NCJ Number
135910
Editor(s)
G Mair
Date Published
1989
Length
126 pages
Annotation
These five papers were first presented at a 1988 workshop sponsored by the British Home Office Research and Planning Unit to describe and assess the status of the development and use of statistical prediction devices in probation.
Abstract
The introduction reviews the workshop papers and the key issues discussed at the workshop. It notes that individual probation services are at the forefront of developments in the use of prediction scales in England and Wales. Such scales are primarily used to ensure that probation does actually reduce custodial sentencing by selecting for various probation conditions persons who would previously have been sentenced to prison. The first workshop paper discusses some of the organizational and practical implications of using predictive scales. In another paper, David Bale from the Cambridgeshire Probation Service, describes the way in which his risk-of-custody scale was constructed and validated, thereby demonstrating the evolutionary nature of such a task. A third paper profiles the prediction scale used by the Hampshire Probation Service, a simplified version of the Cambridgeshire scale. Its primary use is to measure management effectiveness. Remaining papers consider whether or not probation officers' personal judgments are better or worse than the use of a prediction scale as well as the development of a sentencing prediction scale used by the Staffordshire Probation Service. References, tables, and figures for each paper