimacy in prison research
Recent years have seen increased attention in both research and policy towards lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender prisoners as a group with distinct needs. This has been driven by wider political recognition of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights and research suggesting that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender prisoners are particularly ‘vulnerable’ to bullying and abuse within prison settings. Much of this research, and the poli…
A legitimate business? Representations of privatised probation in England and Wales
The Transforming Rehabilitation reforms implemented in England & Wales in 2014 witnessed the transfer of responsibility for a large proportion of the work of the public sector probation service to 21 newly created Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs), which were contracted out to a range of providers dominated by private sector interests. This part-privatisation of probation services has raised important questions about the legitimacy of the…
Reunified probation. All aboard the ‘justice fleet’
Critical perspectives on desistance
Probation in a pandemic
Gender, violence and cultures of silence: Young women and paramilitary violence
Despite a growth in analysis of women and conflict, this has tended to overlook the specific experiences of young women. Likewise, in research on youth, conflict and peace, the term ‘youth’ is often short-hand for young men. Young women’s experiences are regularly absent from research and policy discourse, and as a consequence, also absent from public understanding and practice responses. In this paper, we prioritise the views of and on young wom…
Time and Punishment: New Contexts and Perspectives
Reimagining Probation Practice: Re-forming Rehabilitation in an Age of Penal Excess
This chapter considers the nature of probation officer training over the last thirty years. It places the current model of training within the context of increasing politicisation of probation practice, the associated impact of New Public Management policies, shifts in understandings of rehabilitation, and the semi privatisation of Probation in 2013. The chapter examines the value of the four forms of rehabilitation as a model that can inform the…
Speaking with one voice? Probation as a profession and One HMPPS
Plus ça change? Women and the criminal justice system
Race equality and probation – a view from the frontline
Reimagining Probation Practice: Re-Forming Rehabilitation in an Age of Penal Excess
Probation is not a panacea for the prison crisis
Politicisation of parole
Good afternoon and welcome to this sitting of the Justice Committee.Today, we have two panels of witnesses.Before we start with the evidence, there will be a few preliminaries.We are dealing today with evidence in relation to part 3 of the Victims and Prisoners Bill, which we think is shortly due to have its Second Reading in the House.We remember, for context, that we were asked to do pre-legislative scrutiny of the original part of the Bill rel…
A necessary but painful journey: Experiences of unification in a probation service region
In this article, we present some initial findings from the first year of a longitudinal study of the experiences of unification by staff in one Probation Service region. Their reaction to unification is explored as well as their hopes and fears regarding the newly unified service. Despite working in what was often presented as an unsettled and fractured environment marked by on-going staff shortages – whilst at the same time having to respond to …
Psychology (26 works) · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis (21 works) · Criminology (20 works) · Sociology (19 works) · Political science (17 works) · Homelessness and Social Issues (14 works) · Business (13 works) · Law (11 works) · Medicine (9 works) · Public relations (8 works)