La satisfacción con el trabajo

This section will explore claims that personal experience of crime and desistance offers peer mentors an authentic standpoint, which ‘professional’ helpers do not have. The existing literature suggests that personal experience of offending helps mentors to bond with mentees (Princes Trust, 2012), that ex-offenders possess a credibility that statutory workers do not (Nellis and McNeill, 2008) and that peers have specific knowledge of life inside and outside of prison, which can be helpful to those in the criminal justice system (Devilly et al., 2005). Respondents in this study often agreed with these claims and so buttressed the ex-offender standpoint upon which such statements rest, however, they often did so in ways which excluded other forms of knowledge. Ben, for example, is using a peer

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mentoring service attached to his Probation office. He valued knowledge drawn from lived experiences above that which is gained from theoretical learning:

It does seem to work better when you’ve actually been there, that’s how I personally feel anyway. Somebody who’s just read it from a book isn’t the same as [someone who has] actually been there and done it (Ben, Mentee).

Similarly, Fiona, a mentee using the same service argues:

You can’t learn [experience], you can pick pointers up, but you can’t get that life skill, that extra that you need that completes it. You can’t get it unless you’ve seen it, been there, got somewhere, you know? (Fiona, Mentee).

One problem with this stance is that it suggests a true and unified essence of the criminal experience. This rests upon essentialist beliefs in the ‘true essence of things, the invariable and fixed properties which define the “whatness” of a given entity’ (Fuss, 1989: xi) when clearly, experiences of crime and change are different for different individuals. In addition to abridging diverse experiences ‘exclusions of this sort often breed exclusivity’ (Fuss, 1989: 113-115). They suggest that people without lived experiences of crime have nothing to offer in mentoring settings. Adam, however, who has managed a peer mentoring project for two years challenged this assumption:

In the past I’ve felt that experience [of offending] would count for most, but from the last two years I’ve kind of learned that that is not necessarily the case, just being genuine and sincere is more important (Adam, mentoring coordinator).

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Whilst there are counter views to the primacy of the ex-offender experience and indeed problems with the premise, the claimed importance of shared offending experience was a dominant theme in mentor and mentee narratives and therefore requires attention. Such shared experience was repeatedly presented as a privileged form of knowledge, wherein desistance from crime and the criminal justice system itself can only be fully understood if they have been experienced. Phil, for example, mentors adults in prison and young people in the community having spent a number of years in prison himself. He explains:

The advantage is I’ve faced many of those barriers that they’re [mentees] likely to encounter and obviously come through them, more importantly. So, you know, through that reflective practice I’m able to share that experience with them and prepare them (Phil, Mentor).

Similarly Lin, who mentors adults in a community setting having spent a number of years in the criminal justice system for ‘alcohol related’ offences, described peer mentoring as:

It’s somebody that’s had a similar experience or similar problem to me, but found a way to overcome it and then they would guide their client or their peer, by their own experiences (Lin, Mentor and previously a Mentee).

Julie mentors adults in a community rehabilitation setting having also ‘drank a lot’ and been the subject of a number of community sentences. She considers that she has:

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A good [understanding] of the criminal justice system because I’ve been there myself. Also other things in my past, ye know, like getting in trouble, having horrible ex-boyfriends, other things have happened to me and I think I use that knowledge to guide them in the right way sometimes (Julie, Mentor).

Phil, Lin and Julie all assert that mentors with personal experience have an understanding of barriers, systems and problematic relationships that they can draw upon to prepare and guide people. ‘Reflection’ upon the tactics learned from experience are essential to this model. These speakers describe forms of learning which rely upon the experiences of ‘human beings in their relations with the world’ (Freire, 1970: 60). They also suggest that this reflective understanding is not currently being utilised in existing approaches. This position was supported by a probation manager who worked alongside one peer mentoring service:

All of our ex-offender staff [peer mentors who went on to paid Probation roles] changed because of their own connections, not Probation. That’s not to say that Probation doesn’t help, but that there are other strategies available outside professional understanding (Probation Manager).

These narratives aim to afford people with experiences of crime an authenticity because they have overcome barriers. They do not privilege what Pollack (2004: 697) terms ‘professional understandings’ or ‘deficit based constructions’, but ‘behaviour is contextualised’ (Pollack, 2004: 697). Of course, not all professional Probation staff subscribe to interventions which aim to correct individual deficit. Indeed, as will become clear in chapter nine, not all peers always avoid such models themselves. That said there is

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an assertion of voice present here, which aims to undermine professional knowledge; this will be explored further below.