Compliance during community-based penal supervision

This chapter brings together the limited literature on service-user compliance with community-based orders in England and Wales. It presents an overview of key theoretical developments in the field and studies that provide empirical insights into the nature of compliance. The studies have generally found that practitioners’ actions construct compliance rather than the active participation of service users. Drawing on the theoretical and empirical studies of compliance (both formal and substantive), the chapter explores the bases and implications of limited service user participation in the production of compliance and argue that a co-productive approach is more likely long-term compliance which goes beyond the life of a court order.