Book Review: Handbook on Probation
| Author | Stanley W. Johnston |
| Published date | 01 June 1969 |
| Date | 01 June 1969 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/000486586900200209 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
AUST. &N.Z. JOURNAL OF
CRIMINOLOGY
(1969): 2, 2 123
into the mind and soul of the inmate a
chance to hear the most "imprisoned
tongues" of the prison community.
J. G. MITCHELL,
Melbourne.
Handbook on Probation, Social Welfare
Br~nch,
Chief Secretary's Department, Vic-
toria, 1968, 55 pages.
CHILD probation in Victoria was adminis-
tered by the Children's Court from 1906
to 1960, and adult probation by Prisons
from 1957 to 1960. Both were then com-
bined in the Social Welfare Branch
formed to amalgamate prisons and
child
welfare. The forty stipendiary probation
officers now have social work training,
but there is no compulsory training for
the thousand or so honorary officers. This
handbook then is the principal means
or-
instructing honorary officers, and since
most of them work with children, it con-
centrates on child probation. It is the
second re-issue of a booklet published in
1951 by the Law Department, both re-
issues (the first in 1963) appearing over
the name of John Deakin Keating, chief
probation officer from 1962 to 1968.
As one would expect, the transfer of
probation from law to welfare has brought
arehabilitative leavening into law enforce-
ment-though
not without some awkward-
ness. The booklet shows a new sympathy
for the client, and also the social worker's
new want of sympathy for authority. It
makes a consummate analysis of negative
attitudes to authority; it regards the .law-
breaker as lacking in adjustment or emo-
tional security, and the aim of probation
as being to help him mature; and now
it
canies
aricher understanding of the
treatment relationship most calculated to
improve the probationer's attitudes and
relationships.
The booklet argues that probation super-
vision does not make the 'officer a watch-
dog or policeman. (It is now silent on
the chief' probation officer's power .to
arrest a child probationer without war-
rant.) The attitude is to be one of "com-
plete acceptance by the probation officer,
without moral judgment or recriminations,
and without trying to impose his own
values on another human being. It also
involves recognition of the individual pro-
bationers right to accept or discard the
values and opinions
of
others, to make
his own decisions and to accept responsi-
bility for them." A following reference
to "firm but flexible limits" does not alter
the impression created by
that
paragraph.
Probation, however, is very much a mat-
ter of values and moral judgment; and
when conflict is its beginning, its proper
conclusion in genuine accord depends upon
the officer's. first accepting the fullness
of that conflict.
The text is addressed to the case where
the law officer can identify with the client
and establish atrusting relationship, for
there criticisms will come effortlessly,
almost unconsciously, and with immediate
effect: the accepting framework is not dis-
turbed by them. But probation is a prov-
ing of counselling technique as well as
of clients, and
its
distinctive.skill begins
where an officer cannot yet identify with
his client. The treatment expert is widely
and properly distrusted when his compas-
sion is still blocked by revulsion or hatred
for the cases he dare not find in himself.
No words will conceal from the client
that
the officer cannot stand, or under-
stand,
him.
At this point conscious cri-
ticism is the only way of offering true
appreciation, of avoiding the disgrace of
uncritical condemnation (which is aggres-
sively self-justifying), and of saving the
relatIonship. Criticism is a challenge to
personal identity, made in a search for
mutual identity; it is a probe towards
understanding. .Professor Carl Rogers
seeks an unconditional positive regard for
the client: one can affirm the client
through all conditions only
if
one is
critically receptive. Let us indeed deplore
the perversion of authority which does not
seek reconciliation; but probation is still
judgment. "Correct me," said Jeremiah,
"but
with judgment;
not
in your anger,
lest you-bring me
tcnothlng."
The booklet itself, however, spells out
a conditional acceptance. and betrays the
venom in the syrup of social work
that
pretends to be non-judgmental. Probation
is defined as "the conditional suspension
of punishment . . . an agreement
by
the
offender
that
he will refrain from unlawful
behaviour for at least a given period, with-
out being subjected to the penalty which
normally would follow his breach of the
law." As against that: probation in Vic-
toria is used for neglected and undiscip-
lined children as well as for offenders;
in any event, "punishment" is a crude
statement of the function of prisons, youth
training centres and children's homes; the
idea of a bargain with "the" penalty is
a child's retributivist phantasm; and pro-
bation is not abnormal, it is the appro-
priate and responsible measure for selected
cases.
Eighteen pages of the booklet are given
to the officer's pre-court report on the
child, drawing' out the significance of
family, health, intelligence, education and
employment. For computer analysis, this
social history might be more fully struc-
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