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Book Reviews : Probation and After-care Ieuan Miles Probation Papers No. 3 N.A.P.O. 2s. 6d

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
Published date01 June 1966
AuthorDouglas Gibson
Date01 June 1966
DOI10.1177/026455056601200211
Subject MatterArticles
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system of treatments would require research and there are helpful chapters on
methodology. Apart from knowledge in general, detailed information on indi-
vidual offenders is required. While it would be nice to suppose that our reports
are all as valuable and objective as Fred Jarvis implies, he writes lucidly about
our present duty to make enquiries according to any directions of the court. He,
like J. E. Hall Williams writing about the Streatfeild Report and other essayists
stresses how courts are, or should be, struggling towards a more rational and
scientific system of sentencing. If judicial discussions are to be less than merely
punitive in intent and more an attempt to control future events, then probation
officers will occupy a privileged place in courts.
Although the first half of the book may look more directly helpful to workers
in the field (any officer wishing to test which way his prejudices run should read
Howard Jones) it would be regrettable to ignore the last 100 pages which contain
chapters about Germany, Central Africa and white collar crime in Canada and
U.S.A. Page 203 contains this sentence. &dquo;The problems of injustice, delinquency,
of deviant behaviour generally, even of the evil in man, constitute in the life of
society a special field to be treated by that separate branch of human striving
for knowledge which is called criminology&dquo;. To be involved in this endeavour
should surely get recruits to the probation service.
How then can the probation service employ itself in its more responsible task?
First I suggest, it must discover, define and proclaim its primary task. This will
mean shedding worthy but superfluous items such as neighbours’ quarrels. Much
necessary and absorbing work with marriages may still be done by workers
called probation officers but this need not intrude into the fundamental efforts
of those engaged in inquiries and casework in the criminological field. Such
casework may be an alternative to prison, in new forms...

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