Intermediaries are communication experts who facilitate communication between individuals with communication needs and the criminal justice system. In executing the role, intermediaries interact with police, lawyers, judges and other criminal justice professionals. But is the intermediary a professional in its own right? This article argues that a more useful question to ask is whether intermediaries engage in what Andrew Abbott terms ‘professional work’. It reveals how the role tussles for legitimate control over its work tasks through the staking of ‘jurisdictional claims’. Intermediaries do so through the performance of ‘boundary work’ which involves the construction and negotiating of boundaries that mediate interaction. This article presents findings from thirty-one in-depth, semi-structured interviews with intermediaries and judges in England and Wales and Northern Ireland. It concludes that the future of the intermediary role and its work depends largely on the type of ‘jurisdictional settlement’ which its practitioners seek to carve out.

中介人是沟通专家，促进有沟通需求的个人与刑事司法系统之间的沟通。在履行这一职责时，中间人与警察、律师、法官和其他刑事司法专业人员进行互动。但中介本身就是专业人士吗？本文认为，一个更有用的问题是中介机构是否从事安德鲁·阿博特所说的“专业工作”。它揭示了该角色如何通过“管辖权主张”争夺对其工作任务的合法控制权。中介机构通过执行“边界工作”来做到这一点，其中涉及调解互动的边界的构建和谈判。本文介绍了对英格兰、威尔士和北爱尔兰的中介人和法官进行的 31 次深入、半结构化访谈的结果。报告的结论是，中介角色及其工作的未来在很大程度上取决于其从业者寻求建立的“管辖权解决”类型。