1. Criminology in the Professions
Guidance for your Practitioner Discourse Analysis:
This section has a 1500 word limit
Your discourse analysis should be a comparison of all practitioner talks.
You should begin your work by briefly defining what a discourse analysis is and
how this methodology might help you to analyse these talks (the discourse).
You must use sources to inform this work in defining the pertinent
characteristics of discourse analysis as a methodology; to inform your
discussions and application of issues such as organisational cultures,
performance indicators, managerialism, equal opportunities etc; to inform your
discussions on the practitioner organisations.
You therefore must provide a bibliography that specifically covers your
discourse analysis.
In their presentations, you should look for the following issues:
• Evidence of Professionalism and Power.
• Evidence of ‘organisational cultures’.
• The dominant values and norms that they aspire to.
• Evidence of managerialism and multi-agency partnerships.
• What sort of partnerships they are involved in.
• How they ensure equal opportunities.
• Which criminological theories you think might help explain the participant’s
views or the apparent values of the organisation that they are representing.
Your discourse analysis should therefore be a comparison of all the practitioner talks
making reference to the above issues.
Some hints:
Professionalism and Power:
• Professions often have knowledge that others do not have. This gives them
a certain amount of power over others who do not possess the same
knowledge or expertise.
• What knowledge/expertise do you think each of the practitioners demonstrates
that marks out the professionalism of their work? Think about jargon,
procedures and working practices.
• Do they have power to construct or change the dominant ‘truths’, or is this a
‘top down’ phenomenon?
• Who constructs the dominant truths in the discourse?

2. Criminology in the Professions
Organisational Culture:
• Within organisations, values and norms shared by people or groups that
affect the way in which those individuals interact with others may signify
an organisational culture.
• Look for the values and norms that the practitioner promotes.
• Can you detect an organisational culture or a number of competing cultures?
• How do they deal with ‘crime’/ or what they see as ‘their problem’.
• How they refer to their ‘service users’?
• What appears to be their underlying ethos…welfare/justice/crime control?
• How do they talk about their colleagues or management?
• How do they talk about other organisations?
• Does the practitioner have the same aims as their organisation?
Managerialism:
• Managerialism has an emphasis on management, performance and cost
effectiveness related to specific aims or ‘performance indicators’.
• Does the practitioner talk about things related to performance, efficiency,
value for money/cost effectiveness or performance indicators?
• How do they measure and evaluate their aims and successes?
Multi-agency Partnerships:
• The creation of ‘multi-agency’ partnerships as a way of dealing with
‘problems’ in society gained ground throughout the 80’s and 90’s
building on a historical tradition of attempts to create ‘joined up’
government. Multi-agency partnerships are exactly what the term
suggests, which is a group of practitioners from different agencies who
are charged with addressing a particular problem.
• Find out which other agencies the practitioners work with?
• What are the fundamental aims that the practitioners have?
• Do they have the goals in common with other related organisations or are
there possible contradictions between organisations in relation to their
underlying aims and goals?
Models of Partnership:
• What models of partnership might the practitioners talk about?
• Is there evidence of Public/private partnerships?
• Is there evidence of central and/or local public service delivery?
• Is their evidence of local community based partnerships?
• What sector does the practitioner represent: Public/private/voluntary sector?
Equal Opportunities:
• The concept of ‘Equal opportunities’ is an important concept within all
organisations, both in terms of service users and employees.
• Does the practitioner talk about equal opportunities or equality?
• How is equality of opportunity ensured?

3. Criminology in the Professions
• Might race, class, gender, disability or age be significant in their work?
Criminological Theories: Some of the following might be relevant:
Risk Management Rehabilitation
New Penology Right or left realism
Authoritarian populism Labelling
Classicism Positivism
Radical Criminology/Criminalisation