Book Reviews : Information for the Court
| Date | 01 March 1975 |
| DOI | 10.1177/026455057502200111 |
| Published date | 01 March 1975 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
28
BOOK
REVIEWS
Information
for
the
Court
A
new
look
at
social
inquiry
reports
F.
G.
Perry
Institute
of
Criminology
Cambridge,
£1.25
This
is
an
important
work,
and
would
repay
study
by
every
team
of
field
officers
in
the
Probation
Service.
It
is
a
critical,
readable
and
comprehensive
examination
of
the
way
in
which
pro-
bation
officers
gather
information,
the
content
of
the
resulting
social
inquiry
reports,
and
recommendations
and
their
disposal
in
the
courts.
Reports,
&dquo;~the
diagnostic
foundation
on
which
subsequent
assessment
and
treatment
is
based&dquo;,
have
a
crucial
relationship
with
an
officer’s
overall
workload.
For
example,
reports
pre-
pared
in
haste
may
well
be
poor
in
the
quality
of
their
diagnosis,
and
this
in
turn
may
result
in
inappropriate
probation
orders
unnecessarily
in-
creasing
the
burden
on
staff.
Careful
reading
of
Mr
Perry’s
monograph
must
be
an
uncomfort-
able
experience
for
practitioners.
Only
the
most
complacent
probation
officers
could
fail
to
recognise
his
or
her
own
weaknesses
in
this
catalogue
of
the
shortcomings
of
social
inquiry
reports.
However,
the
study
is
not
destructively
critical.
It
is
full
of
practical
implications
and
suggestions
on the
improvement
of
what
Mr
Perry
has
found
to
be
a
disturbing
situation,
at
least
in
the
area
covered
by
his
samples.
Probation
manage.
ment
might
consider
such
simple
ideas
as
the
systematic
provision
of
offence
details,
police
antecedents
and
previous
convictions,
more
thoughtful
allocation
of
reports,
closer
super-
vision
of
their
preparation,
and
dis-
cussion
of
recommendations.
The
author’s
impressive
command
of
statistical
evaluation
techniques
must
not
be
allowed
to
obscure
the
common-sense
realisation
that
this
study
is
based
on
reports
prepared
within
the
catchment
area
of
a
single
Crown
Court.
Mr
Perry
com-
ments
that,
in
their
recommendation
patterns
his
&dquo;Bredley&dquo;
reports
are
seemingly
fairly
typical.
I
trust
it
is
not too
unkind
to
express
the
hope
that,
in
some
areas
at
least,
the
quality
of
social
inquiry
report
content
may
be
better
than
these.
Research
on
social
inquiry
reports
is,
as
the
author
freely
concedes,
an
inevitably
subjective
matter.
Implicit
in
his
analysis
of
the
content
of
reports
is
Mr
Perry’s
own
concept
of
what
an
ideal
report
should
contain,
in
view
of
inadequate
Home
Office
guidelines.
I
found
this
the
most
thought-provoking
aspect
of
the
study.
The
Probation
Service
is
surely
in
need
of
a
recognised
standard
or
&dquo;model&dquo;
report,
which
would
create
a
more
disciplined
approach
to
report-writing.
Mr
Perry’s.
personal
model
is
better
than
most,
and
could
usefully
be
adopted
by
students
and
practitioners.
Some
might
question
the
inclusion
of
such
headings
as,
&dquo;Religious
and
moral
values&dquo;,
or
&dquo;Police
account
of
the
offence&dquo;.
But
the
central
danger
of
all
attempts
to
make
reports
more
comprehensive
is
a
tendency
to
produce
information
overload-long,
verbose
and
indiges-
tible
documents.
Mr
Perry
neatly
solves
this
problem
by
suggesting
that
the
structured
presentation
of
facts
could
be
prefaced
with
a
front-sheet,
briefly
giving
assessment
and
recom-
mendation.
It
would
be
interesting
to
know
how
sentencers
would
regard
such
a
report.
Mr
Perry
ends
by
asking
such
basic
questions
as
whether
much
of
the
time
spent
in
preparing
reports
is
wasted.
His
suggestions
for
improving
the
situation
are
amply
supported
by
the
body
of
his
work,
and
include
well-argued
proposals
against
prepar-
ing
reports
in
cases
where
a.
&dquo;not
guilty&dquo;
plea
is
anticipated,
and
on
first
offenders.
This
study
should
be
read
and
re-read
by
all
who
are
concerned
with
the
provision
of
a
better
service
to
the
courts-
students,
probation
officers,
manage-
ment,
social
work
teachers,
and
sentencers.
And
it
may
not
be
too
much
to
hope
that
Mr
Perry,
in
his
new
post
as
Social
Work
Education
Advisor
to
the
CCETSW,
will
be
able
to
use
his
study
to
influence
those
who
prepare
future
probation
officers
for
the
social
inquiry
task.
PKF
To continue reading
Request your trial