NCJ Number
209469
Journal
Probation Journal Volume: 50 Issue: 1 Dated: March 2003 Pages: 7-19
Date Published
March 2003
Length
13 pages
Annotation
This article discusses who does and who should determine the demand for probation services in Great Britain, reasons for the current demand and supply of probation services, and how the future demand and supply of probation services might be altered.
Abstract
In England and Wales, the public neither deals with the probation service nor thinks about it. Sentencers, who make the decision about who will be given probation, are unlikely to know how offenders and victims react to probation supervision and services unless the probation service informs them. This means the sentencers are the probation service's core users. Over the last 10 years, Great Britain has witnessed the creation of an increasing array of community penalties, and the language of community penalties has been toughened; the probation order has become either a rehabilitation order or a punitive order in the form of community service. Combination orders involve both community punishment and rehabilitation orders. Still, custody has not been displaced with the expansion of community-based sentences. More and more low-risk offenders have been placed on probation while the increase in inmate populations persists, suggesting net-widening. The author recommends that the National Probation Service develop more effective means of informing sentencers about what is happening with the caseloads borne under the high volume of community sentences; that the use of financial penalties be increased in lieu of supervisory probation; that the use of restorative justice conferences be increased; and that if it is not feasible to fine low-risk offenders, then less intensive supervision for some offender categories should be permitted. 4 tables and 15 references