What Is the Impact of Probation in Advising Sentencing and Promoting Community Sanctions and Measures?

Abstract

Probation services provide a wide variety of tasks. In England and Wales, for example, besides the supervision of offenders who are sentenced to community penalties by the courts, they are involved in crime prevention initiatives, carry out bail information work, work with the police in Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements, have a presence in prisons, work with the victims of crime and with those released from custody, and prepare reports for the courts which are intended to provide sentencers with information which will assist in the sentencing process. While the bulk of probation research has focused on its work with offenders, it can be argued that the provision of reports for the courts is—in some ways—the most significant task. Pre-sentence reports (PSRs) are the primary point of contact with sentencers, who are the main customers for probation work; they are a key probation task in many countries, although they may have different names. This chapter will explore the role of probation staff in advising on sentencing and in promoting community sanctions and measures. It will, for the most part, focus on England and Wales but the implications of the discussion will be relevant to any countries where PSRs (or their equivalents) are prepared by the probation service.