Working With Offenders
Who Works With Offenders: Probation Services
The key work areas of the probation services in England and Wales are:
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Pre-sentence reports (PSRs) - following conviction or a guilty plea, probation service staff at court are often called upon to provide a PSR advising the bench or judge on the appropriate sentence. PSRs are expected to be objective, including considering the suitability of custody where appropriate. Probation service work at court also includes providing the Crown Prosecution Service with bail information reports giving advice on a person’s suitability for bail.
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Supervision of offenders given community sentences - this includes offenders given a probation order, community punishment order, or a combination order (as its name implies, a combination of probation and CS) and supervision orders (for young offenders
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Post release supervision - about two thirds of offenders given custodial sentences are supervised by the probation service after their release from prison
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Hostels - about 1,000 probation staff work in the 101 Home Office-funded approved hostels which together provide over 2,000 bed spaces. Around 60% of these are occupied by people on bail, 20% by offenders on probation with a condition of residence, and the remainder include offenders on licence following release from prison.
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Work in prison - about 600 probation staff are seconded to prisons where they work with offenders in several ways, including running programmes to tackle their offending behaviour and providing a link with the probation service in the area the offender comes from.
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Partnerships - an important contribution to the work of the probation service is made through partnerships with the voluntary and private sectors, on which probation services are required to spend 7% of their annual budget. There are about 1500 partnerships nationally, the major areas of partnership expenditure being on accommodation and the provision of offender programmes.
A fundamental contribution to the work of the service is made through working in close collaboration with a range of voluntary organisations, services and agencies outside the Criminal Justice System.
More information
Visit the Home Office website: Probation
Last update: 16/09/03