Reviews : Contributions, comments and suggestions to Liz Bullingham, Probation Office, Frost House, Woodhouse Green, Thurcroft, Rotherham S66 9AH, Tel: (0709) 546444 Nothing Much Happened: Structured Interviewing With Sex Offenders P. GIBBS, H. ELDRIDGE, J. COWBURN. Video, Notts Probation Service, 1988, 32 mins, £30

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.

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“You’ll never stand-alone”: Electronic monitoring in Germany

European Journal of Probation ◽

10.1177/2066220317697657 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

pp. 28-45 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Frieder Dünkel ◽

Christoph Thiele ◽

Judith Treig

Keyword(s):

High Risk ◽

Sex Offenders ◽

Global Positioning System ◽

Electronic Monitoring ◽

Federal State ◽

Positioning System ◽

Prison Sentence ◽

Global Positioning ◽

Probation Service ◽

Daily Total

Electronic monitoring (EM) in Germany is used only exceptionally in cases of high-risk offenders released from prison after fully having served a prison sentence or after release from the preventive detention measure (added to a prison sentence in cases of “dangerous” violent or sex offenders). About 70 cases on a daily total of more than 36,000 supervision of conduct cases are under global positioning system (GPS)-EM. Only in one federal state (Hesse) EM on radio frequency technology is also used to avoid pre-trial detention or in regular probation/parole cases. Numbers remain very low also in this context. EM is always combined with a probation or supervision of conduct order, which means that it is embedded in the rehabilitative work of the probation services. The German judiciary and crime policy are very reluctant to expand EM, as there is no pressure from the prison system (no overcrowding) and the “ordinary” probation service (without EM) works quite efficiently.

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The Berkeley Group: Ten Years' Experience of a Group for Non-violent Sex Offenders

The British Journal of Psychiatry ◽

10.1192/bjp.158.2.238 ◽

1991 ◽

Vol 158 (2) ◽

pp. 238-243 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

David A. G. Cook ◽

Charles A. Fox ◽

Christine M. Weaver ◽

F. Graham Rooth

Keyword(s):

Sex Offenders ◽

Sex Offences ◽

Probation Service ◽

High Degree

During the first ten years of a group started in February 1977 by the Avon Probation Service for the treatment of non-violent sex offenders, many of the offenders have shown a high degree of commitment to the group, and attendance levels have run consistently at over 70%. Of 63 men who came to the group during the ten-year study period, 33 completed their stay at the group, 11 left the group prematurely, and 11 never engaged satisfactorily. The remaining eight were still attending the group at the end of the study period. Of the 55 men whose contact with the group had ended, 36 (65%) had not been convicted of further sex offences by the end of the study period.

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The psychiatric probation clinic

Psychiatric Bulletin ◽

10.1192/pb.17.3.145 ◽

1993 ◽

Vol 17 (3) ◽

pp. 145-146 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Paul Collins ◽

Hadrian Ball ◽

Ann Costello

Keyword(s):

General Practitioners ◽

Royal College ◽

Attendance Rates ◽

Psychiatric Consultation ◽

Consultation Service ◽

Home Office ◽

Probation Office ◽

Probation Service

Liaison with the various agencies which deal with mentally abnormal offenders is one of the prime roles of the forensic psychiatrist (Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1988). The probation service is a key agency in this regard. The importance of such collaboration has once again been highlighted with the clear message that the care of the mentally abnormal offender is improved as a result (DOH/Home Office, 1991). However, the provision of a satisfactory psychiatric consultation service to probation clients who have been remanded on bail can be problematic. Much of the work of forensic psychiatrists is institutionally based. Non-attendance rates at hospital based out-patient clinics are high (Bowden, 1978). However, general psychiatrists have found that psychiatric clinics based in general practitioners' surgeries are more acceptable to patients than hospital clinics (Tyrer, 1984). The probation office as a community base for forensic psychiatrists is a valid equivalent.

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