Developments and challenges in probation practice: Is there a way forward for establishing effective and sustainable probation systems?
| Author | Frank John Porporino |
| DOI | 10.1177/2066220318764713 |
| Published date | 01 April 2018 |
| Date | 01 April 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/2066220318764713
European Journal of Probation
2018, Vol. 10(1) 76 –95
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/2066220318764713
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Developments and challenges
in probation practice: Is there
a way forward for establishing
effective and sustainable
probation systems?
Frank John Porporino
Independent Consultant, Canada
Abstract
Probation has been an historically important option for sanctioning criminal offending
since the mid 1800s. Originally grounded in notions of volunteerism and community
engagement to support rehabilitation of less serious offenders ‘through understanding,
kindness, and sustained moral suasion’, probation was quickly institutionalized around
the world as a major component of the criminal justice system. But modern probation
practice is now struggling to define its proper aim, priorities and ways of working.
Probation varies considerably across jurisdictions in how it is structured and organized,
how well it is resourced, and how commonly it is used. But clearly what modern
probation practice is ‘able’ to do in many jurisdictions does not match with what it
‘should’ do. The article will highlight some key challenges faced by probation and suggest
some ways forward for it to get closer to what it ‘should’ do – in adopting a well-
integrated and evidence informed model of practice.
Keywords
Community corrections, community supervision, mass probation, probation practice
(Ohayou Gozaimasu)1 A good morning to all and a very special thank you to the organ-
izers of this Third World Congress for giving me a ‘second chance’ to address so many
community corrections professionals from around the world. I was honored to speak as
well at the First World Congress in London and I’m not quite sure what might have
qualified me for a second invite other than being Canadian, a country that still celebrates
its diversity, tolerance and political sanity with a rather handsome millennial Prime
Corresponding author:
Frank John Porporino, Independent Consultant, 548 Hilson Avenue, Ottawa, ON K1Z6C8, Canada.
Email: fporporino@rogers.com
764713EJP0010.1177/2066220318764713European Journal of ProbationPorporino
2018
Original Article
Porporino 77
Minister with a nice smile. I am certainly neither millennial nor handsome and my wife
tells me I smile much too infrequently – and if I have any valid credentials to comment
on the challenges facing probation practice they come not from a steady and distin-
guished track record as a scholar of community corrections, like several of your other
plenary speakers, but instead from a somewhat checkered career where I have mostly
deliberately avoided the day-to-day grinding work of corrections and chosen instead to
observe, involved but at a distance, as a researcher, advisor, programme developer,
trainer or general Mr. Fix-It consultant, where I’ve had the privilege of interacting per-
sonally with thousands of correctional colleagues from some 20 odd countries. And my
perspective has had another profound influence, coming out of my rather feeble efforts
to support my partner in life, a wonderfully dedicated professional, as she endured the
unceasing pressures of working in community corrections her entire career, in the front-
lines and then as a manager of a community district in Canada. So, my views are colored
and they tend to crystalize around the sentiment that we can do and should do more if we
genuinely want to create circumstances for exerting positive, pro-social influence, rather
than circumstances that often interfere with or block those efforts. More resources and
new policies or programs may help, but I have always believed that corrections is ulti-
mately about people working to influence other people, and our overarching aim should
be to create circumstances for doing that as well as possible.
When I spoke in London, the mood of the world was a little different than it is today.
Public services were under the grip of austerity measures – something that will no doubt
persist. But what seems more prominent today is a rather nasty mood of protectionism,
insularity, divisiveness, and a spreading self-centered ideology that shows little compas-
sion for the less fortunate other, and even blames the marginalized and the disadvantaged
for their own problems. In perhaps only partly jocular fashion, an offender who blogs
regularly in the John Jay College Crime Report, remarked recently that:
Acceptance that one’s future is bleak—and that there is little that offenders can do to change
their destiny—can go a long way towards mitigating the risk of reoffending, I believe. It
inoculates against feelings of relative deprivation and you forgo chasing pipe dreams.
He goes on to suggest that perhaps we should develop Cognitive Behavioral Treatment
(CBT) Programs designed simply to convince offenders that they can still enjoy life –
‘even if most of it is spent scrambling to make ends meet’.
The world I believe is getting meaner. But it is in that world that we have to continue
supporting, innovating and expanding the use of community supervision – and none of
us would disagree that community corrections is preferable to carceral expansion. We
keep promoting the concept with some success – though most convincingly not because
we argue from values of liberal benevolence or social justice but from the pragmatism of
cost-effectiveness. Community corrections is embraced in many instances because it is a
cheaper alternative to imprisonment. But too commonly it is then forced to do its work
as cheaply and cautiously as possible – rather than as well as possible. When we try to do
it that way, it can turn easily into just further expansion of criminal justice control and
even become a well-oiled feeder mechanism for greater use of imprisonment.
Here are a few things I have kept observing over the years:
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