This article utilises Foucauldian understandings of the sociology of the professions to explore how marketising reforms to probation services in England and Wales, and the implementation of a ‘Payment by Results’ (PbR) mechanism in particular, have impacted professional autonomy. Drawing on an ethnographic study of a probation office within a privately owned Community Rehabilitation Company, it argues that an inability to control the socio-economic organisation of probation work has rendered the service susceptible to challenges to autonomy over technique. PbR was proffered as a means to restore practitioner discretion; however, the article demonstrates that probation staff have been compelled to economise their autonomy, adapting their conduct to conform to market-related forms of accountability. In this sense, it presents the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms to probation as a case study of the impact of marketisation on the autonomy of practitioners working within a public sector profession.

本文利用福柯对专业社会学的理解来探索英格兰和威尔士的缓刑服务的市场化改革，尤其是“按结果付费”（PbR）机制的实施如何影响职业自治。根据对一家私人社区康复公司内的缓刑办公室的人种学研究，该研究认为，无法控制缓刑工作的社会经济组织已使服务容易受到技术自主性挑战的挑战。PbR被认为是恢复从业者自由裁量权的一种手段。但是，该文章表明，缓刑人员被迫节俭他们的自主权，使他们的行为适应与市场有关的问责形式。从这个意义上讲，它提出了从改造到缓刑的改革，作为市场化对公共部门专业从业者自主权影响的案例研究。