Comment
| DOI | 10.1177/026455058102800401 |
| Date | 01 September 1981 |
| Published date | 01 September 1981 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Probation
Journal
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of Probation Officers
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Hon Editor: Bruce Hugman
Editorial Advisory Board: Laurence V.
Coates, Jenny Kirkpatrick (ex officio),
Tim Powell, David Reaich
Peter Simpson, Andy Stelman,
Angela Widowson
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whether such schemes are ’good things’
or not, but whether probation officers
should be running them. On balance,
are we committed to punishment or help?
If, on balance, we are committed to help,
then morally we cannot be involved in
projects which are, on balance, punitive.
If we are, we cease to be probation
officers in any sense of the term that has
much historical continuity: we become
administrators of penal sanctions, corr-
t COMMENT
I
ections officer, and it was not for such
things that most of us had a training
PUNISHMENT OR HELP?
based in social work values and practice.
It seems clear that probation officers
Control is an inevitable element in our
are being asked to supervise clients in
work--we accept that when we become
ways which are increasingly punitive.
probation officers. The debate is not as
Conference this year chose to express its
between care or control, between sup-
specific disapproval of the Kent projects,
posed opposites, but between care of
but they represent only the currently
different kinds, control at different
purest form of the ’credible alternatives
levels, and different mixtures of the two.
to custody’ movement which is gathering
It is possible for a paternalist to be caring
momentum in various parts of the coun-
and altruistic: all such individuals (and
try.
systems) are not necessarily wicked or
What is surprising-and disturbing
oppressive. It is not the caring itself
-is that there are numbers of probation
which is doubted in such persons (indeed
officers’ who do not feel that the roles
it is the palpable presence of that qual-
demanded of them in these projects are
ity which makes some exponents of this
in fundamental conflict with a com-
view so...
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