Theorizing the role of ‘the brand’ in criminal justice: The case of Integrated Offender Management

Abstract

The rise of branded programmes and interventions is an important, but largely under-explored, development in criminal justice. This article draws on findings from a study of a British Integrated Offender Management (IOM) scheme to ground a broader theoretical discussion of the meaning and implications of the increasing centrality of such ‘brands’. This article focuses primarily upon the ways in which criminal justice practitioners might draw upon brands in order to (re-)construct their professional identities. Ongoing fundamental reforms of criminal justice organizations, which have tended to blur the traditionally clear distinctions between professional roles, have made this need to reinforce (and indeed reconstruct) practitioner identities ever more pressing. The article closes by considering the prospects and limitations of criminal justice brands. It is argued that while brands may play an important role in ‘ethically orienting’ relevant practitioners, there is a danger that the absence of appropriate structural underpinnings may prove to be highly counter-productive.