Introduction

Abstract

The voluntary sector’s role in criminal justice is being transformed. Instead of supplementing the services provided by statutory criminal justice agencies it is becoming enmeshed in the day-to-day operation of the criminal justice system. Since the 1990s successive governments have actively engaged the voluntary sector in determining local crime, justice and community safety strategies. More recently, policies have aimed to increase the involvement of voluntary sector organisations (VSOs) in services which have hitherto been provided by statutory agencies. These policy developments are premised on a blend of neoliberal political rationalities for restructuring state welfare systems into ‘mixed-service markets’ and communitarian aspirations to liberate the untapped social capital, expertise and consensus of the voluntary sector in securing justice at community level (Norman, 2010). Whilst voluntary sector–state partnership and contracting out are not new, a combination of funding and political reforms under successive governments has generated a profusion of new spaces for collaboration, which are unprecedented in scale. However, behind these new formations in the national and regional voluntary sector and criminal justice landscapes reside the overwhelming majority of small-and medium-sized organisations which continue to provide the backbone of volunteering, civic engagement and local service delivery.